"Citizen Gerald Ford" was totally against the War in Iraq ... taped interview now permitted to be played ...

We now know that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (and very likely, Bush '41) weren't the only former presidents who thought/think that President Bush is off on a deadly tangent in his conduct of an ill-conceived invasion, an undermanned clean-up in the months after the invasion and a disastrous and interminable occupation of a sovereign country.

Who's getting the last laugh in the picture at the top left? A sardonic laugh perhaps ... or maybe he's simply laughing at one of W's famous Bushisms.

In tapes released yesterday -- and additional footage is still being released -- former president Gerald Ford, whose body is still warm, stated that he "wouldn't have gone to war" and that his former aides (Rumsfeld and Cheney) were complicit in misleading President Bush who was vulnerable (uninformed) at the time. At the time of the invasion, the President didn't even realize that there were two major branches of Islam represented in Saddam's Iraqi population. His ignorance of foreign affairs provides him some excuse, but what are the excuses of Cheney and Rumsfeld?

Bob Woodward has reported 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. Some might believe that Ford's view was probably that of a vast majority of persons over 60. Most men and women that I've known become less favorably inclined towards war as they become older -- including me!. Of course, Mr. Ford -- always a gentleman -- asked that his comments not be made public until shortly after his death.

Among other things, he (Ford) certainly must have felt responsible to an extent since two of his proteges (his foreign affairs advisor and Secretary of Defence), the above-mentioned Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, were the prime advocates of toppling Saddam Hussein ... even before 9-11.

The fact that Mr. Ford told Woodward not to publish his views until after his death, but that he could publish them before the end of the Bush administration suggests just how strongly he felt about the wrongness of the wars, I believe. It's obvious today that Ford felt so strong about the matter that he wanted his opinions known sooner (rather than later) .. but not so soon that he would become embroiled in a political squabble over the matter. His humble demeanor wouldn't permit that, I believe.

A gentleman to the end -- but the boys and girls in Iraq are dying at roughly three per day and the band plays on ...