Donald Rumsfeld is now the “Secretary of Offense.”
The former Defense chief hit back at George H.W. Bush Thursday after his ex-boss’ dad ripped into him in a soon-to-be-released book.
“Bush 41 is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions,” Rumsfeld told NBC News in response to harsh comments made by the 91-year-old former President from a biography about him due to go on sale next week.
According to excerpts from the book, “Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush,” obtained by The New York Times, the elder Bush tore into key members of his son’s former administration, including the 83-year-old former Secretary of Defense, whom he labeled an “arrogant fellow.”
“I think he served the president badly,” Bush told interviewer John Meacham, who wrote the biography, about Rumsfeld, according to The Times. “I don’t like what he did, and I think it hurt the president having his iron-ass view of everything.”
“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,” Bush added about Rumsfeld, a chief architect of the second Iraq War.
Bush, however, wasn’t any easier on Dick Cheney, who served as his own Defense Secretary before, years later, serving as George W. Bush’s vice president.
“He had his own empire there and marched to his own drummer,” Bush told Meacham about Cheney. “It just showed me that you cannot do it that way. The president should not have that worry.”
“The big mistake that was made was letting Cheney bring in kind of his own State Department,” Bush, now 91, said.
“He just became very hard-line and very different from the Dick Cheney I knew and worked with,” Bush said, according to the excerpts and interviews. “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, however, was mostly gentle on his son’s own decision making, praising him for invading Iraq, but he did criticize him for amping up certain delicate diplomatic situations with “hot rhetoric.”
“I do worry about some of the rhetoric that was out there — some of it his, maybe, and some of it the people around him,” Bush said. “Hot rhetoric is pretty easy to get headlines, but it doesn’t necessarily solve the diplomatic problem.”
George W. Bush, for his part, said he “valued” Cheney’s service and said his father hadn’t let him know about any of the feelings expressed in the book about his former No. 2.
“He certainly never expressed that opinion to me, either during the presidency or after,” the younger Bush told Meacham, according to The Times about his dad. “I valued Dick’s advice, but he was one of a number of my advisers I consulted, depending on the issue.” “(He) would never say to me: ‘Hey, you need to rein in Cheney. He’s ruining your administration.’ It would be out of character for him to do that. And in any event, I disagree with his characterization of what was going on. I made the decisions. This was my philosophy,” the younger Bush added.
In a statement released Thursday morning, the younger Bush said he was “proud to have served with “Cheney and Rumsfeld.”
“Dick Cheney did a superb job as Vice President, and I was fortunate to have him by my side throughout my presidency.Don Rumsfeld ably led the Pentagon and was an effective Secretary of Defense,” Bush said in the statement. “I am grateful to both men for their good advice, selfless service to our country, and friendship.”
The book was based on interviews Meacham conducted with Bush, and with his wife Barbara, as well as viewing diaries that the former first couple both kept.
The work also captures other moments and relationships from Bush’s own time in the White House, including a noteworthy anecdote claiming that current presidential candidate Donald Trump wanted to be Bush’s running mate in 1988.
In addition, Bush discusses his bitter feelings toward Michael Dukakis, his opponent in the 1988 general election, calling him “a midget nerd,” and opines on the relationship his wife had with former first lady Nancy Reagan.
“Nancy does not like Barbara,” he said, according to The Times.
With News Wire Services
