FORMER PRESIDENT CARTER: Interview with PBS after DNC Speech

…FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: It is. I think if you look at the history of what has happened in the last three-and-a-half years compared to what happened in this country for the previous 200 years, you see a radical departure from custom and commitments and ideals and moral values.

And I don’t mean by that personal moral values but the value of a nation trying to enhance or at least maintain its moral integrity, having the world believe our president when he makes a statement or our secretary of defense or our vice president. There’s a general feeling that when a statement is made it’s not trustworthy, and I think this has hurt us a lot.

And the attack on civil liberties and the attack on human rights has brought us discredit even from the most respected human rights organizations on earth. There’s no question now that the United States is one of the targets of Amnesty International and others rather than a champion and a hero of those human rights organizations, so the deterioration in the trust that can be placed in our government itself and the problem that we’re having maintaining the basic qualities of human rights are the two things that bother me the most.

Trust in the president
JIM LEHRER: When you talk about trust, you’re also talking about truth-telling by the president and the people who work for him. Where have … what have they said that in your opinion was wrong, that was a lie?

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Do you remember the statements that were made about the massive weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

JIM LEHRER: I do.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Do you remember the constant allegations still maintained by the vice president that somehow Saddam Hussein and Iraq was directly connected with al-Qaida? Well those kinds of things have been proven to be wrong.

And either there was deliberate deception or gross misunderstanding of the intelligence that’s supposed to go to the president. So I think those kinds of things are very serious reflections on the integrity of our government.

JIM LEHRER: And you hold President Bush responsible for those?

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Well, I don’t hold him uniquely responsible. I don’t know really to what degree President Bush is the leader among that inner circle when they congregate in the Oval Office to make basic decisions about what to do.

It may be that Vice President Cheney is the dominating voice. Or it might be that in military affairs, maybe Secretary Rumsfeld is the dominant voice. But it’s a coalition of leaders who collectively have not maintained the integrity of our government and its commitment to human rights in our life. And I don’t think there’s any doubt that some of the statements, public statements, made by Vice President Cheney have been very disturbing as they led up to the torture, for instance….{{link http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec04/carter_7-26.html MORE}}

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