Bush wrong on Iraq: Rumsfeld
Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld says his commander-in-chief, George W. Bush, was wrong to push “democracy” on Iraq.
"I'm not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories. The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic," Rumsfeld said in a wide-ranging interview with The Times of London.
Rumsfeld, one of the chief architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he became “concerned” when he first heard the idea of a democratic Iraq, floated by former president Bush.
The former Pentagon chief also criticized President Barack Obama’s approach towards the ISIL terrorist group, controlling large parts of Iraq and Syria.
“The movement for a caliphate, the movement against nation states is central and fundamental, and no one’s talking about it,” Rumsfeld said, referring to the ISIL’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
Rumsfeld, who served as Bush's defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, said that removing former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was a mistake because it further destabilized the region.
However, he defended the Bush administration’s decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
In 2003, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq under the pretext that Saddam Hussein had an active weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program. That assertion later proved to be false.
President Obama, who last September ordered an open-ended military campaign against ISIL, acknowledged Monday that his administration does not have a “complete strategy” against the terror network.
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