WASHINGTON (CNN) -- In an interview never before published, former President Gerald Ford said President Bush and his chief advisers "made a big mistake" with their justifications for the Iraq war.

Ford made the comments in a four-hour interview in 2004 with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.

Woodward is famous for being part of the writing duo who exposed the Watergate scandal, which led to Ford becoming president.

The interview was conducted at Ford's home in Beaver Creek, Colorado.

"I don't think, if I had been president -- on the basis of the facts as I saw them publicly -- I don't think I would have ordered the Iraqi war," Ford said in a part of the interview broadcast on CNN's "Larry King Live" Wednesday.

"I would have maximized our efforts through sanctions, through restrictions, whatever, to find another answer," the former president said...

WASHINGTON - Former President Gerald R. Ford said in an embargoed interview in July 2004 that the Iraq war was not justified, the Washington Post reported Wednesday night.

Ford "very strongly" disagreed with the current president's justifications for invading Iraq and said he would have pushed alternatives, such as sanctions, much more vigorously, the Post's Bob Woodward wrote. The story initially was posted on the newspaper's Internet site.

"I don't think I would have gone to war," Ford told Woodward a little more than a year after President Bush launched the invasion...