FORMER United States president Bill Clinton is questioning his successor's choices about the war in Iraq. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Clinton called President George W. Bush's doctrine of pre-emption "a very tricky, slippery slope" that was "never realistic because we are not going to go to war with Iran or North Korea".
Mr Clinton, set to speak at the Democratic Convention in Boston today, has been careful not to speak too harshly about Mr Bush. "I have tried to talk about this president and his administration in a respectful tone," he said. But he took jabs at the current administration in an interview posted yesterday on the newspaper's website.
"The American people can decide who they think is right and wrong, but the Bush administration believed Iraq was far and away the biggest security problem of the country, despite the fact that there was more support for al-Qaeda within Pakistan and now we know more contacts with Iran," he said. "There were other responsible people who had different views."
| Either he's just being partisan for the week of the DNC, or he really doesn't get it. |
Mr Clinton, who called Osama bin Laden "the biggest threat to the country", would not say whether he would have invaded Iraq. He said he would have let United Nations weapons inspectors finish their work before deciding.
| In others words, no invasion, ever. |
"But the factors in my thinking would have been how well we were doing in Afghanistan, stabilising the entire country, and what our reasonable prospects of getting bin Laden were," Mr Clinton said. "I don't have any problem with getting rid of Saddam Hussein but we have over 900 American dead now and we are still dealing with this, and we are not dealing with other things with the same gusto."
While calling Mr Bush "a great politician," Mr Clinton said his response to the September 11 terror attacks were misguided and may cost him the November election. "After 9/11, we all wanted to follow the leader and be united as a country. The Republican right, which dominates the policy of this White House, took our patriotism to be weakness and tried to push the country to the right and push the world around, and there was a predictable reaction," he said.
| Just clearing a path for Hillary. |
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