Clinton 'lost battle with old demons'

Bill Clinton lost a fight with his “old demons” when he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, he said today.

The former president said he failed those he loved most when he strayed, but added that he could never have risen to the top of American politics without his long-suffering wife Hillary.

In a candid interview to promote his autobiography, published today, he also said that the United States made an “error” in not giving the United Nations more time to disarm Saddam Hussein before the Iraq war.

He regretted not killing al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden or overseeing an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while in office.

The interview was broadcast early today on the CBS 60 Minutes programme, hours after a scathing attack on his autobiography by the New York Times.

The newspaper said his 957-page book, My Life, was “sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull, the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history”.

The review added: “In many ways, the book is a mirror of Mr Clinton’s presidency: lack of discipline leading to squandered opportunities; high expectations, undermined by self-indulgence and scattered concentration.”

In comments previously publicised, Mr Clinton said in the CBS interview he had his affair with Ms Lewinsky “just because I could”.

The attempts to impeach him were a “badge of honour” because they were motivated by a political attack, rather than his own wrongdoing.

He told of the moment when he had to confess to Mrs Clinton, now a New York senator, that he had an affair, despite weeks of public denials.

“I had a sleepless night and woke her up and sat down on the side of the bed and just told her, and it was awful, but I had to do it.”

He had to admit the truth because he was about to appear before a Grand Jury which would question him on the affair.

“She was angry and she was mad and she was as mad about me not telling her before.”

He also told how he nearly lost the faith of his daughter, Chelsea.

“She has strong convictions. Sooner or later every child learns that his or her parents are not perfect. But this was way beyond that and it was a big dose to swallow,” he said.

“That was just a simple day when I had to acknowledge to the people I loved most in the world that I had failed. I had done something bad, and I hadn’t felt I could tell them about it before,” he said.

Eventually, Mrs Clinton decided she wanted to remain married, and the couple went to counselling one day each week for a year.

He spent two months sleeping on the sofa.

It was not the first time Mr Clinton strayed. He had also had to admit to his wife a relationship with Gennifer Flowers, despite making public denials on television.

Mrs Clinton even joined her husband in the denials, saying the allegations that he had an affair with Ms Flowers was part of a “right-wing conspiracy”.

“She didn’t approve of what was being done,” Mr Clinton said of the interviews.

Despite his unfaithfulness, Mr Clinton said he would never have risen to such heights without his wife.

“I don’t think there is a way in the wide world I would have ever become president without her. It’s not even a close question.”

Asked why he strayed once again, he said: “I was not thinking straight. There is no rational explanation for what I did.”

He said in the mid-1990s he was engaged in a “struggle with the Republicans over the future of the country, which I won, and a struggle with my old demons which I lost”.

On foreign affairs, Mr Clinton said he believed the people of Iraq were better off without Saddam as leader.

But he said: “In terms of the launching of the war, I believe we made an error in not allowing the United Nations to complete the inspections process.

“Now, having said that, we are where we are, and I think the most important thing now is for all of us to support a stable, peaceful, and pluralistic Iraq, and it looks to me like the administration’s moving in that direction.”

Asked about his own foreign policy regrets he said: “I regret that I didn’t succeed in getting Osama bin Laden, and equally I’m sorry that I wasn’t able enough to convince the Israelis and the Palestinians to make peace.”

Mr Clinton was asked of his first reaction to the September 11 terror attacks.

“Osama Bin Laden did this,” said Mr Clinton, who was in Australia at the time.

Mr Clinton, who signed several authorisations to use deadly force against bin Laden, refused to say whether he believed the attacks could be prevented.

He said: “We broke up about 20 al-Qaida cells. We arrested some of their people.

“We prevented several terrorist incidents including attempts to blow up planes flying into Los Angeles – to blow up the Los Angeles airport over the millennium, to blow up sites in the Middle East as well as in the United States over the millennium.”

In the hour-long interview Mr Clinton also recalled living with his alcoholic stepfather, Roger Clinton, who abused his mother Virginia Kelley and once even shot at her.

His natural father was killed in a car crash before he was born.

“This sounds crazy but I never hated my stepfather, Roger Clinton. Even after he pulled the trigger in here, when he was drunk, even after he beat my mother, even after I got big enough to stop him from beating my mother.

“I had some understanding that he was a good man and couldn’t whip his drinking problem, and that he was full of demons that he couldn’t control it and he took it out in destructive, hateful ways.”