Ford: Iraq Was A "Mistake"

"I think Rumsfeld, 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."

"Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people. Whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interests, there comes a point where they conflict. 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."

Thus, former President Gerald Ford criticizes the Bush Administration -- including Cheney and Rumsfeld, his former aides -- from the grave. The Washington Post released the July 2004 interview, which was embargoed until Ford's death.

Ford dealt with an opposition Congress, unlike Bush, and he'd served as Minority Leader of the House. Perhaps this context made him more amenable to dialog and less accepting of the slash-and-burn politics that mark Congress (and campaigns) today. Regardless of the explanation, his approach to Iraq seems more like that of Colin Powell than George W. Bush:

Describing his own preferred policy toward Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Ford said he would not have gone to war, based on the publicly available information at the time, and would have worked harder to find an alternative. "I don't think, if I had been president, on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly," he said, "I don't think I would have ordered the Iraq war. I would have maximized our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer."

Or maybe it's simply that he was a nice guy.

This interview shows, however, that Ford remained true to the core values of the moderate Republican party -- no nation-building, no war-mongering. Where have the moderates gone?

Also, see Former President Ford Dies, 93, Iraq Casualities By Month