George W. Bush, promoting his memoir that hit store shelves Tuesday, pronounced himself "through with politics" and defended his decisions as president in a jokey interview with television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey.
Bush cracked about his book, "Decision Points," during the taped interview in Winfrey's Chicago studios.
"A lot of people didn't think I could read, much less write,"
Asked by Winfrey whether he regretted the decision to invade Iraq based on unfounded intelligence that leader Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, Bush admitted feeling "terrible" and "sickened" about being wrong the weapons, but blamed Hussein.
Bush admits mistakes, defends decisions
"I'll tell you what was wrong. Saddam Hussein deceived everybody. He didn't want people to know he did not have them ... which is strange because I made it clear to him to let the (arms) inspectors in or we'll remove you from power and he didn't believe me, sadly,"Bush said.
"My point is the world is better with him gone,"Bush said to applause from the studio audience.
Bush's eyes filled with tears when he talked about consoling widows of soldiers killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He grew angry when discussing critics (Kanye West) that accused him of racism after the government's admittedly flawed response to the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Bush said, lamenting what he called the "ugliness of the American political scene."
"What really, really irritated was when they said my response was slow because I was a racist,"
Asked to weigh in on politics, Bush demurred, saying he would not "wade back into the swamp."
"I'm through with politics. It's hard for people to believe. I'm through,"adding his successor Barack Obama
"has his critics, he doesn't need me opining on everything he does."
You can watch that clip below:
And in this video portion below he speaks on giving tax payers money over to the banks...and he "doesn't know" if it worked but he knows that we didn't have a depression.
