In an appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman", Rudolph W. Giuliani said he believes America might have gone to war in Iraq even if George W. Bush had not been President.
Mr. Giuliani said that at the time America went to war, there were “a lot of Democrats who supported it” and initially praised the President for his decision.
“It was the policy of the Clinton administration to have a regime change in Iraq, so in a way, George Bush carried out what Bill Clinton wanted to do and didn’t get the opportunity to do. So who knows.”
But Mr. Giuliani did once again say that there were mistakes in the way America conducted the war. He said he would have done things differently:
“I would have used – I would have used an approach that I was familiar with in New York, the Compstat approach – Iraqstat – you know, how many people are working, how many factories are open, how many children are going back to school. As well as reducing the violence, because I think what happened in Iraq is we deposed Saddam. I think the vast majority of people in Iraq were very, very delighted about that – I mean, they got rid of a terrible dictator – but then, after a while, their lives were no better, and in some cases, their lives were worse. So, we had responsibility for that, and I don’t know that we understood that early enough. I think we’ve picked it up now, but I think for the longest time, we didn’t pick that up.”
