Karl Rove to Vet Ryan Henowitz: Appreciates His Service, but He's Not Apologizing for War in Iraq

[mystery-ak]

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Newsmax
Karl Rove to Vet Ryan Henowitz: Appreciates His Service, but He's Not Apologizing for War in Iraq
Monday, April 6, 2015 07:11 AM

By: Nick Sanchez

Young Iraq veteran Ryan Henowitz asked Karl Rove apologize for helping start the war at university event on Tuesday, but Rove stood his ground, thanking the man for his service and saying, "It was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."

According to the Hartford Courant, Rove, former deputy chief of staff and senior adviser to President George W. Bush, had been invited to speak by the College Republicans at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Henowitz, 32, a former medic with the 2nd Battalion of the 7th Infantry Regiment, said he heard about the event and prepared his remarks and question days in advance.

Standing to speak at the event, Henowitz said he saw those he served with "torn apart" and saw "Iraqi children screaming for their parents as indiscriminate shrapnel scarred them and us in ways that we will never know."

He then put the question to Rove directly: "Can you take responsibility and apologize for your decision in sending a generation to lose their humanity and deal with the horrors of war which you have never had the courage to face?"

"I appreciate your service, but I’m not going to apologize for our government doing the right thing in removing Saddam Hussein from power," he said.

"We should be proud of what we were able to achieve in Iraq. And we should be sorry that we left them alone," he added. "We should have stayed there like the Iraqis wanted us to. We would not have seen the rise of ISIS, we would not have seen the displacement of millions of people in the country."

Later in the event, Rove discussed the 2016 presidential race, and poked fun at Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her past claims of being Native American by calling her "Pocahontas."

[truth_seeker]

Rove is a first rate political analyst and advisor.  The worst single thing wrong with the Republican Party, is eating their own.

The idea that Reagan is golden, and every other post-WWII Republican is to be dismissed, is ridiculous.

The GOP has lost the national popular vote in 5 of the last 6 elections for President. Rove is the guy that managed Bush II's two wins.

And he is right to defend the US going into Iraq, because our allies shared the same intelligence, and because Kerry and Clinton voted to go to war in Iraq, too.

I do believe in retrospect, our intelligence was in error. Saddam had blustered for years about his nukes, to keep his neighbors at bay. It worked, so thoroughly he convinced the world he had more weapons than he really did. It worked so effectively, he got invaded by a coalition to find him, his WMD, etc.

Looking backwards 12 years, have we gained anything in Iraq that was worth the cost and sacrifice? That is highly in doubt.

Recent articles claim that senior officers of ISIL are former officers in Saddam's military. We have been so far behind the intelligence curve, so consistently, that I have little faith in sending our people in great numbers, to be "boots on the ground" in muslim lands.