Posted on 12/28/2006 9:36:03 AM PST by ARealMothersSonForever
WASHINGTON - Former President Gerald R. Ford questioned the Bush administration's rationale for the U.S. invasion and war in Iraq in interviews he granted on condition they not be released until after his death.
In his embargoed July 2004 interview with The Washington Post, Ford said the Iraq war was not justified, the Post reported Wednesday night.
Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously, the Post's Bob Woodward wrote. The story initially was posted on the newspaper's Internet site.
"I don't think I would have gone to war," Ford told Woodward a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion.
In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney — Ford's White House chief of staff — and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his secretary of defense.
"Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction," Ford said. "And now, I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do."
In an interview given with the same ground rules to the New York Daily News last May, Ford said he thought Bush had erred by staking the invasion on claims Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
" Saddam Hussein was an evil person and there was justification to get rid of him," he observed to the Daily News. "But we shouldn't have put the basis on weapons of destruction. That was a bad mistake. Where does (Bush) get his advice?"
In the Daily News interview, Ford was more defensive about Cheney and Rumsfeld. Asked why Cheney had tanked in public opinion polls, he smiled. "Dick's a classy guy, but he's not an electrified orator," Ford said.
The former president did not like Bush's domestic surveillance program.
"It may be a necessary evil," Ford conceded. "I don't think it's a terrible transgression, but I would never do it. I was dumbfounded when I heard they were doing it."
Woodward wrote in the Post that his interview took place for a future book project, though the former president said his comments could be published at any time after his death.
In another interview released after his death, Ford told CBS News in 1984 that he initially was against using the phrase "long national nightmare" in his first speech as president following Richard Nixon's resignation, concerned that it was too harsh.
Ford said he reconsidered and sought his wife's advice. "After thinking about it and talking to Betty about it, we decided to leave it in and, boy, in retrospect, I'm awfully glad we did," he said.
In the Daily News interview, Ford, a few weeks from his 93rd birthday, showed frustration with the toll health problems had taken on him, saying he thought doctors were too strictly limiting what he could do.
At one point, he offered to share some butter pecan ice cream, his favorite dessert, with his guest, correspondent Thomas M. DeFrank.
Asked what his doctors would think about that, the former president said, "We have it anyhow."
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Got a quote or two, to substantiate this assertion?
"In dozens of interviews with soldiers of the Army's 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment as they patrolled the streets of eastern Baghdad, many said the Iraqi capital is embroiled in civil warfare between majority Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs that no number of American troops can stop."
"Spc. Don Roberts, who was stationed in Baghdad in 2004, said the situation had gotten worse because of increasing violence between Shiites and Sunnis.
"I don't know what could help at this point," said Roberts, 22, of Paonia, Colo. "What would more guys do? We can't pick sides. It's almost like we have to watch them kill each other, then ask questions."
"Nothing's going to help. It's a religious war, and we're caught in the middle of it," said Sgt. Josh Keim, a native of Canton, Ohio, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "It's hard to be somewhere where there's no mission and we just drive around."
"Capt. Matt James, commander of the battalion's Company B, was careful in how he described the unit's impact since arriving in Baghdad.
"The idea in calling us in was to make things better here, but it's very complicated and complex," he said.
But James said more troops in combat would likely not have the desired effect.
"During a recent interview, Lt. Gen. Nasier Abadi, deputy chief of staff for the Iraqi army, said that instead of sending more U.S. soldiers, Washington should focus on furnishing his men with better equipment."
"Pfc. Richard Grieco said it's hard to see how daily missions in Baghdad make a difference.
"If there's a plan to sweep through Baghdad and clear it, (more troops) could make a difference," said the 19-year-old from Slidell, La. "But if we just dump troops in here like we've been doing, it's just going to make for more targets."
"Sgt. James Simons, 24, of Tacoma, Wash., said Baghdad is so dangerous that U.S. forces spend much of their time in combat instead of training Iraqis."
So is the MSM making all of this up out of whole cloth?
They did. Over and over and over again.
It was the left that made the WMD the only reason.........AFTER no stockpiles were found.
The MSM lies, Geek. Hope you know that.
This is where we part ways. I don't believe in the tyranny of the majority via "free elections." I believe instead in justice and liberty. Free elections in the Middle East have given us Hamas and Hezbollah victories, not to mention a government in Iraq which does Sadr's bidding. And yes, "disaster" is the correct word to describe the results of those free elections which you applaud.
No. But they're cherry picking to support their anti-Iraq mission template.
And I'm not going to argue with a person on a conservative forum who DEFENDS the MSM.
I know you're on the same side as the left on this issue, Son, but I would think you'd be smart enough not to make it so obvious....
Who's the trustworthy person who claims that Ford requested this? Such claims make the story sound more "attractive".
Please note that Ford did not use the lack of WMD as the only reason to oppose the war. He also criticized going to war as a means to spread democracy. He was right on both counts.
He wanted to be Speaker - I wouldn't call that "limited."
The media despised Ford, as they do most Republicans, but they're torn because rightly or wrongly he came to be regarded as a "moderate" Republican, and because he opposed the Iraq war, so he's useful to them.
.
NEVER FORGET
FORD =
While House Minority Leader refused to back a Bill to continue U.S. Bombing that was pressuring Communist North Vietnam to stop invading a Free South, leading to the eventual Fall of Saigon and...
Pictures of a vietnamese Re-Education Camp (Communist SLAVE LABOR Camp)
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1308949/posts
NEVER FORGET
.
I don't like to speak ill of the dead, but when people are telling abject lies about the dead and lionizing them and holding them up as heroes when their actual beliefs, policies and actions were profoundly wrong and dangerous, one has to speak up.
btw, it's fine that you agree with the left about Iraq, Austin. I'm actually glad that you have all come bursting out of the closet since you won the election in November.
It just makes it clear to those of us who are actually conservative who the Bush haters on the 'right' have chosen to climb into bed with.
Thank you for the intellectual honesty. It does appear that your stance of openly supporting a liberal Democrat position is shared by the cult of personality NeoCons. Would that they have the ability to openly state their shared position on this forum.
The tape is in Ford's words. The sentiments expressed are new to us, ie, he had not professed them following the interview. So a request for posthumous release fits the scenario.
This shooting the messenger is approaching hysterical denial.
What Ford had to say about anything should be irrelevant, but apparently a mountain of molehills is in the making.
Gerry may have been a nice guy, but he was afflicted with the same appeasement/spineless gene that has de-balled countless Americans over the last 4 decades.Of course he wanted to intervene to save the South Vietnamese government soon after he inherited the dramatically weakened office. Congress had other ideas.
More evidence that you like what the left is doing here in lionizing Ford for opposing President Bush.
Your words are all jumbled and I can't parse any meaning out of them.
But yes, I accept President Bush's definition of victory in Iraq and I support whatever is necessary to acheive that victory.
Anything less is doing the work of the Islamofacists for them.
I wonder shy Ford did not comment on the long gas lines or double digit inflation and double digit interest rated during his Presidency?
Has anyone ever been to Grand Rapids, MI
My parents grew up around there thru 1950's. They moved to AL for a better place to live.
Ford made it known some time back [a year, or more, if I recall correctly] that he wasn't a supporter of this action. I can't recall how it was stated or when, but this isn't news. Of course, the Opposition wants you to think it's news.
t's just the Bush-bashers trying to give the false impression that they aren't the vicious hate-mongers that they actually are.Really, there is no reason whatsoever to criticize our immortal president. Off with their heads, all of them.
I don't feel much nostalgia in regard to Ford. I don't disrespect him as a person, but, as a POTUS, I didn't find him particularly impressive. I think you're right--the Dems/liberals/left are using his memory to oppose Bush.
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