Bush: Chirac partly to blame for bad global feelings

ROME – As Iraq war protesters marched through the Eternal City on Friday, President Bush put some of the blame for bad global feelings on his French counterpart Jacques Chirac.

Asked by Paris Match magazine, “What went wrong?” Bush replied: “You need to talk to the French leadership.”

The White House released a transcript of the interview the day before Bush flies to Paris to meet with Chirac about more help rebuilding Iraq. The French president vehemently opposed the war.

In the interview, Bush said that he bore no ill will toward Chirac, whom he characterized a friend.

Bush told the magazine in the May 28 interview that his differences with Chirac were based on substantive disagreements, which now are history.

“I’ve never been angry at the French. France has been a longtime ally, and I – look, I made a difficult decision and not everybody agreed with it. But I understand that,” Bush said.

“I’ve had friends all my life, who I call friends, who didn’t agree with every decision I made,” Bush said. “And Jacques made it perfectly clear to me he didn’t believe the use of military force was necessary.”

That doesn’t mean Chirac can’t visit the Bush ranch, the president said, though he didn’t exactly send a gold-plated invitation.

“If he wants to come and see some cows,” Bush told the magazine, “he can come out there and see some cows.”