Say what you will about Bob Woodward (and I will), he has had incredible access to power for the past several years.
Of course, what many will say is that that access is maintained at the cost of drawing actual unflattering conclusions -- before their time, that is. And I would agree.
Be that as it may, Woodward has the access and he used it to interview Ford in 2004. Here's some of what Ford told him (on the condition that it wouldn't be published during his lifetime, according to the Guardian:
"I don't think I would have gone to war," Mr Ford told Woodward in an interview at his Colorado home in July 2004. "I would have maximised our effort through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever to find another answer."
The Guardian also notes that Ford rebuked his former staffers, Cheney and Rumsfeld:
While Mr Ford had praise for the performance of Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld during his administration, he said the vice-president had turned "pugnacious" in his most recent incarnation. "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," Mr 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."
Sure, it's no smackdown and it's not going to end the war tomorrow. But given the relish with which Bush must've approached the pumped-up patriotism and dead-presidents-tell-no-tales processions in the wake of the Ford wake, this revelation is sure to be a damper...
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