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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touche;)
Ford may have thought he would live forever...or at least until 08.
Damn I miss Senator Thurmond.
sp
Really? Would you vote for a 90 year old for POTUS assuming they were in excellent health?
I ask only three things for my sunset years. That I still be sane. That I still be thoughtful. That I still stand by what I say. Ford may have had the first two but not the last.
And we are assured you be the first one??
LOL
kindest
sp
You're really confused, newbie, and even more nasty than you are confused. Wrong forum?
Really? Would you vote for a 90 year old for POTUS assuming they were in excellent health?Not a very good argument. We were talking about whether a 90+ year old man can have coherent thoughts and conversations. That's a lot different than whether I would vote for him for president. Good try though.
Read closely, or listen to the actual (horribly recorded) tape.
Woodward is a FRAUD.
Woodward is a FRAUD.
"Almost all elderly people experience a cognitive decline the symptoms of which are difficult to distinguish from the earliest manifestations of dementia; yet in most the condition does not progress to dementia. It is possible.....that anyone who lived long enough would become demented; but most people die before then." Richard A. Posner 1995 University of Chicago
Would you not agree that 90 years is kind of "getting up there"?
Whatever positive legacy Gerald Ford had prior to his death, I think took an additional hit today with this low-grade "condemnation from the grave". Leave it to Bob Woodward to exploit this -- maybe it was Woodward who suggested it. Whatever: Gerald Ford was a decent guy who did much to restore dignity to the White House -- but now he's diminished even this modest legacy.
Not to worry..no one will remember the name Bob Woodward in a 100 years but Ford will always have a place in history. Every time these two bit disinformation handlers come out of the woodwork, the best they can do is leave a bad taste in your mouth for a day or two and then they are forgotten.
Woodward might be getting nervous after tanking the Mark Felt book. Jump the shark anyone?
Were you hibernating during September of 2001?
.
FORD =
Was against Freedom's prevailing over Communist Terrorism in Vietnam
FORD =
Was against REAGAN's committment to Victory over Communism during the Cold War
FORD =
Was against BUSH's 9/11 committment to bring Freedom to people around the world as America's own best self-protection against future terrorist attacks here a home
Historical perspective is...
...as Historical perspective does, perhaps..?
.
So???
It looks more like he questions the political handling of it rather than questioning removing Saddam in of itself. This is a misleading headline.
The disappointment is in letting the UN set the ROE, and dictate the use of US forces for the UN Mandate. On the upside, our forces do not have to wear blue helmets. Yet.
True. Ford was questioning the policy/political approach. Not the action itself. The combat operations were brilliantly executed, and completed on May 1st, 2003.
Correction. We never "deposed the Japanese emperor. Despite the fact that he was depicted him as on a par with Hitler during the war, Truman sensibly overruled his New Deal advisors who demanded unconditional surrender and accepted the Japanese condition that Hirohito be kept on his throne.
As to democracy, as Ohioan points out Germany (unlike Iraq) had recent experience with this system in the Weimar Republic. Japan did too though to a much more limited extent in the 1920s. Interestingly, we let the Japanese vote in all-Japan elections in 1946 (less than a year after Hiroshima) under their pre-war constitution!!!
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