President George Bush spent President’s Day touring Africa to promote his administration’s humanitarian efforts on the continent, but the outgoing chief executive is keenly aware that the war in Iraq will dominate pages of history books devoted to his eight years in office for many generations to come.
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview Monday with TODAY's Ann Curry, Bush said that historians will look favorably upon the U.S. involvement in Iraq and insisted that the war has served as a stabilizing force for the Middle East as a whole.
“I firmly believe that the mission will yield peace,” Bush said during a stop in Arusha, Tanzania. “Iraq is changing. Democracy is beginning to take hold. I’m convinced 50 years from now people will look back and say thank God there were people who were willing to sacrifice.”
With first lady Laura Bush at his side, the president also said he believes spending on the war in Iraq is helping the economy, rather than hurting it, at a time when excessive housing construction is being followed by a period of economic slowdown.
He also affirmed his support for John McCain, should he win the Republican nomination, and predicted a Republican victory in November. On the decision by the Kosovo province parliament to declare independence from Serbia, Bush expressed support but stopped short of promising U.S. recognition.
“The Kosovars are now independent. It’s something I’ve advocated,” he said.
Defining his legacy
Bush is in the midst of a one-week visit to five African nations — Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia. It is his first visit since 2003, when he made a commitment in his State of the Union address to increase American aid to Africa.
The most visible parts of that commitment are HIV/AIDS clinics and efforts to fight malaria.
“I believe to whom much is given, much is required,” he told Curry. “This nation has been given a lot, and we’re required. Malaria is a disease that can be stopped. HIV/AIDS is a disease that can be arrested.”
He talked of seeing a boy with malaria in a clinic that morning, and spoke emotionally about how five years ago that child would have died for lack of basic medicines and now will survive because of the programs he initiated.
He credited Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other White House staffers with pushing for an increased humanitarian presence in Africa. “I didn’t need much pushing,” he said. “It’s in our interest that we deal with hopelessness, and it’s in our moral interest that we help. This has been a labor of love. I told people we’re on a mission of mercy.”
“Do you think it’s God’s work?” Curry asked the president, who had just visited a Masai school that is run by a nun.
“That’s probably not a politically correct thing to say,” he responded, dressed in an open-collared, short-sleeved black shirt and sitting outdoors with his wife. “But you can’t convince people like the nun at this school that it’s not God’s work. She’s been called to love a neighbor. You can’t convince thousands of our fellow citizens who are here because of a religious mission to help just total strangers. It’s awe-inspiring.”
Curry asked the president about Iraq, quoting an earlier interview she had had with his wife, during which Laura Bush had said, “No one suffers more than their president. I hope they know the burden of worry that’s on his shoulders every single day for our troops.”
“What will not leave me is the fact a mother has lost her son or a wife has lost a husband or a husband has lost a wife,” he said. “I’ll forever carry that with me.”
Bush returned to the theme he has never abandoned, saying that leaving Iraq now would have catastrophic consequences.
“What would have been worse on anybody’s conscience would have been if we had abandoned Iraq when times were tough and let those [soldiers] die in vain,” he said. “We’re not wrong in this case. The surge has proven we’re not wrong. It would have been an unmitigated disaster in the Middle East. It would have abandoned the Iraqi people, having liberated them from a brutal tyrant who murdered thousands and thousands of people.”
Presidential politics
Curry turned the conversation to politics back home, asking the president if he’d like to see a woman or African-American president.
“You’re trying to trap me,” he laughed. “Would I like to see Condi Rice president? Is that what you said?”
Bush dodged the question, but repeated his belief that his party will retain the White House when he is forced to vacate the executive mansion due to the term limit set by the Constitution.
Although Bush is busy trying to define his place in history, he and the first lady are also in the midst of planning a wedding for their daughter Jenna at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Asked what role he has in planning the wedding, the president laughed and said, “I have nothing to say about it. They let me spend money.”
When Mrs. Bush was asked about the wedding, she said, “It will be small and private. It will be lovely and simple and just perfect.”
Curry asked Laura Bush what is the most important lesson she has learned about marriage.
“I’d have to say having a loving husband and a really good marriage is a wonderful, wonderful thing,” she said. “Having a good sense of humor is a big part of it. He makes me laugh.”