General Wes Clark on Hannity and Colmes
July 6, 2006, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC
Alan Colmes: Joining us now, more on these shocking new developments, former Vice-Presidential nominee, Jack Kemp and former Presidential candidate and Fox News military analyst, General Wesley Clark. We welcome you both. Secretary Kemp, let me go to you first. What should our reaction be to this late breaking development?
Jack Kemp: Well first of all, it's very disappointing that China and Russia have turned down some threat of sanctions against North Korea and this missile program of theirs. I think President Bush has done the right thing. He's sent Assistant Secretary of State for Asia to Beijing to warn, I don't exactly know what he's saying, but he's going to, in my opinion, warn the Chinese that if they allow North Korea to develop nuclear capability with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles as a backup, that it's going to militarize Japan. Japan is ultimately going to have to have a nuclear deterrent themselves. So, I think two things need to be done immediately. Number one, use the G-8 in St. Petersburg that starts July 15th to warn Putin that he has to, not just condemn, but threaten sanctions on both Iran and North Korea. And then use the Beijing conference this weekend with Secretary Hill to warn China that they too are going to risk militarizing Japan as a threat to them.
Alan Colmes: General Clark, you agree with that assessment?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I do think that it's very important that China understand the risks of a nuclear North Korea and the impact on Japan. But I think the most important thing we can do right now is prepare a package of, not only sanctions, but also some incentives and talk directly to North Korea. Look, the six-power framework doesn't work. We did direct negotiations back in the 90s. We produced an agreement. This administration hasn't been serious. They've hid behind the veil of China. China doesn't have the influence over North Korea that we do. North Korea wants United States recognition, and they want the United States to help them into the world. They want a peace treat with the United States. We should have discussions on that matter with them directly.
Alan Colmes: General Clark, if we do that now, given that that's what they want, and we do it in response to their latest actions, are we then not perceived as capitulating to their threats?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We must have a package of incentives, both positive and negative. They're not making any threat. They're not threatening the United States. These missiles don't hurt the United States. We hold the, all the trump cards, militarily, in this region.
Alan Colmes: Secretary Kemp, the Bush administration's been criticized for going mute after years of talks, years of negotiations. Bush gets into office and suddenly there's no dialog, no communication. Is that part of what could have led to this problem?
Jack Kemp: Well, you've got to look at the pattern here by the North Koreans. In 1994, Kim Jong Il's father Kim Il Sung blackmailed the West and got an agreement that fell through in the, in the 19, what, 98 when they launched their first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile over Japan. President Clinton then, as General Clark alluded to, was willing to actually go to Pyongyang, North Korea to negotiate some form of a peace treaty. That fell through. Now you have another, the son of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il now threatening, every time he gets in trouble, they threaten the West. And I think there is a pattern here, A, and B, I think general Clark's being a little unfair to this administration, because the previous administration tried to reward this type of aggression, and it didn't work then.
We shouldn't do it now. I think Nicholas Eberstadt, in today's Wall Street Journal made a very important point. This is nuclear blackmail, and we should not reward it.
Sean Hannity: You know, Jack - And by the way, welcome both of you back to the program - I couldn't agree with you more on the political point. I want to get back to that. 94 was a bad deal, but more importantly, I think the real crisis that is emerging here, Jack, is that how many times are we going to allow this guy to basically hold the world hostage. In other words, he gets to launch a missile. We don't know what's on that missile. How many times does the United States allow that to happen? How many times does the rest of the world allow that to happen? At some point, does the message have to be sent that if you put another missile on the pad, and the world does not allow it to see that there's no nuclear device on it, that pad is going to be taken out?
Jack Kemp: I think, Sean, all the military options have to be on the table, but I think practically speaking, that's not an option at this time. Clearly as, as General Clark pointed out, we need to talk to them. I think the six-power talks, or the six-party talks as they're called, are an important way of bringing pressure on North Korea, from South Korea that's been propping up Kim Jong Il, and China's been propping him up. We've got to convince Russia, China and South Korea to stop allowing this type of conduct to be so provocative towards Japan and the West, and I think the best way to do it, as I said earlier, Sean-
Sean Hannity: Yeah.
Jack Kemp: -is the, using the G-8 session in St. Petersburg next week and the six-party talks in Beijing that start this weekend.
Sean Hannity: Well, I'm not, I'm not confident that Putin or the Chinese are going to, are going to be as open to the suggestions that you have. I think probably the threat of arming Japan, as you mentioned earlier, is, is probably going to more of an incentive for them. Alright General Clark, you and I, if we start arguing about the Clinton administration and the 94 agreement, we're never going to agree. So, why don't we put that aside for just a minute. Let me ask you a military question. How many times are we going to allow the North Koreans to hold the world hostage, that they're going to threaten to launch these missiles, launch these missiles. Nobody knows where they're going, or nobody knows what's on these missiles. At some point militarily, if they continue to do this and talks don't succeed, do we have to put, do we have to put the military option on the table?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Sean, I think you might be asking the wrong question, if I could be so bold as to suggest that. North Korea's not exactly holding the world hostage. We hold all the trump cards. Now, North Korea is, is bargaining. This is the way they're trying to get attention. We don't have to give them attention now. We can let them ratchet up the noise and continue to make provocations. Or we can very quietly and directly talk with North Korea.
Sean Hannity: But it- But let me-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Now I was part of the staff-
Sean Hannity: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -who prepared the discussions in 94, 95. I'm not sure where you were, but I know how we went through that process. No one coddled the North Koreans. No one trusted the North Koreans, but we had an alternative. We could either talk to the North Koreans, or we could escalate to war. Now, we've already got one combat action going on. I don't think the administration wants to escalate right now. So, we have to try to understand what the problem is and try to focus on how to resolve the problem. The problem is not that a missile is being fired. The problem is that the North Korean regime is continuing to develop nuclear materials and trying to get attention and trying to get support, and we have to take a measured response to that.
Sean Hannity: General, I, I, I-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: If we can't to it in the six-part framework, we're the leader of the free world, not China, and we need to do it directly with North Korea.
Sean Hannity: I, I would disagree with you as adamantly as I can in this respect. Every time one of those missile goes up into the air, the world does not know what is on that missile. The world does not know where that missile is going to end up. And you know, for example, Congress had a, a, a finding, if you go back, the North Korean, House North Korean advisory board, and they warned about the 94 agreement, General. And what they said, and what they predicted at the time was that if the 94 agreed framework was implemented, and in fact the light water reactors were eventually build in North Korea - This is the deal that you're talking about here - that the reactors could produce 500 kilograms of plutonium in spent reactor fuel each year, enough for nearly 100 bombs annually. And the only promise that was extracted as a result of that deal was that, alright, we're going to give you the technology, the fuel to run these things, just promise that you'll be, be a good dictator and that you'll tell the truth and that you'll never go forward with a nuclear program.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sean, that, that's not correct.
Sean Hannity: And that pro-, that promise was broken almost from day one.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That, that's not a correct characterization of the agreement.
Sean Hannity: Well, that that, that's the House North Korean Advisory Committee
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But rather than arguing about the past-
Sean Hannity: I read it verbatim.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That, that's not a correct description of the agreement. What the agreement actually did was forestall the crisis, and it froze the North Korean nuclear program, their reprocessing, for years. But this is not about laying political blame. What we need to do is solve a problem. To solve that problem we have to define the problem accurately. The problem is to deal with the government of North Korea. They're using the missile launchings as a bargaining.
Sean Hannity: So, they could blackmail us.
Alan Colmes: Hold on wait-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The more we focus on this, the greater power we give them.
Alan Colmes: Wait, gentleman. We have some breaking news here. Let's go to a Fox News Alert.
A senior US official tells Fox News that there's, quote, "Significant activity at the launch pad where North Korea tested its Taepodong II long-range ballistic missile." At this hour there's no firm indication that another missile launch in imminent, but officials tell Fox news that they would not be surprised to see another launch sometime soon. Officials have also confirmed that at least three short-range missiles are ready to launch, and such a test could happen fairly quickly. Again, we are watching this developing situation tonight. We'll keep you posted on more developments throughout the night. We now continue with Jock Kemp and General Wesley Clark.
This Taepodong II missile, the one that they tested the other day, Secretary Kemp, didn't do very well. It failed.
Jack Kemp: No it, it-
Alan Colmes: Are we not, you understand, should we not be that worried given how poorly that actually performed?
Jack Kemp: Well, I agree with General Clark to this extent. I think this is a time for strong diplomatic moves by the United States and particularly using the international community, and I want to go back to the fact that Putin is holding the G-8 for the first time that the G-7, the G-7 industrial democracies of the world have allowed Russia to host this meeting that starts July 15th. I think it's very important that we not only condemn this type of action by North Korea, but it's that the treat of sanctions are also hanging over North Korea. Kim Jong Il and his father Kim Il Sung, Kim Sung Il, they were both, every time wanted to get the world's attention, as the general pointed out-
Alan Colmes: Right.
Jack Kemp: - they would launch an, a missile attack or a missile launch, and that's what they're trying to do today.
Alan Colmes: That's what they're doing now, but it wasn't that successful. Was it? It didn't go as well as he would have liked.
Jack Kemp: But they're, they're working on it, and they're also working on the type of nuclear material that could be sold to terrorists. So, I think the world must act in concert and we've got to threaten, not only a strong condemnation, but sanctions against North Korea.
Alan Colmes: Secretary Clark (sic), I want point out, you were part of the 93, 94 agreements. You were there. Even Colin Powell said he gave credit to the previous administration for the plutonium, for their lack of development of plutonium-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's right.
Alan Colmes: -the fact that they delayed that development.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's right.
Alan Colmes: And that was part of the agreed framework.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's exactly right.
Alan Colmes: That probably delayed what might have happened-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's right.
Alan Colmes: Had there not been such an agreement.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But Jack Kemp is correct when he says that we need strong diplomatic condemnation of this. It's just that you can't deal it, deal with it only in the negative. You got to come back in. You've got to find an avenue to get the North Koreans out of the box that they, with their stubborn negotiating tactics, continue to put themselves in. You've got to find a way to take this forward in a diplomatic context, not just match threat with threat and, and escalate the tension. That's not the productive way to get out of this.
Alan Colmes: General Clark, should we be doing missile tests? We just did one over the Pacific. We've pulled out of treaties. Is that the way we should be behaving in a world that we want to see reduction in countries like North Korea. Is there anything we could be doing to prove that we also want to reduce our arsenal.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that there is a whole other discussion on the conduct of this administration in terms of its adherence to international law. But right now, I wouldn't want to do anything to take the focus away from the need to deal with the issue in North Korea.
Sean Hannity: Hey, let me, Ge-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And that requires positive and negative incentives.
Sean Hannity: Jack, I, I'm listening to the left in this country talk about this. We cannot allow the North Koreans to blackmail the United States of America by launching missiles into two-party talks. The person we admire the most as conservatives, Jack, Ronald Wilson Reagan. It's the antithesis of the model he created, and that is when there were literally thousands of ballistic missiles pointed at American cities, Reagan still challenged the Evil Empire. He still modernized our weapons in Europe and deployed Persian IIs. He still built up our military. He pursued SDI. He walked away from Reykjavik, and he sadi, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." It seems like people just, they're so timid and afraid these days, they, they seem to have forgotten what Reagan taught us, which is peace through strength.
Jack Kemp: I, I, I don't disagree with that I think there's times for personal talks, and Reagan did that with Gorby, and he also walked away from Reykjavik, as you pointed out, Sean. I think General Clark is right to this extent. Strong diplomacy should be used at this, at this point in time, but for us to have one on one talks with North Korea right now, in my opinion, would be to reward them for this act of provocation. We did it in the Clinton administration, with all due respect to the General, in 1994. They did it again in 2003. Both times-
Sean Hannity: Yeah.
Jack Kemp: The father and the son broke the agreement, and now is time to put more pressure on them-
Sean Hannity: We-
Jack Kemp: -through China and through Russia.
Sean Hannity: You, you, you mentioned, Jack, earlier the G-8. You talked about Putin. You talked about, about the Chinese and, and, I've, I've got to wonder, wouldn't a far more effective tactic in dealing with them in the art of war be to arm the Japanese. First of all, give them the ability strategic defense, so that a missile is launched that they can stop it. And secondly, let the North Koreans know that the Japanese will in fact arm, and they would be ready for an attack and they'd be able to counter it. The, the the- somehow, I think a message has got to be sent that the world is not going to tolerate or be intimidated by a country that I believe, Gen, the General is wrong, is holding is hostage here or trying to hold the world hostage.
Jack Kemp: Sean, my hope is that Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, this weekend in Beijing, is going to warn the Chinese that if they keep allowing this North Korean nuclear arms program to go forward, it's going to force Japan to militarize and ultimately become a nuclear-
Sean Hannity: Right.
Jack Kemp: -capable nation. And number two, I think we also have to step up missile defense. We sending-
Sean Hannity: Yes.
Jack Kemp: We're sending Patriot missile to Japan to be placed on Okinawa. So, we need that technology at this time in the history of our nation and the West.
Sean Hannity: John, Jack, I, I know I speak for a lot of conservatives. They watched what happened with Putin and China this week as predictable as what happened with Iraq, as ineffective as they are in dealing with the situation in Iran and Ahmadinejad, and once again a lot of people raise the question, this is, not only has it been historically an anti-Semitic organization, but also-
Jack Kemp: Yeah, they are.
Sean Hannity: -an anti-American organization, one that is inept and ineffective at dealing with any world crisis. Is that an accurate description of the current United Nations?
Jack Kemp: You're half right. The United Nations, this week was approached by the Bush administration to work on a concordat between the Iraqi government and the United Nations and the United States to help bring an end to the insurgency and to help ultimately rebuild Iraq, and we've got to do that, not only in Iraq, but ultimately in Afghanistan. I'm worried that we're losing Afghanistan to Taliban, at least on the border of Pakistan.
Alan Colmes: Secretary-
Jack Kemp: So, this is a very dangerous time.
Alan Colmes: Secretary Kemp, General Clark.
Jack Kemp: We have to use every diplomatic tool.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Jack Kemp is exactly right about the loss in Afghanistan. We've got to get strategies that work in the world. We need an administration that's competent in foreign affairs.
Alan Colmes: We thank you both very much for being with us tonight.
Jack Kemp: Thank you.
