Former US president George Bush has criticised one-time defence chief Donald Rumsfeld and former vice president Dick Cheney in a new biography.
In a blistering critique, Mr Bush said Mr Rumsfeld "served the president badly" when his son George W Bush was in the White House and Mr Cheney "built his own empire" and asserted too much "hard-line" influence.
The critical assessments of Mr Rumsfeld and Mr Cheney, key players in the US-led war in Iraq, are contained in a biography of the nation's 41st president to be published next week.
In interviews with biographer Jon Meacham, Mr Bush, now 91, said that Mr Cheney acted too independently and asserted too much "hard-line" influence within George W Bush's administration, especially after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Jeb Bush, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said on that he had not read the book.
"My thought was that Dick Cheney served my dad really well," Jeb Bush said. "And he served as vice president, he served my brother really well. Different eras. Different times."
The book, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush, also contains the elder Bush's ruminations about his son, whom he praised but also called responsible for empowering Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld.
Of Mr Cheney, who was a member of the elder Bush's cabinet, he said: "He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with."
Mr Bush said he thinks the September 11 attacks changed the vice president, making him more hawkish about the use of US military force abroad.
"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," Mr Bush said.
Talking about Mr Rumsfeld, the elder Bush used stronger, more personal criticism.
"I think he served the president badly. I don't like what he did, and I think it hurt the president having his iron-ass view of everything," Mr Bush said.
The elder Bush did not suggest in the book that he disagreed with his son about the invasion of Iraq.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "is gone, and with him went a lot of brutality and nastiness and awfulness", Mr Bush said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel