Ford On Iraq
Ed Morrissey

The blogosphere is abuzz today about the Bob Woodward interview that took place in July 2004 with now-deceased former President Gerald Ford about Iraq and other topics. In the interview, Ford criticized the Iraq invasion, opposing the decision and claiming that he would have looked harder for other options:

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.  ...

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Citizen Ford on the war in Iraq
Paul Mirengoff

Bob Woodword reports that Gerald Ford told him in July 2004 that he didn't think he would have gone to war in Iraq and that he would have looked harder at other options, such as sanctions. Ford's view was probably in accord with that a solid majority of 90 year-olds. Most men I've known became less favorably inclined towards war as they become very old. Of course, by now Ford's view is shared by most Americans and even in July 2004 it was shared by a great many.

It's another question, though, what a President Ford, faced with the intelligence regarding WMD available to President Bush in early 2003 and responsible for protecting the country from further attack, would have done. We know that two of his proteges, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were prime advocates of toppling Saddam Hussein. And it's difficult to believe that a President Ford would have held out much hope for sanctions, the efficacy of which had been thoroughly discredited over the course of more than a decade.

Indeed, as reported by Woodward at least, Ford's views seem rather odd. At a time when no WMD were likely to be found, he was saying we should have used sanctions to pressure Saddam to get rid of his WMD. The better argument was that we should have given the inspectors more time to see whether there were WMD. In sum, Ford does not seem to have been thinking very clearly about the issue.

Ford told Woodward not to publish his views until after his death, but apparently said once he died they could be published at any time. It's easy to understand the first part of the decision -- why would Ford, at his age, want to participate in a contentious policy debate? But Ford has been criticized for not telling Woodward to wait until, say, the end of the Bush administration to reveal his views. Either Ford felt strongly enough about the matter that he wanted his opinion in the mix sooner rather than later (but not so soon that he would become embroiled in the debate) or he didn't think things through very carefully.

JOHN adds: ...

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Woodward Chants Up a Ford Zombie
Jules Crittenden

Here comes Bob Woodward, who can't wait until Ford is cold to start using him to bash Bush. Very nice. But irrelevant. He had his own tough decisions to make in his time. Bush's own father isn't crazy about the Iraq War, either. Neither is Jimmy Carter, who fumbled the Great Jihadi Wars kickoff 25 years ago, or Bill Clinton, who wanted to go after Saddam in the worst way but couldn't get it up for more than a few missiles.

Disappointing that Ford agreed to attack a sitting president's decisions on condition they not be aired until he is dead, despite the distinct possibility that would be within the sitting president's term. Disappointing that his arguments are so simplistic, at least in this presentation, and fail to address the real threat to U.S. national interest that Saddam presented and the corruption and collapse of 12 years of sanctions that was underway at the time of the invasion. Disgusting that Woodward lacks the decency to sit on this at least until after the funeral. ...

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Citizen Ford on Iraq, Part Two
Paul Mirengoff

This account by Thomas DeFrank of the New York Daily News casts doubt on Woodward's version of what Gerald Ford said about Iraq. DeFrank met frequently with Ford, and did so for the last time in May of this year. On that occasion, Ford said he'd told Bush he supported the war in Iraq but that Bush had erred by staking the invasion on weapons of mass destruction. According to DeFrank, Ford explained:

Saddam Hussein was an evil person and there was justification to get rid of him, but we shouldn't have put the basis on weapons of mass destruction. That was a bad mistake. Where does [Bush] get his advice?

Woodward's account also focuses on Ford's view of what the best justification for the war was. But Woodward goes further to report that Ford told him he doesn't think he would have gone to war. That statement may not be 100 percent inconistent with Ford telling DeFrank that he supports the war (now that we're there) and that there was justification to get rid of Saddam. But as Jonah Goldberg says, at a minimum DeFrank's account seems more nuanced than Woodward's version.  ...

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Allahpundit:

... I don’t know why anyone cares particularly what Ford thought about Iraq, although I suppose it’s for the same reasons media coverage of his death has been so intense generally: it’s the slowest news cycle of the year, it gives the left an excuse to make tacit comparisons between Bush and Nixon (Ford was personally liked by his opponents, Ford was a salve to the wounds of military defeat and scandal, etc.), and now that he’s a sage and a saint, they can siphon off his absolute moral authority as needed to support their agenda. Plus, it’s always fun to bludgeon the other party with one of their own. We do it to the Democrats with Harry Truman all the time. If the price of telling them “you should be more like Harry Truman” is the reply “you should be more like Gerald Ford,” I’ll take that deal.

Was he against the war? A few months ago, he told Thomas DeFrank this:

Ford was a few weeks shy of his 93rd birthday as we chatted for about 45 minutes. He’d been visited by President Bush three weeks earlier and said he’d told Bush he supported the war in Iraq but that the 43rd President had erred by staking the invasion on weapons of mass destruction.

“Saddam Hussein was an evil person and there was justification to get rid of him,” he observed, “but we shouldn’t have put the basis on weapons of mass destruction. That was a bad mistake. Where does [Bush] get his advice?” [Answer here. — ed.]

In July 2004 he told Woodward that he wouldn’t have invaded, a position Woodward equates with saying the war was “not justified,” which isn’t necessarily true. As I read the two pieces, it sounds like Ford thought either sanctions or war might be justified, albeit not by the threat from WMDs; that sanctions were by far the better option of the two (and the one he would have chosen); and that in any case, he supported the mission once Bush made the decision to go even if he didn’t personally agree with it — a level of nuance that oddly seems to elude so many of our more nuanced patriots these days. Or maybe Moran’s right and Ford was just telling Bush what he wanted to hear. That would be neither saintly nor sagacious of him, but then, neither was embargoing an interview until his death because he didn’t want to take heat for it. ...