Former US President George W. Bush says he does not criticize his fellow Republicans or President Barack Obama because “I really don’t long for publicity” now.
Bush, who is promoting his latest book, 41: A Portrait of My Father, made the remarks in an interview that broadcast on Thursday night on Fox News.
“I don’t think it’s good for the country to have a former president undermine a current president. I think it’s bad for the presidency for that matter,” Bush said.
“Secondly, I really have had all the fame I want,” he added. “I really don’t long for publicity. And the truth [of] the matter is in order…to generate publicity… I’d have to either attack the Republican Party, which I don’t want to do, or attack the president, which I don’t want to do. And so I’m perfectly content to be out of the limelight.”
In an interview with CBS News last week, Bush surprised many observers by saying that he regrets the fact that the US-led invasion of Iraq paved the way for the ISIL terrorist group, which is operating in Iraq and Syria.
“I think it was the right decision [to go into Iraq],” Bush said. “My regret is that…a violent group of people have risen up again…This is ‘Al-Qaeda plus’…they need to be defeated. And I hope we do…I hope the strategy works.”
In 2003, Bush ordered the invasion on Iraq under the pretext that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. In October 2004, however, a CIA report revealed that Saddam did not possess any weapons of mass destruction at the time of the invasion.
The US war in Iraq cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion with an additional $490 billion in benefits owed to war veterans, expenses that could grow to more than $6 trillion over the next four decades counting interest, according to a study called Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.
Source-Press TV
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