President George W. Bush says he has one regret about his decision to invade Iraq in order to oust Saddam Hussein in 2003: the rise of the terror organization the Islamic State (ISIS) which followed the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011.
"A violent group of people have risen up again," Bush said in excerpts of an interview with CBS Television’s "Face the Nation" scheduled to begin airing on Sunday. The Islamic State, he added, "is al-Qaida plus" and "they need to be defeated."
Bush said he was surprised that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had failed to take seriously his threat to target his regime over its refusal to cooperate with international inspectors investigating illicit Iraqi efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. The former president is currently promoting a biography he has written about his father, President George H.W. Bush.
In previous interviews, George W. Bush has been remarkably candid in critiquing his own performance as a leader. In an interview with ABC News which aired in December 2008, he said that despite briefings in early 2001 warning that Al Qaeda was prepared to attack, "I think I was unprepared for war" when terrorists struck the United States on 9/11.
Asked if Barack Obama’s election as president was a negative verdict on his presidency, Bush replied: "I think it was a repudiation of Republicans."
When asked if he would have gone to war against Saddam Hussein if he had known how flawed the intelligence information about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction really was, Bush said he was not really sure.
"It’s hard for me to speculate,"
he said.
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