"I don't think I would have gone to war."

Not that this matters much in the end, but it's certainly noteworthy... former President Ford revealed to Bob Woodward two years ago that he disagreed with the invasion of Iraq-

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.

In a four-hour conversation at his house in Beaver Creek, Colo., Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously. In the tape-recorded interview, Ford was critical not only of Bush but also of Vice President Cheney -- Ford's White House chief of staff -- and then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who served as Ford's chief of staff and then his Pentagon chief.

"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," 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."...

...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."...

Audio available at the Washington Post website (see sidemenu on right)

This interview was, of course, embargoed until after Ford's death (hence its release now). Gerald Ford, like many in 2002 and 2003 no doubt, had very strong-- but private-- reservations about the course of action President Bush was taking our nation in. They understand that the administration's little crusade was, in fact, a very bad idea. But political politeness and the general state of jingoism at the time kept them silent. And who can blame them? Those who did speak out and try to warn against invasion (like Howard Dean or Al Gore or the CATO Institute) had their patriotism questioned and were viciously attacked.

Still, one wonders what difference it might've made as the President prepared the march to war-- while denying he was doing any such thing-- if people like Gerald Ford had made their voice heard. Or, barring that, if they had not waited until well after the 2004 election and after Bush poll numbers were already hitting the '30s before they decided to say that they did, in fact, have opinions of their own.

[UPDATE: Pres. Ford also told Woodward the real reason he pardoned Nixon... it was a friendship thing.]