WASHINGTON, Dec 28: Former US President Gerald Ford believed that the Iraq war was not justified and President Bush and his chief advisers “made a big mistake” when they invaded the Arab country.

“I don't think I would have gone to war,” he said in July 2004, a little more than a year after President Bush had launched the invasion. “On the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly -- I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war.” Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the key planners of the invasion, were prominent veterans of the Ford administration.

“Rumsfeld and Cheney and the president made a big mistake in justifying going into the war in Iraq. They put the emphasis on weapons of mass destruction,” Mr Ford said.

“I've never publicly said I thought they made a mistake, but I felt very strongly it was an error in how they should justify what they were going to do.”

The four-hour interview, conducted at Mr Ford's home in Beaver Creek, Colorado in 2004, was to be published after his death. The former US president died on Tuesday, at age 93, at his home in Rancho Mirage, California.

The interviewer, Bob Woodward of Washington Post, was part of the writing duo that exposed the Watergate scandal, which led to Mr Ford becoming president.

Mr Ford said in a part of the interview broadcast on CNN's “Larry King Live”: “I would have maximised our efforts through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer.”

The former president “very strongly” disagreed with Mr Bush's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives much more vigorously.

Mr Ford, who presided over the bitter end of the Vietnam War, took issue with the notion of the United States entering a conflict to spread democracy.

“Well, I can understand the theory of wanting to free people,” Mr Ford said, referring to Mr Bush's assertion that the US has a “duty to free people.” But Mr Ford was sceptical “whether you can detach that from the obligation No.1, of what's in our national interest.”

He said: “And I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security.”