WASHINGTON -- Former President Gerald Ford said in an newly disclosed interview that the Iraq war was not justified.
"I don't think I would have gone to war," he said in July 2004, a little more than a year after President Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.
The Ford interview--and a subsequent lengthy conversation in 2005--took place for a future book project, though he said his comments could be published at any time after his death. In the sessions, Ford fondly recalled his close working relationship with key Bush advisers Cheney and Rumsfeld while expressing concern about the policies they pursued in more recent years.
In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Dick Cheney--Ford's White House chief of staff--and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.
"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."
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I guess I just don't get it. So many people have been so unwilling to go on record as being against the current administration's policies... It really does make me think there's been a shift to a monarchy, and it's just that nobody noticed.