Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq - washingtonpost.com

Ford Disagreed With Bush About Invading Iraq - washingtonpost.com:

"Former president Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 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 Bush 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, Colo., 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 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 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."

The webpage from this link also has a variety of information on Gerald Ford.

Whether you agree with Ford's pardoning of Nixon, you have to admire his reasons for doing it. He strongly felt it was in the best interests of the country. It was not something done out of self-interest, which is what is happening to the presidency today era of polls and power-mongering. And he did it knowing full well that he would have the wrath of the American people on him for doing it--but his rationale for doing it needs to be respected. As a former football player, "he took one for the team."