Ari Fleischer, who sold the Iraq war, lectures Vance on ending wars "If you start a war, you have to win it and end it - otherwise don't start it," writes Ari Fleischer, the press secretary in the George W. White House. Bush and now a Fox News contributor. In January 2003, Fleischer stood on the White House podium and declared, “We know for a fact that there are weapons there. "No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction have ever been found. He left the job about four months after the invasion. American troops stayed for another eight years, returning in 2014, and finished withdrawing only this fall. The other war that started on his watch, in Afghanistan, lasted 20 years and ended when the Taliban returned to power. The Bush White House could have used this advice in 2003.