Former President George W. Bush appeared to condemn his own administration's invasion of Iraq after an unfortunate slip-up.
In a speech Wednesday, the 43rd president sharply criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin for rigging elections and imprisoning political opponents, as well as launching an ongoing invasion of Ukraine earlier this year. But in condemning the Ukraine invasion, Bush accidentally referred to Iraq, which the United States invaded under Bush in 2003.
"Russian elections are rigged, political opponents are imprisoned or otherwise eliminated from participating in the electoral process," Bush said. "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 — I mean, of Ukraine."
Bush chuckled as he caught his mistake, adding, "75," referring to his age. The audience laughed along with the former president as he continued with the speech.
The gaffe quickly went viral, and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan called it "one of the biggest Freudian slips of all time."
"I'm not laughing," Hasan said. "And I'm guessing nor are the families of the thousands of American troops and the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died in that war."