February 27, 1996
Web posted at: 7:30 p.m. EST
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Former President George Bush said Tuesday he ordered the bombing of the so-called "baby milk factory" in Baghdad during the Gulf War after he saw photographs of chemicals being taken into the factory -- information not available to the American people.
"We didn't show the guards, we didn't show the chemicals going in that I would see -- we couldn't show them -- that I would see as president of the United States," he said. The chemicals "had no connection with baby milk ... Then we'd see written in crazy English 'baby milk plant' after it was bombed."
Iraqi authorities maintained that the facility was used to make baby formula and was not a chemical weapons plant.
Bush also said the world would be in disorder and the White House handshake between Yasser Arafat, president of the Palestinian Authority, and Yitzhak Rabin, the late Israeli Prime Minister, would never have happened if the United States had not led an international coalition to war against Iraq five years ago.
However, Bush, appearing relaxed and healthy, said he miscalculated Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, an action he regrets.
"I hope people go back, historians, and say we did the right thing ... I want to be remembered as a guy who did it with honor, that did his best."
Bush referred to notes from his personal diaries at several points, and said he's writing a book "about all this, and maybe it's just because I got a shot to tell it my way."
"Saddam Hussein would be in Riyadh today, he would have taken over Saudi Arabia, and the world would be in great disorder" if the world had waited for economic sanctions to pressure Iraq to give up Kuwait, Bush said.
"Democracy, fledgling democracies and peace talks would have had no chance at all. We never would have seen the handshake on the White House lawn, say nothing of the Madrid conference, if we had not resolved the matter in the way we did."
Bush still thinks it would have been wrong to target Hussein personally, but "if Saddam Hussein had been caught up in a bombing attack or something of that nature and had fallen in that manner, I guess we would all have rejoiced."
But he said the factory bombing, contrary to CNN correspondent Peter Arnett's reporting, was not done with the goal of destroying Hussein. (213K AIFF sound or 213K WAV sound)
"I saw a big difference between Arnett's coverage and what foreign journalists such as the British were doing."
Arnett's reports from the bombed factory were widely criticized for a perceived bias toward the Iraqi government.
Bush said he didn't want to attack the CNN reporter personally, but "Arnett just devoured the whole Iraqi line, while the British reporter would say 'I can't do this, I can't do this,' or 'please use your imagination." (153K AIFF sound or 153K WAV sound)
Bush said attempts by the media to report both sides equally disturbed him.
"It's like going to Adolf Hitler -- 'now Adolf give us your side of how it was here in Buchenwald or something,'" he said.
"Maybe I'm too defensive about it, but it caused me great grief as president of the United States, because what it did was mobilize all the forces that didn't want us to go into war."
Bush said his advisers assured him Hussein's threat of the "mother of all battles" had nothing behind it to worry U.S. troops.
The former president, whose son George W. Bush is governor of Texas, declined to comment on the current presidential candidates, saying it was a "luxury" of being out of office.
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