By Caren Bohan WASHINGTON, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Former President Gerald Ford posthumously joined the growing ranks of Republican dissenters on Iraq this week, underscoring the political hurdles for President George W. Bush as he prepares to roll out a new war plan. Ford, a moderate Republican known for his discretion, confided to journalist Bob Woodward that he disagreed with Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq, according to an account that Woodward published on Thursday, two days after Ford's death. Analysts said Ford's discomfort with the Iraq war would pose added troubles for Bush as he weighs options such as raising U.S. troop levels in Iraq that may further unsettle a war-weary public. "Ford was in many respects the most moderate of moderate Republicans -- not just in his political views but in his demeanor," said David Rothkopf, author of "Running the World," a book about the White House National Security Council. "For him to be so sharply critical sends a clear message about how seriously things have turned against President Bush in this country," said Rothkopf, who interviewed Ford for his own book and clearly sensed he was troubled over Iraq. Ford, said Rothkopf, was in many ways a "political father" to the Bush administration because he hired Vice President Dick Cheney as his chief of staff and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as his defense secretary. But Woodward quoted Ford as saying about Iraq, "I don't think I would have gone to war." The ex-president, he said, "felt strongly" that the administration erred in justifying the war based on a threat of weapons of mass destruction. While praising Cheney's service in his own administration, Ford expressed concern about policies the vice president had pushed more recently. NOT ALONE Woodward interviewed Ford, who was president when South Vietnam fell in 1975, in July 2004 and again in 2005. He spoke about Iraq on the condition that his comments not be published until after his death. Asked about Ford's remarks, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to comment. "We're grieving for President Ford and his family and that's where our focus is," he said. James Lindsay, a former Clinton administration official now at the University of Texas, Austin, said Ford was not alone among Republicans in being uncomfortable with the Iraq war. "Many Republicans have had reservations about Iraq but they stuck with the White House because they believed it was patriotic and it made sense politically," Lindsay said. "We are now entering a period where Republicans are starting to reconsider those calculations." Bush's Republicans lost power in both houses of Congress in November, in an election widely seen as a referendum on Iraq. Delivering one of the harshest criticisms of the war, Republican Sen. Gordon Smith of Oregon said on the Senate floor this month that the war might even be "criminal." But many analysts likened Ford's stance more to that of another elder statesmen, former Secretary of State James Baker, chairman of the Iraq Study Group which described conditions in Iraq as "grave and deteriorating" and urged a withdrawal of most combat troops by early 2008. On the same day the Washington Post published Woodward's account, Bush met with advisers on his Texas ranch to discuss a revamped war strategy he has said he would unveil in January. Among the options is a boost in U.S. troop levels by as many as 30,000. Although White House officials have stressed no decision has been made, that idea runs counter to the wishes of many Democrats who want a phased withdrawal. Jeffrey White, a military affairs expert at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, backs a troop increase in Iraq but said even among some Republicans there would be resistance and Ford's comments were only the latest indication of a "war fatigue" in the United States. A Senate Republican aide told Reuters this week that Ford's remarks would not have "an impact on Republican senators. I think they know where they are" on Iraq.(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)
