Halperin to Iraq Envoy Paul Bremer: Why Should U.S. Revisit ‘Failed’ Bush Policies?

Halperin Challenges Iraqi Envoy Paul Bremer: Why Should U.S. Revisit ‘Failed’ Bush Policies? (Mediaite)

After Paul Bremer, the highly-controversial former Presidential Envoy to Iraq, appeared on Morning Joe Monday morning and suggested the U.S. not rule out boots on the ground in response to insurgent violence in Iraq, Bloomberg Politics editor Mark Halperin asked him why the U.S. should double down (#branding) on the Bush-era foreign policy that led to the Iraq War in the first place.

“It seems what you’re proposing is to double down on the policies that the Bush administration and you thought would lead to, not just a democratic and independent Iraq, but a force for good in the region,” Halperin said. “Why should we even consider going back to the same set of ideas to try to prop up a government with U.S. intervention, which seems to have failed and left us in this position?”

“I’m not proposing to prop up any government,” Bremer said, arguing that Maliki had dissolved many of the post-surge gains in Iraq. “In fact, I explicitly said we need a new government…I explicitly called for him to resign as Defense Minister and Minister of the Interior.”