WASHINGTON - Angered at being used as a scapegoat by the White House, ex-President Bill Clinton fired back yesterday, saying the Iraq war was "a big mistake."

"It was a big mistake. The American government made several errors ... one of which is how easy it would be to get rid of Saddam and how hard it would be to unite the country," The Associated Press quoted Clinton as saying in Dubai.

"The mistake that they made is that when they kicked out Saddam, they decided to dismantle the whole authority structure of Iraq ... We never sent enough troops and didn't have enough troops to control or seal the borders," Clinton told a forum of Arab students at the American University of Dubai.

His response drew cheers and a standing ovation at the end of the hour-long session.

Clinton has criticized the war before, but knowledgable sources said he is miffed the Bushies are using his old comments from 1998 about what a threat Saddam Hussein was.

The White House has been recycling prewar comments from prominent Democrats, including Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Clinton, to counter the Democrats' rebuke of the war.

"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done," he said in remarks picked up by the Arab media and conservative Web sites.

Longtime Clinton loyalists said the GOP had picked the fight with Clinton and acknowledged it was an odd way to thank the 42nd President after he agreed to Bush's request to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims.

"Every time [Bush] asked for something, he says, 'Yes,'" a former Clinton aide said.

Team Bush has also taken aim at Sen. Clinton (D-N.Y), who until this week has managed to stay out of the fight, leaving it to Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.).

Even yesterday, as her office and her husband's kicked into crisis mode, Clinton's spokesman Phillipe Reines repeatedly declined to say whether she agreed the war was a mistake.

"Sen. Clinton has said repeatedly that she disagrees with the way the President has used the authority granted to him, and has been very critical of the way he has prosecuted the war," Reines said.

The GOP quickly jumped all over Bill Clinton's counterattack, issuing a statement titled "Clinton vs. Clinton," which pitted his remarks against the hawkish posture his wife took at the outset of the war.

"It's no surprise that Bill Clinton's irresponsible and negative remarks were immediately picked up by Al Jazeera and will be read by the very terrorists that our men and women in uniform are bravely trying to defeat in the war on terror," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Vice President Cheney, meanwhile, ratcheted up the fight yesterday in unusually tough language.

"The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone," Cheney told a dinner audience, "but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history."

Originally published on November 17, 2005

Commentary: