Pelosi: Iraq invasion ‘was wrong then’

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Sunday that U.S. intelligence at the time did not justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

{mosads}“It was wrong then and the intelligence wasn’t there,” Pelosi told former Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the host of MSNBC’s “Taking the Hill.”

“Knowing what we knew then, this intelligence did not support the threat,” said Pelosi, who served as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee at the time.

Pelosi also criticized former President George W. Bush for overstating the threat posed by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

“It was a gross misrepresentation to the American people of the capabilities and intentions of the Iraqi government,” she said of claims that Hussein sought weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).

“We have to address the record on that,” she added.

The invasion’s validity has become an issue on the 2016 presidential campaign trail.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) first raised eyebrows in an interview aired on May 11 when he said he would have repeated his older brother’s decision, given what is known now.

“I would have [authorized the invasion], and so would have Hillary Clinton, just to remind everyone,” Jeb Bush told Fox News host Megyn Kelly on “The Kelly File.”

“And so would almost everybody that was confronted with the intelligence they got,” Jeb Bush, a possible 2016 GOP presidential candidate, added.

He then reversed course on May 14 following public backlash for his support of the unpopular conflict.

“I would not have engaged, I would not have gone into Iraq,” he said during an event in Arizona.

Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, also said during a talk with reporters on May 19 that she had changed her mind on the invasion.

“I’ve made it very clear that I made a mistake, plain and simple, and I’ve written about it in my book,” she said of voting to authorize the invasion in 2002 while a New York senator.

Picking a stance on the conflict has also divided some of the GOP’s official presidential candidates.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), for example, said on May 17 that the second Bush administration had acted appropriately given the circumstances in 2003.

“It was not a mistake for the president to go into Iraq based on the information he was provided as president,” Rubio told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

In contrast, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson disagreed with that assessment on May 20.

“I’ve said definitely that I was never in favor of going into Iraq,” he told The Hill in a phone interview.

“And since we did go in, the big problem is that we didn’t secure victory there, and that’s a huge problem,” he added.