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Former U.S. President Bill
Clinton speaks during a taping of NBC's 'Meet the Press' in New York
City September 17, 2005. |
Former US president Bill Clinton sharply criticised George W. Bush for
the Iraq War and the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and voiced alarm at
the swelling US budget deficit.
Breaking with tradition under which US presidents mute criticisms of
their successors, Clinton said the Bush administration had decided to
invade Iraq "virtually alone and before UN inspections were completed,
with no real urgency, no evidence that there were weapons of mass
destruction."
The Iraq war diverted US attention from the war on terrorism "and
undermined the support that we might have had," Clinton said in an
interview with an ABC's "This Week" programme.
Clinton said there had been a "heroic but so far unsuccessful" effort
to put together an constitution that would be universally supported in
Iraq.
The US strategy of trying to develop the Iraqi military and police so
that they can cope without US support "I think is the best strategy. The
problem is we may not have, in the short run, enough troops to do that,"
said Clinton.
On Hurricane Katrina, Clinton faulted the authorities' failure to
evacuate New Orleans ahead of the storm's strike on August 29.
People with cars were able to heed the evacuation order, but many of
those who were poor, disabled or elderly were left behind.
"If we really wanted to do it right, we would have had lots of buses
lined up to take them out," Clinton.
He agreed that some responsibility for this lay with the local and
state authorities, but pointed the finger, without naming him, at the
former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
FEMA boss Michael Brown quit in response to criticism of his handling
of the Katrina disaster. He was viewed as a political appointee with no
experience of disaster management or dealing with government officials.
"When James Lee Witt ran FEMA, because he had been both a local
official and a federal official, he was always there early, and we always
thought about that," Clinton said, referring to FEMA's head during his
1993-2001 presidency.
"But both of us came out of environments with a
disproportionate number
of poor people."
On the US budget, Clinton warned that the federal deficit may be coming
untenable, driven by foreign wars, the post-hurricane recovery programme
and tax cuts that benefitted just the richest one percent of the US
population, himself included.
"What Americans need to understand is that ... every single day of the
year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other
countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina, and our tax cuts," he
said.
"We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic
have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money
from somewhere else."
Clinton added: "We depend on Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Saudi
Arabia, and Korea primarily to basically loan us money every day of the
year to cover my tax cut and these conflicts and Katrina. I don't think it
makes any sense."
(Agencies) |