On The Kelly File on Thursday night, Megyn Kelly showed what she called “frighteningly accurate” video of President George W. Bush in 2007 explaining why we shouldn’t pull out of Iraq prematurely.
Kelly was interviewing former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen:
GEORGE W. BUSH: I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we're ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It mean that we'd be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we allowed a terrorist to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.
KELLY: Wow. Marc Thiessen is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and he was President Bush's chief speech writer at the time. He wrote that statement you just heard. How eerie. I mean, it's point by point by point what we are seeing today, Mark.
MARC THIESSEN, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FELLOW: Every single thing that President Bush said there in that statement is happening today. Obama did withdraw our troops before the commanders on the ground said that we were ready to do so. General Austin wanted to keep 24,000 troops in Iraq, Obama went to zero. President Bush said that if we did that, there will be mass killings on a horrific scale. What are we seeing? Mass killings on a horrific scale. Executions, women and children being buried alive, crucifixions, beheadings of American journalists.
President Bush said that if we withdrew before we were ready, that would be -- al Qaeda would establish -- al Qaeda in Iraq, which is now ISIS, would establish a safe haven. They now control a swath of territory the size of Belgium. All of these predictions have come true and of course we're back there right now launching strikes.
