Bush mistakes Iraq for Ukraine in speech describing “unjustified” invasion

Former President George W. Bush made a major gaffe Wednesday when he mistakenly said the invasion of Iraq was “unjustified and brutal.” He quickly corrected himself and said he meant to say Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unjustified and brutal.”

Bush made the mistake while speaking at an event in Dallas. He was criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin and the way elections are held in both Russia and Ukraine.

“The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq,” Bush said, before correcting himself and shaking his head. “I mean, of Ukraine.”

Bush jokingly blamed the mistake on his age (75) as the audience burst into laughter.

During his presidency in 2003, Bush and the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction. The weapons were never found. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in the conflict.

Bush’s remarks quickly went viral on social media, gathering over three million views on Twitter alone after the clip was tweeted by a Dallas Morning News reporter.

The former U.S. president also compared Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Britain’s wartime leader Winston Churchill while condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin for launching the invasion of Ukraine in February.

Reuters contributed to this report.