“Speaker Ryan and House Republicans failed to stand up to Donald Trump when it really mattered most. He is now their nominee and they are his sidekicks, going so far as defending his dangerous comments about Saddam Hussein – a shocking example of Republicans putting politics over what is good and safe for our country,” said Meredith Kelly of the DCCC.
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So it’s disturbing to see some Republican leaders excuse or sidestep his lies. On Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) claimed that Trump had been “taken out of context” and was really speaking about “getting tough on terrorism.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq War veteran, refused to comment. For Mr. Trump, that amounts to validation; for the Republican Party, it’s more disgrace.
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EDITORIAL: Donald Trump is wrong about Saddam Hussein
Washington Post
SADDAM HUSSEIN was not “so good” at killing terrorists, as Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed. On the contrary, he was one of the contemporary world’s foremost sponsors of terrorism. He harbored or funded some of history’s most infamous killers and jihadists, including the current chief of al-Qaeda, and plotted numerous terrorist attacks of his own, including an attempt to assassinate former president George H.W. Bush with a suicide bomb.
The Iraqi despot was not, as some in the Bush administration suggested before the invasion, complicit in the al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But multiple independent and bipartisan reports before and after the war have established beyond any doubt that Hussein was deeply enmeshed with terrorist activity from the time he took power in the late 1970s until the eve of his last war.
The conspirator who mixed the chemicals for the first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in 1993, Abdul Yasin, found harbor in Baghdad, where he was paid a monthly stipend.
Mr. Trump’s ignorance — or denial — of all this is disgusting but no longer surprising. So it’s disturbing to see some Republican leaders excuse or sidestep his lies. On Thursday, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) claimed that Trump had been “taken out of context” and was really speaking about “getting tough on terrorism.” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), one of the strongest supporters of the Iraq invasion, and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), an Iraq War veteran, refused to comment. For Mr. Trump, that amounts to validation; for the Republican Party, it’s more disgrace