Poppy opposed Dubya's war

New York Daily News - A new book on the Bush political dynasty claims former President George H.W. Bush opposed last year's invasion of Iraq.

In "The Bushes: Portrait of a Dynasty," Peter and Rochelle Schweizer cite as evidence a summer 2002 interview in which the older Bush's sister said her brother had expressed his "anguish" about the administration's preparations for war.

"But do they have an exit strategy?" the former President is quoted as worrying.

"Although he never went public with them," the authors assert, "the President's own father shared many of [the] concerns" of Brent Scowcroft, his national security adviser and a leading war opponent.

Yet close friends and associates said the older Bush, while fiercely proud and protective of his son, nevertheless harbors concerns about the war and its aftermath.

These sources told The News that aside from his "exit-strategy" fears of a prolonged, bloody conflict, the ex-President is troubled that the war fractured the international coalition he painstakingly assembled to expel deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991.

In his 1998 diplomatic memoir, the former President offered this impassioned defense of his controversial decision not to attack Baghdad and topple Saddam in 1991:

"Trying to eliminate Saddam ... would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. ... Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land."

el - Note that this book was written by a fawning Bush supporter.