As the nation mourns the passing of former President Gerald Ford, President Bush has been appropriately respectful. Hopefully, however, the current occupant of the Oval Office’s regard for its former occupant will extend to consideration by Bush of what Ford had to say in one of his last interviews.
Asked by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about the Iraq imbroglio, Ford said in 2004, “(Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and (Vice President Dick) 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. 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.”
Both Rumsfeld and Cheney served as White House chief of staff under Ford, but the former president put loyalty to his country ahead of any deference to former aides. He did, however, ask that Woodward not make the contents of the interview public until after Bush’s presidency was done, or until after Ford’s passing.
As of Tuesday, Woodward was free to reveal Ford’s comments regarding Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the quagmire they have created.
Ford explained that he would not have chosen the course adopted by the current administration. “I don’t think, if I had been president — on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly — I don’t think I would have ordered the Iraqi war,” said the former president.
Rather, said Ford, “I would have maximized our efforts through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer.”.
In addition to identifying the specific error with regard to Iraq, Ford spoke more broadly of the Bush administration’s flawed vision of the U.S. role in the world.
Ford, a lifelong Republican, expressed the traditional view of his party with regard to military adventures abroad, saying, “I just don’t think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”
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