In a wide-ranging discussion with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw, the father of the current president expressed pride in his son, confidence in U.S. intelligence and regrets that Saddam Hussein stills rules Iraq.
TOM BROKAW: You were a combat fighter in World War II, you were head of the CIA during the Cold War, vice president, commander in chief for Desert Storm. Where does the last two weeks fit into all of that for you?
GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH: Well, it fits in in a very traumatic way but a very different way. Different because I have absolutely nothing to do with policy anymore, or reading intelligence any more. But equally as traumatic because of the involvement of the president. Barbara and I don’t go to Washington that much but we feel very close to the scene. And it’s the strength of family that makes me feel involved in what’s going on, even though I’m not.
BROKAW: How do you think the country is responding to all of this?
BUSH: Unbelievably well. A great unity, a great support, not simply for the president but for determination to do something about this evil. And I think it’s been wonderful. And I think it will continue.
BROKAW: Now the day of the attack, the Secret Service diverted you. You were headed for Minneapolis; you had to land in Milwaukee. And then you had a chance to talk to your son at some point.
Bush Sr.: ’overwhelming pride’ for the president September 27, 2001 — Former president George H.W. Bush talks about the pride and love he and Barbara feel for their son the president.
BUSH: Yeah.
BROKAW: What was that like?
BUSH: Well, it was fine. I was mainly interested in what he was doing and where he was. And he was very anxious to get back to Washington. And he kind of teased me about where I was. I — you know, I said, “Hey, you grounded me here.” But it was proper. And we sat there just outside of Milwaukee. And — mainly our thoughts were on Washington again. But removed from it, Tom. Removed, different than when I was, you know, at CIA or at the White House or V.P. Very different life now.
BROKAW: You’re seeing this not only as a citizen, however, but also as the father of the president of —
BUSH: Yes, sir.
BROKAW: — the United States. So when you talk to him on the phone, are the conversations mostly about personal matters? Or a combination of advice —
BUSH: Well, it would be a combination. But you know, I read that the president had asked me to call a lot of Arab leaders; that’s not true. There’s a lot of understandable speculation about all this. But it’s a personal relationship and it’s a father expressing confidence and pride in the president. It’s hard for people to understand this. I’m not hovering over the shoulders with advice.
I don’t have the information to give sound advice anymore. I don’t have access to the intelligence that Secretary Powell does or Vice President Cheney or Secretary Rumsfeld or Condee Rice or the president have. And I learned long ago you ought not to be giving a lot of opinions unless you know what the hell you’re talking about.
BROKAW: But the role of just being a dad is also important at a time like this.
BUSH: That role I can do, and Barbara can do it well as a mother. And I think — I think that George and Laura, the president and Laura, get some comfort calling us up and just seeing how things are going with the family. And I know we do. We talk to them a lot. And again, it’s family and it’s concern of parents, in this instance, for the president of the United States of America. It’s hard to describe, Tom. It’s not Republican or Democrat, it’s not liberal or conservative with us. It’s simply great pride in the president and in the first lady, coupled with this abiding affection that we have for him and for our other children. Our governor of Florida, and Leo and Marvin and Dorothy. It’s a good thing — I’ll tell you on a family basis, two of ‘em live right there in the Washington area. Dorothy Cook and Marvin Bush. And they and their spouses are very close to the president, and he gets strength, as we all do, from family. They’ll go to Camp David, or he’ll invite them over to the White House to see a movie. And we are so proud that they are there. And he’s just — it lifts him up.
BROKAW: We were all so touched when after he finished that memorable speech at the memorial service and sat down next to you, that you reached over and put your hand on him in the most reassuring and affectionate way. What did you and Mrs. Bush say to each other after you saw the speech that many people say is one of the very best speeches, that has been given in recent memory, to Congress and to the nation?
BUSH: Oh well, I’m 77 so I’m entitled to shed a few tears. And I got quite emotional at a couple of points. I was watching that with some dear friends up in Canada, and with the former prime minister, who’s also a very close friend. And I didn’t want to kind of lose it there. But you just have this overwhelming pride in recognizing — at the same time because I have been president, the enormous problems that any president, but in this case ‘cause it’s our son — faces. This is a huge challenge for the president and for this experienced team he has around him. And he’s blessed with a strong team. And there’s no way that I can emphasize too much how important that is.
BROKAW: I know that you’ve been very concerned about the climate in Washington before this attack, the political climate, the poisonous environment. There was your son, after that speech in Congress, coming down and hugging Tom Daschle.
BUSH: Wonderful moment.
BROKAW: And Richard Gephardt.
BUSH: It was a wonderful moment. And he’s getting strong support. But it just shows that when there’s a crisis of this magnitude, the country can and has come together. And it’s not just in Washington. I mean you come here with the police officers, you go to the places I’ve been, which are not that many, but every place. Places that never would have thought to vote for the president are rallying and supporting our country, our flag. And that, I think, sends a very strong signal to those who have violated our safety.
BROKAW: Is this gonna be tougher than Desert Storm?
BUSH: It’s different. In Desert Storm, we knew who the enemy was and we knew where the enemy was, and we had a mission. The mission was to kick the enemy out of Kuwait. The problem was I had to mobilize public opinion and I had to mobilize the press or try to get them a force, and had to mobilize a coalition. So here the president and his able team have public opinion for them. But in a sense, it’s a much more difficult job because this is ongoing. This isn’t for just one battle or one cruise missile. This can be an ongoing problem here. And the enemy is much more elusive, equally as formidable in the sense of being — I would use the word evil. But he has the support — internationally and nationally. And now he has to continue to win this kind of very different war for the United States of America.
BROKAW: Invariably there’s always second-guessing at a time like this. Some people are saying, “Well, we should’ve taken Saddam Hussein out back during Desert Storm.”
BUSH: And they’ve been saying that ever since — well, not saying actually, it’s kind of interesting. At the time we stopped the war, won the war because our mission was complete, I didn’t hear any of these voices. Now, because Saddam Hussein has been there for a while, they’re saying, “Hey, you should have done something different.” I don’t think so. Where I was wrong is I thought he would be done in by his own people. And I based that opinion on the opinion of every single coalition leader, every single Arab leader in the gulf, and because I didn’t want mission creep. We lived through Vietnam, I did as an older guy, and there we had mission creep. Here we knew what the mission was, and the aggression wasn’t to kill Saddam Hussein. It damn sure wasn’t to be an occupying power in an Arab land. And so I think we made the right decision. Now if you ask the question, “Well, are you glad he’s there?” Why, no, I’m not happy about that at all. But we underestimated his brutality to his own people, to his own military, to his own inner circle, to his own sons-in-law. And so it’s quite different now. But I don’t know enough about where his fingerprints are on any of what’s going on. But I think we’ve got to be very careful, and I think the president is being very careful and defining the targets and figuring out how to bring the culprits, plural, to justice. And I have every confidence in our intelligence services. You were talking about second-guessing: It is so easy to second-guess intelligence. But you never read about the many successes, and there are plenty.
BROKAW: But what about better coordination between the many agencies that exist in Washington that gather intelligence and act on it? Are there going to be changes?
BUSH: I think what the president has proposed on putting Tom Ridge in there and his homeland security makes tremendous sense. But if the implication in the question is, “Does this mean that there was a disconnect between FBI and CIA?” I have no knowledge of that. Again, not saying it’s yes, or not saying no. I just don’t know. But I do know that those agencies have been cooperating much better than they did 20-some years ago. I look to the speech by George Tenet in 1991 — talking about Bin Laden and talking about the need to do something about it. But it’s difficult and ... spying is a difficult business, particularly if the spy that’s working for you thinks some guy’s gonna reveal his name in the press. He’s going to come up dead and there goes your support and there goes your ability to recruit other human intelligence people, spies.
BROKAW: Are we going to have to play by down-and-dirty rules from now on?
BUSH: Well, we have to be careful, I think. Again, I’m a little reluctant to go into this because the president will have to wrestle with these problems. But I think you gotta be respectful of the rights of privacy of Americans. But we better find a way to tap into some of this Internet stuff, and we better find a way to protect the sources and methods of intelligence. And if we do those things, then I think we can get better intelligence, and certainly more cooperation from some of the horrible characters that you have to deal with to get the message. A good example: Noriega. They say, “Oh, well, Bush was head of CIA. He dealt with Noriega.” Yeah, you gotta deal with unsavory people to get the information. And we were the ones that brought Noriega to justice. He’s sittin’ in a jail down there in Florida someplace. But if we think, “Oh, it’s lily white and nice and pure and gentleman don’t read each other’s mail,” we’re nuts in this country.
BROKAW: Is the Noriega operation a better model for President Bush the 43rd than Desert Storm in a way? That was a special op, you went in there.
BUSH: Well, but we lost a lot of human life. One is too many. One soldier is too much too lose, and a president feels that burden on his shoulders. And I expect this president, our current president, just feels the loss of every innocent civilian too, and [the twin] towers, and Pentagon, and wherever. But I don’t think they’re parallel cases. I think that with Noriega our objective was to restore democracy in Panama, which we did, and bring this guy to justice. But I think it’s so easy, much easier to target than it is bin Laden and his people.
BROKAW: Mr. President, are we gonna be living in an entirely different world? When communism collapsed, we thought America would be at peace, that the great threat to our security was over. But now we found that there is a new evil and a new threat out there, and it is much more elusive in so many ways.
BUSH: Do you remember the rash of hijackings many years ago? You reported on it. Hijacking people jump on planes and take ‘em off to Cuba and all of that. And I remember the nation being very concerned about that. And that threat was largely reduced. I think that given the focus that the administration is putting on this question that we can have happier, more tranquil days ahead. But it’s gonna be a long haul before any president can say “The battle against terrorism is won.” And it’s gonna take a lot of diplomacy, and it may take some bloodshed.
BROKAW: And some suppression of some civil liberties at home?
BUSH: Well, it depends how you read that. Some people will say if you apprehend somebody without an ironclad case against them, that that’s a suppression of a civil liberty. I don’t know, I don’t know. And I think we gotta be very careful about that. But I think there are ways that people are going to be inconvenienced. There are things they might be inconvenienced about that some are gonna say, “That’s my civil liberty — ” but it’s for the public good. So it’s a question of balance. And again, Tom, I’m not privy to what the administration’s trying to do. I have not asked the president about that. And so there may be some compromises. But ask the people — ask the fire fighters in New York; ask the police officers here in Logan whether you give a little to get a lot. And I expect they’d say, “Well, what is it? But yeah, put me down as wanting to cooperate.”
BROKAW: And Mr. President you’re making a point today of flying Continental Airlines to Houston to demonstrate your own sense of confidence in their ability to be secure. But at the same time today, we read in The New York Times, where now Air Force generals are going to be able to make a decision on their own about whether a plane should be shot down in the sky. Did you ever think we would come to that in this country?
BUSH: No. But after I saw — I was just like every other American. When I saw those planes go into the towers, I thought to myself — especially this last one that crashed too, we didn’t see it, just read about it. The president has to make a tough decision. If the plane violated the controls and you have to shoot it down full of American citizens — he said he would have done that, and I think people would have agonized, but would have respected that very difficult decision.
BROKAW: The American economy is obviously going to take a hit. You had such great success in Desert Storm and then paid a political price when the economy took a dip at the end of your term.
BUSH: Yeah, not at the end of my term if I might be a nitpicker here, Tom.
BROKAW: No, I know it’s —
BUSH: At the end of the term, it had come back.
BROKAW: Right.
BUSH: But I wasn’t smart enough or articulate enough, like Ronald Reagan, to convince people of the fact that we had indeed started a very strong recovery. But I get your point, and the economy did me in. And I’m sure I made plenty of other mistakes too. But it’s always a factor. But this president, it seems to me, has his priorities correct. Do something about the threat to our liberty. If that’s gonna cost money, and if it’s gonna hurt the economy, I know his determination, I know his resolution, and I would expect that he would not deviate one inch if some political guy came to him and said, “Don’t do this ‘cause it’s gonna hurt the economy and that means it’s gonna hurt your politics.” The president, and I know him well enough and talk to him enough to know, is not thinking about his political future, believe me. And I guess all politicians always think of that. He is not thinking about that.
BROKAW: As a former president and as the father of this president, as you have watched him over the last couple of weeks what has surprised you about him?
BUSH: Well, I think the speech he gave to the Congress will live in American history as one of the truly great speeches. And I thought the remarks he made in the National Cathedral were just outstanding. What I don’t agree with is that suddenly this person has found strength, suddenly this person can lead. He’s facing a test that few presidents have faced, but he was a leader. He was a leader in our state for four ... eight years, or six — whatever it was, as governor of Texas. Second-biggest state in the nation. So he’s been tested, but never like he’s being tested now. I don’t think it’s a surprise. But what I’m proud of is the way he’s measuring up to this test and the way he’s leading and the way he’s focused and the way he’s determined. But I’ve seen some of that. I’ve seen some of that when he played baseball, and I’ve seen some of that when he ran for governor. And I’ve seen — Barbara and I have seen — what’s in his heart. And this thing about faith — I mean this is real for him. This is real. Here’s a man that’s read the Bible through twice and it’s not to make it holier than thou or not to make a political point. It’s something that is in his heart. And we see it all the time. And yet his mother can still talk to him, “George take your feet off that couch.” This summer, I said, “Mom — Bar, he’s president of the United States. You’re telling him to take his feet off the couch.” And George said: “I’m going running, mother.” She said: “I don’t care. Take those running shoes off my table.” I mean, life goes on. And it’s family and it’s important.
BROKAW: When you’re on the phone to him, is it sometimes hard to even continue the conversation because of the emotions that are involved?
BUSH: Yeah, yeah.
BROKAW: And how is Mrs. Bush feeling?
BUSH: Hasn’t changed a bit unfortunately. (Laugh) Still balls him out, still worships Laura and her son.
BROKAW: She yell back at the television set?
BUSH: Oh no, she’s terrible about the media, don’t bring that up. Oh gosh, she’s outrageous. She won’t watch — she may now. But through the political stuff, she was impossible, absolutely impossible. But wonderful. And people still love her all across the country.
BROKAW: What kind of advice does she give the president?
BUSH: It’s more a hug and a care than it is specific advice. If there was advice, it would be — “See how lucky you are with Laura. Look at what Laura’s doing. Be considerate and, you know, stay in touch with family.” But he does those things, he does all that. He’ll call me up very, very early in the morning and say: “Dad, what’s going on up there?” But not to solicit advice. Not “we have this information just come in about — ” he doesn’t do that. Nor should he because I sure don’t have the information.
BROKAW: We’re going into a very critical period. What is the most important thing this country should know about its president and what’s ahead?
BUSH: That he’s determined, that he is resolute, that he is blessed with a superb, experienced team. And there is no way to overestimate the importance of that given the complexity of the problems he faces. And that he’ll stay the course, and he’ll do it with honor.
BROKAW: Mr. President, thank you very much.