Rumsfeld, Architect of Iraq War, Says Obama Hasn't Yet Justified Syria Attack

(CNN) -- Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who along with President George W. Bush helped send the United States military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, said in an interview Wednesday the White House has yet to justify potential strikes in Syria.

And he sharply criticized President Barack Obama's administration for allowing details about that potential military action to become public before any decisions have been made.

"I can't imagine what they're thinking, why they would want the Assad regime to have crystal clarity with respect to what they intend," Rumsfeld said in an interview on the Fox Business Network.

Obama told the "PBS Newshour" on Wednesday that he hadn't yet made a final decision about U.S. military action in Syria, though U.S. officials have been cited widely in news reports pointing to cruise missile attacks on military facilities as a likely American response to alleged chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime.

Acknowledging it was difficult to fully ascertain the administration's thinking as an outsider, Rumsfeld maintained it was puzzling the amount of information that's made its way to the public.

"The idea of demystifying for the enemy what you're going to do is mindless," he said.

Rumsfeld served a secretary of defense from 2001-2006, a period that saw the U.S. begin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said in the interview, however, that current statements from Obama and his aides haven't met the threshold for intervention in Syria.

"There really hasn't been any indication from the administration as to what our national interest is with respect to this particular situation," he said. "When you think about what's really important in that region - it's Iran's nuclear program and the relationship between Iran and Syria, the Assad regime, with respect to terrorists that go around killing innocent men, women and children, including Americans."

He added that Secretary of State John Kerry, who left the U.S. Senate earlier this year for the top diplomatic post, had been "dealt a bad hand" by his predecessor Hillary Clinton and Obama, who he claimed had created a global leadership void.

"This administration has been in a withdrawal mode, an apology mode," he said, adding: "That vacuum we've created is being filled by people that don't have our values or interests."