Rumsfeld hits back at Bush Snr with senility claim

The war of words between former American President George H W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld ratcheted up a notch when the former Defence Secretary of State claimed Bush Sr was going senile.

Rumsfeld was responding to claims in the former president's new biography that Rumsfeld was "arrogant" and he, alongside former vice-president Dick Cheney, had damaged the US in the aftermath of 9/11 through their hawkish military stance.

In a statement, Rumsfeld defended his role, saying of the father and son who were respectively the 41st and 43rd US presidents: "Bush 41 is getting up in years and misjudges Bush 43, who I found made his own decisions.

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"There are hundreds of memos on http://www.rumsfeld.com that represent advice DoD [department of defence] gave the president."

[1] The Guardian reports that Bush Sr, who is 91, told his biographer, Jon Meacham, that Rumsfeld was "an arrogant fellow", adding: "I've never been that close to him anyway. There's a lack of humility, a lack of seeing what the other guy thinks.

"He's more kick-ass and take names, take numbers. I think he paid a price for that.

Dick Cheney, who served in both Bush Snr and Bush Jnr's administrations, also earned the wrath of the 91-year-old.

"I think he served the president badly. I don't like what he did, and I think it hurt the president [Bush Jr] having his iron-ass view of everything," Bush Sr told the biographer.

Cheney, for his part, told Fox News that he took the "iron-ass" jibe as a compliment, saying: "I took it as a mark of pride. The attack on 9/11 was worse than Pearl Harbor, in terms of the number people killed, and the amount of damage done. I think a lot of people believed then, and still believe to this day that I was aggressive in defending, in carrying out what I thought were the right policies."

Political analysts in the US have questioned the motives behind Bush Sr re-opening the debate on his son's administration. David Gergen, writing for CNN, claims that the elder Bush is answering a call to public service:

"I suspect the motive at work here is H.W.'s desire to answer the demands of history," Gergen writes. "Modern presidents have a long and admirable desire to leave behind a record of their times so that future generations might learn lessons, both good and bad."
He adds:
"Until now, we have been able to learn a fair amount about the presidency of George H.W. but almost nothing about the dynamics of what followed: the first father-son presidency since the early 1800s."