Bush condemns ‘unjustified’ Iraq invasion; he meant Ukraine

TEXAS: In a Freudian slip, former US president George W Bush described the invasion of Iraq as "brutal" and "unjustified". He immediately corrected himself to say he meant to refer to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, foreign media reported.

Bush made this verbal faux pas while speaking in Dallas, criticising Russia's political system.

"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." He jokingly blamed the mistake on his age as the audience burst into laughter.

In 2003, when Bush was the president, the United States led an invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The prolonged conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced many more.

Bush's remarks quickly went viral on social media, gathering over six million views on Twitter alone. An Iraqi journalist commented on the video saying, “the unfair invasion of Iraq by the George W Bush is coming back to haunt him.”