Ford asked that these statements be released after his death.

Former president Gerald Ford said that the Iraq war was not justified.

"I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President George W. Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colorado, 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.

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-Defence 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."

In a conversation that veered between the current realities of a war in the Middle East and the old complexities of the war in Vietnam whose bitter end he presided over as president, Ford took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict in service of the idea of spreading democracy.

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people," Ford said, referring to Bush's assertion that the United States has a "duty to free people". But the former president said he was sceptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest". He added: "And 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."

http://www.gulfnews.com/world/U.S.A/10092771.html
BlueCat Reviewed by BlueCat on . Ford disagreed with Bush on Iraq war Ford asked that these statements be released after his death. Former president Gerald Ford said that the Iraq war was not justified. "I don't think I would have gone to war," he said a little more than a year after President George W. Bush had launched the invasion advocated and carried out by prominent veterans of Ford's own administration. In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colorado, Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications Rating: 5