Report: Gerald Ford disagreed with Bush's Iraq policy

The late President Gerald Ford, in a July 2004 interview with reporter Bob Woodward, said he didn't think the war in Iraq was justified.

The Washington Post reports that in the interview, which was embargoed until after Mr. Ford's death, the former president said he "very strongly disagreed" with President Bush's reasons for invading Iraq, and that he "would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously." Ford was also critical of Vice President Dick Cheney and then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for their role in the invasion.

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"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."

Capital Hill Blue, an online political news and commentary site, reports that Ford was also skeptical of President Bush's goal of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East.

Ford was quoted as saying he understood the theory of "wanting to free people." But the former president said he was skeptical "whether you can detach that from the obligation number one, of what's in our national interest."

He added, "And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security."

But even as Ford's criticism of Mr. Bush's strategy in Iraq was surfacing, there were media reports reflecting on the late president's foreign policy decisions regarding the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.

Amy Goodman, of the Democracy Now! radio program interviewed Brad Simpson, a professor at the University of Maryland, about Ford's role in backing the Indonesian generals who illegally annexed of East Timor – an action which led to mass killings. Mr. Simpson, who also works at the National Security Archives (an independent non-governmental research institute and library), said that documents declassified in 2002 illustrated that the US was well informed about Indonesian President Suharto's plans.

And then in December of 1975 on a trip through Southeast Asia, Gerald Ford met again with Suharto on the eve of the invasion, more than two weeks after the National Security Council, CIA, other intelligence agencies had concluded that an Indonesian invasion was eminent. And that the only thing delaying the invasion was the fear that US disapproval might lead to a cut-off of weapons and military supplies to the regime.

A US State Department article on East Timor says that in January of 1976, the Indonesian government accused the popular Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (FRETILIN) party of being communist, raising Western concerns about a communist "domino effect" in Southeast Asia.

Declaring a provisional government made up of Timorese allies on January 13, 1976, the Indonesian Government said it was acting to forestall civil strife in East Timor and to prevent the consolidation of power by the FRETILIN party. The Indonesians claimed that FRETILIN was communist in nature, while the party's leadership described itself as social democratic. Coming on the heels of the communist victories in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, the Indonesian claims were accepted by many in the West. Major powers also had little incentive to confront Indonesia over a territory seen as peripheral to their security interests.

In January 2006, the East Timor Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR) found that US "political and military support were fundamental to the Indonesian invasion and occupation" of East Timor between the years of 1975 to 1999. During those years, CAVR estimates that between 100,000 and 180,000 Timorese were either killed or died of enforced starvation. Several journalists, both Timorese and Western, were killed by the Indonesian regime during this period, including Sander Thoenes, who was working for The Christian Science Monitor and several other publications when he was killed by Indonesian troops.

The United Nations helped guide East Timor to independence in 2002, after its citizens voted to leave Indonesia in 1999.

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Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.