Former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld says his commander-in-chief, George W. Bush, was wrong to push “democracy” on Iraq.
“I’m not one who thinks that our particular template of democracy is appropriate for other countries at every moment of their histories. The idea that we could fashion a democracy in Iraq seemed to me unrealistic,” Rumsfeld said in a wide-ranging interview with The Times of London.
Rumsfeld, one of the chief architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said he became “concerned” when he first heard the idea of a democratic Iraq, floated by former president Bush.
The former Pentagon chief also criticized President Barack Obama’s approach towards the ISIL terrorist group, controlling large parts of Iraq and Syria.
“The movement for a caliphate, the movement against nation states is central and fundamental, and no one’s talking about it,” Rumsfeld said, referring to the ISIL’s self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria.