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Bush: Israel no factor in Iraq

By · January 6, 2008

Israel had no role in bringing about the Iraq war, President Bush said.

“None whatsoever,” the U.S. leader said last week when asked by Yediot Achronot, Israel’s largest daily, whether Israel had any involvement in his decision to invade Iraq. 

“My decision was based upon U.S. intelligence, based upon the desire to provide security for our peoples and others,” Bush said.

A number of Iraq war critics, most notably Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, have said that Israel and the pro-Israel lobby were a driving force leading the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003.

Bush gave interviews to the Israeli and Arab media prior to his visit to the region this week to promote renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to coalesce against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

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