Former President George H.W. Bush takes some unexpected swipes at Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, key members of his son’s administration, over their reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks, in a new biography of the 41st president, Fox News reported on Wednesday.
In “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey Of George Herbert Walker Bush,” author Jon Meacham quotes Bush as saying that Cheney and Rumsfeld were too hawkish and that their harsh stance damaged the reputation of the United States, the cable news network said.
Speaking of Cheney, who was vice president under President George W. Bush, the senior Bush said: “I don’t know, he just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” according to the report.
Cheney served as defense secretary during George H.W. Bush’s 1989-1993 presidency
“The reaction (to Sept. 11), what to do about the Middle East. Just iron-ass. His seeming knuckling under to the real hard-charging guys who want to fight about everything, use force to get our way in the Middle East,” Bush told Meacham in the book to be published next Tuesday.
Bush believes Cheney acted too independently of his son by creating a national security team in his own office, and may have been influenced to become more conservative by his wife and daughter, Lynne and Liz Cheney, the report cites the biography as saying.
On Rumsfeld, secretary of defense for most of the two terms served by his son, Bush is even more critical. He is quoted as saying: “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the President,” referring to his son.
“I’ve never been that close to him anyway. There’s a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks. He’s more kick ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that. Rumsfeld was an arrogant fellow,” he was quoted as saying in the biography
Daddy Bush knew. We knew. Why didn’t George W fire those two clowns?
Those two caused problems that will take decades to undo. Too bad Daddy Bush didn’t pull his son aside, smack him up side the head and demand more responsible action.
Too little, too late.
I might even get the book. Cheney and Rumsfeld went into the Bush Administration with a vendetta to get even with Saddam. I would like to see a Select Committee investigate their emails, use and misuse of information and what was never released. The US going into Iraq (taking out Iran’s biggest enemy) has created Middle East instability that will last decades and cost more US dollars and lives.
I am not sure the middle east will ever recover from Cheney/ Rumsfeld. I don’t think our standing in that area will ever recover either. I also think if Jeb Bush walked on water he can win, simply because of his last name.
There was no plan for “afterwards”. Like a dog chasing a car and catching up with it.
“What do I do now?”
You all have short memories. It is absolutely true that Rumsfeld/Powell failed to prepare for the aftermath of the Iraq invasion. But the U.S. persisted and eventually was successful in implementing a stable semi-democratic government in Iraq. The withdrawal of American troops was the strategic failure of the Obama Administration that allowed ISIS to move in and Iran to dominate.
How did Obama get in there and get Bush to set up that withdrawal date?
I wouldn’t want to admit to that either Kelly.
We should have never been in Iraq. Not then…not ever.
My memory of SecDef Cheney is very different. I was on active duty at the time and Cheney proved to be ruthless and arrogant as the head of the DoD. It appeared to me that he had mellowed significantly by the time that he became Vice President. This seems like revisionism from Bush I.
@Pat.Herve
“I would like to see a Select Committee investigate their emails, use and misuse of information and what was never released.”
I’m not to sure email was a standard communication tool in the government at that time. I think they were still using dead trees as the main means of communication. Heck, they still used teletype back then.
@Kelly_3406
I remember him being a pretty effective SecDef too. I was on active-duty during that time as well. We had what we needed to fight the known enemies at that time.
The Iraq government was only stable BECAUSE of the presence of American troops. The unrepresentative government designed by Bush/Cheney was always doomed to failure whenever the U.S. pulled out, even if it hadn’t been on the schedule established by Bush/Cheney. We could have stayed there forever propping that corrupt government up, but the generals that Bush kicked out of the Iraqi army would likely still have formed ISIS.
A status of forces agreement always has a set duration after which forces have to be withdrawn unless the agreement is re-negotiated and extended. Obama elected to let the Iraqi SOFA agreement that existed in 2008 to expire.
@middleman
The post-WWII governments in West Germany and Japan took many years to develop into liberal democracies which had the full support of its citizens. US troops were needed to provide stabilization as these fledgling democracies evolved. It would be unreasonable to expect a country in the Middle East that was terrorized by a brutal dictator and had no history of democracy to evolve any faster than Germany and Japan did.
If the US had maintained a troop presence and air power in Iraq, ISIS would likely have been thwarted from taking over large swaths of territory.
Obama implicitly recognized the error of withdrawing from Iraq by reversing his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. I applaud him for that, but wish that he learned the lesson before Iraq and Libya became safe havens for ISIS.
Email was well used in DoD back in 2002. I am not sure if SecDef used email. But from the documents that have been released about the early days of the Bush Admin, toppling Iraq was a constant theme.
Cheney was going after the oil fields back in March 2001 – http://web.archive.org/web/20060717131721/http://www.judicialwatch.org/iraqi-oilfield-pr.shtml
Rumsfeld was worried about Syria and Libya – April 2003 – http://library.rumsfeld.com/doclib/sp/1686/2003-04-07%20to%20Doug%20Feith%20re%20Issues%20with%20Various%20Countries.pdf#search=%22Libya%22
It is easy to blame Obama for all of the Middle East – but the seeds were planted (and known) long before he took office.
Let´s not forget Mr. Chalabi!!!
(he died last week)
I am trying to remember who he is.
I am trying to not be too snarky, but he was the Sidney Blumenthal of Cheney/Rumsfeld and others. He channeled much of the misinformation about WMD’s – and the CIA did not like him.
Column about Chalabi in Friday’s Washington Post’s OpEd.
He duped a lot of people.