Article originally appeared on www.washingtonexaminer.com.
Former President George W. Bush, who led America following the al Qaeda terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made his first public comments Tuesday on the fatal Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel and the subsequent war.
His comments didn’t emerge until Friday, however, in a video obtained by Axios.
“My thoughts were that we need to support Israel. No ands, ifs, or buts,” the former president, 77, told presidential historian Mark Updegrove, president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation, during a private California event.
“It’s gonna be awfully difficult on the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu], but he’s got to do it,” Bush said. “He’s got to do this. You’re dealing with cold-blooded killers.”
“We’ll find out what he’s made out of,” he said of Netanyahu.
Bush is credited for his unifying response following 9/11, bringing people together in mourning and promising to find the responsible parties. However, he is also criticized for the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq in search of weapons of mass destruction. No WMDs were found, though. Public support for the war has fallen as the years have gone on, and sharp critiques of Bush amid a rising isolationist sentiment throughout the country have gone up.
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