General Wes Clark on Fox News

July 17, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC

Bill Hemmer: In the meantime, let's talk military strategy on behalf of Hizbullah with General Wesley Clark, by guest now from back in the station. General, thank you for your time. There's one thing I'm curious to know about. Based on military strategy, if you're running Hizbullah at this point, and you have this flurry of rockets that may be capable of going further than thirty or thirty five miles, perhaps you can even hit Tel Aviv, which is well over seventy miles downrange, would you have fired that missile right now or are you holding that as your trump card?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Probably would like to hold it a little bit longer as a trump card, but Bill, I think Hizbullah is also probably in the, in a scramble trying to redeploy assets. The information I have indicates that Hizbullah did not anticipate this strong an Israeli reaction. We know they're scrambling to get their leadership protected. They've had their headquarters hit. So, normal command and control procedures are out. You can imagine the, the, their organization is reeling somewhat, and the Israeli artillery and air strikes in the South of Lebanon are targeting their firing positions, targeting their storage bunkers. They're probably, the sky over Southern Lebanon is probably full of unmanned aerial vehicles that are reporting with television to the Israelis, monitoring the, the battle space there. So, Hizbullah is, is being pushed back here, figuratively, and they'd like to hold that trump card a little bit longer I think.

Bill Hemmer: General, yesterday the Israeli spokesperson telling us in the afternoon that they believe they are desperate now and in hiding. Based on your response, I get the suggestion that you agree with that. Do you?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that they certainly want to protect their organization. The question really is: How effective is the Israeli targeting? Do they have enough unmanned aerial vehicles? Do they have any Special Forces on the ground? Can they really see the enemy? Do they know were the leaders live? If you can't get the top leaders in Beirut because they've been evacuated somewhere, can you get the second and third tier down? What would be ideal, of course, is for the Israelis to actually go in and get these people and put them on trial. This is a terrorist organization. It has no place in the Lebanese government, and the Lebanese government needs to take action against this terrorist organization, but in the absence of that capability, Israel's doing what it has to do.

Bill Hemmer: Yeah. I'm anticipating your answer in this one. I want to ask you anyway. Last Thursday, the Israelis are reporting that they received about 300 different rockets in one day, and since that time, they've gone down considerably, even to maybe a dozen on Saturday, maybe upwards of thirty on Sunday. Is that a suggestion that Hizbullah is holding its hand, or is that a suggestion that the Israeli military is having massive effect and impact on Hizbullah now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you have to read that as that is the effectiveness of the Israeli attack, that it's much more difficult now for the Hizbullah to be able to bring that number of rockets to bear. They simply can't get them out of the bunkers, can't set them up without Israeli artillery and observation and, and aircraft striking those formations. And so, they've had to disperse. They've has to scale down their operations in order to protect what they can of the organization. It doesn't mean they don't have a trump card somewhere, though.

Bill Hemmer: General, the question of the day is the same question we were asking on Saturday and on Sunday this weekend. How does this end?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think the, the right way for it to end is for the Lebanese government to take up its responsibilities to deploy forces in the South, along with the accompanying social services that are needed, these schools and the clinics and so forth and really take control of the Southern part of its own country. That's the way it should end.

Bill Hemmer: General, thank you. Wesley Clark is my guest-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.

Bill Hemmer: -military affairs correspondent with us, military analyst, I should say, better way of phrasing it, and a former head of NATO several years ago. General, thank you and we'll talk again.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.