Wes Clark Keynotes Warren Co, Iowa Democratic Dinner

September 30, 2006
Photos and video courtesy of Ruth Olive

This threat briefing that the President gave on Islamo-fascist-salafist trying to create a caliphate? It was sophomoric.

Every lieutenant in the army, captain and sergeant first class could have given the same threat briefing. They could have given it in 1928, '38, '48, '58, '68, '78. These are old ideas. There's about 50,000 people out there aligned with Osama bin Laden. Not one government supports Osama bin Laden. It's NOT World War III. Unless we make it that way. Unless we make it that way. ...

Thank you very much. Don, thank you for that kind introduction and I am just so honored to be here with you. Democrats in Warren County Iowa. It's a great party and I have to tell you, I listened as all the candidates spoke... and Selden, I want to thank you for going over there to Afghanistan, for taking a look at it, for taking your time, for putting your neck on the line and for being with our troops over there. I think Selden Spencer is going to be a great Congressman and we've got to get him elected.

(applause)

And I was really impressed with Patty Judge. I know Chet Culver.... I know his father, and I just agreed with everything she said. She and Chet have exactly the right platform, they're saying exactly the right things and they'll make Iowa a great state for America and for the people of Iowa.

(applause)

Stacey, Maxine, Marvin, Kevin, Brian, Rhonda, Mark and Allen weren't here. It really looks like a great slate. And I'm really proud to be a Democrat. You know, a lot of people say, "Now, why would you be a Democrat?" I have to admit, you know, I did have 34 years in uniform, I grew up as a kid in Arkansas, I went to West Point at 17, I learned how to shoot a pistol when I was 7 years old. My stepfather took me out there. His brother fought in the first World War. We had a 45 caliber pistol and my dad put it in my hand, and showed me how to hold it and threw the beer can out into the creek and, he said, "Just squeeze that trigger, just squeeze it." And that big pistol goes "BOOM!" and I did learn how to do that. We've got about, a bunch of guns in our house, but that doesn't make me a Republican.

(laughter and applause)

The truth is that anybody who was a good leader in the military ought to be a Democrat. And I'll tell you why. Because in the military we believe in taking care of people. We believe in the United States Army ... the motto was .... "Be all you can be" and that meant if you were a leader in the military, you had to take care of the people and help them be all they can be. That's the troops, the families, the wives, the spouses, the kids. That's making sure the schools systems on post are good school systems. Making sure the hospitals work. Making sure the emergency clinic is functional. Making sure the doctors have the right attitude. Making sure the library is open when the kids need it. Making sure the commissary has got the right food and the right baby formula. Making sure the post engineers repair the potholes. Holding town hall meetings. Making the irrigation systems work.

I've done all that. And so have most of the other people in the United States Armed Forces.

We did it, we loved doing it, we believed in it. And there's only one political party in America that takes care of people like that's OUR party. The DEMOCRATIC party.

(applause)

But Selden and Patty were right. I'm going to talk about something else than raising the minimum wage, and good schools and health care and energy independence and ethanol and all the other things that are near and dear to my heart as well, because we are a country at war today and we can't forget. I had dinner with Greg Stall and his family sitting right here. He fought, as a US Army Reserve officer, in the first Persian Gulf War, he's a major in the Reserves right now. He's come back from 2 tours in Iraq, and he's changing units and his, his next unit's already on the books to go again in 2009.

We are at war. We've got 140,000 troops on the ground in Iraq. We've got another 30,000 in Kuwait backing them up. We've got 20,000 troops in Afghanistan. We are stretched flat out.

This talk about "maybe we could put a few more troops over there". It's academic, ladies and gentlemen.

The volunteer army is working as hard as it can work. The families are being stretched and squeezed, and separated and punished about as much as they can be punished. And frankly, if Congress gave us enough money to raise another 100,000 troops, which is what we need, we couldn't get 'em.

We're a country at war. Now I know the President hasn't asked us to sacrifice, in fact, he asked us to go shopping. He cut taxes for wealthy people and he's worried about the price of gasoline because that seems to be the most important thing on his mind to correlate to reelection. But I want to tell you this country is at the precipice of a national security disaster.

Just a disaster.

Because with the United States Armed Forces stretched the way they are -- the Army and the Marine Corps -- we're not close to a solution to Iraq. We've got Iran pushing us and trying to get a nuclear weapon at the same time. We've got Israel still fighting the Palestinians. We've got the North Koreans who have basically ignored the United States -- gone ahead and reprocessed the spent uranium fuel, and made a.... They're getting ready to make another set of nuclear weapons. They've got 8-10 now. After they take those uranium fuel rods out of the nuclear reactor and reprocess that fuel, separate the plutonium from it, they'll be able to make another 8 or 10 weapons.

And Osama bin Laden is still on the loose.

The number of terrorists has gone from around 20,000 affiliated with al Queda in 2001 to around 50,000 today. We are NOT winning the war on terror. We are failing. We are failing in Iraq and we're failing in Afghanistan. We're on the verge of a national security disaster in this country.

Now you wouldn't know it by listening to the President of the United States. He plays 'Hide the Pea" under 3 thimbles.

You know, he's got the Iraq thimble, and that's "going really well" when there's a problem with terrorism, but "don't worry about it, things in Iraq are gettin' better" you know Iraq's going to be a "heck of a country". And if things go bad over there, "Hey, you know we've got those 14 top people from al Queda", and "uh, remember America hadn't been struck yet". And when that's, when that's not going so well, then something else he pulls out of the hat.

He's not telling the truth to the American people and I don't even know if he's telling to truth to himself.

I fought in Vietnam ...

(applause)

... I fought in Vietnam, I came home on a stretcher and I did what I could do in the years afterwards to try to learn the lessons from that war. I learned about military art, from the platoon level to the White House. I've served at every level. And I can tell you we're on the brink of a national security disaster.

We're also on the brink of the third time in 3 election cycles that this failing administration is trying to use National Security to beat up the Democratic Party and win the election for his team. It is not . Going . To happen . Now!

Now let's get some facts straight. What exactly happened. What has gone wrong. Why are we in the mess we're in. Let me tell you in a nutshell my interpretation of it.

In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, we won the Cold War. I was a one-star general out at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin and we were training our troops. And we were bringing our troops out - we'd bring a battalion, two battalions and a brigade headquarters out every month. We'd put them through their paces. And they were fighting against a Soviet-style force. And in the spring of 1990, a German one-star came over from the German Army and he visited all the Army posts in America. He said "Hey fellas, the Cold War's over" and we're like "It is?" He said, "It's, it's over. The Berlin Wall is down. Germany's going to be unified by December of 1990 and the Russian troops are going to leave East Germany. And probably, pull back all the way to the Soviet Union."

I called Army Intelligence of course, in Washington and said "Hey, this German guy, he says Germany is going to be unifying because the Cold War is over and, uh... is he right?" And they said "Not a chance." But that just goes to show you, the German guy was right. The Cold War was over. We won, but when we won, we lost America's strategy.

We put our strategy together in the aftermath of the Second World War. It was put together by a Democrat -- Harry Truman. He was one tough customer. When Greece was being attacked by Communist guerillas, he provided assistance. When the United States needed strength to confront the growing threat of the Soviet Union, he provided us strength. When the Russians blockaded Berlin, he ordered an airlift. And when the North Koreans crossed the demilitarized zone at the 38th parallel, Harry Truman sent MacArthur to Korea and told him to fight.

Eisenhower was elected President, he extended the strategy. It was a strategy of deterrence. Building up forces so the Soviets couldn't attack us and containing them on the periphery of the Soviet and Chinese Communist empires. We fought in Korea, we've fought in Vietnam, but we've never fought directly against the Soviets or the Chinese. We maintained our freedom and we never used those 6000 nuclear warheads. We never did. And in 1989, it was over. In 1991, the Soviet Union itself collapsed -- broke up into 11 different countries. We won the Cold War. And it was a strategy put in place by Democrats -- and we won.

Now people will tell you "It was Ronald Reagan. He talked tough" -- it wasn't Ronald Reagan. He followed the same strategy that Harry Truman had laid out in the late 1940s for 40 years and it worked. But after we won the Cold War, we lost our strategy. It just wasn't applicable. I went to Washington in 1994. I was Director of Strategic Plans and Policies in the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In that job, I traveled back and forth across the Potomac every day from the Pentagon to the White House. My job was to look at military planning and how it fit with our strategic objectives. And I went there thinking to myself -- I'd a division commander at Ft. Hood, Texas -- think to myself "Why do we even have an Army? It's 1994, the Soviet Union's gone. I mean, think about this, think about the big picture. You know, it's a couple of hundred billion dollars a year, do we really need to spend it for America? I mean, why do we really need that Army?"

So the first weekend I was there. On Friday night I left the office, and there was an invasion of Africa by the Belgians and French. It was the start of the war in Rwanda, in which 800,000 Rwandans were hacked to death by machetes. On Saturday, I was called into the office of the Secretary of Defense, we were getting ready to go to Korea, I was going to get to go with Secretary Perry.... and I thought we were going to look at the US Military and stuff.... No, no, no, no... We had discovered that North Korea was about to produce nuclear weapons and we were talking about going to war to strike North Korea if they reprocessed those spent uranium fuel rods to create nuclear weapons.

President Clinton was drawing a redline. He said "NO NUKES IN KOREA" and he meant it. And on Sunday I was called back in to go to the White House for a meeting and this was about the air war in Yugoslavia. I realized, I guess... I couldn't keep it straight... I was down at Ft. Hood and was trying to read the newspaper and there were Croats and (unintelligible) Muslims and Christians and some people called them "Crotes" and some people called them "Cro - ats" and there were Serbian Croats, and Croatian Serbians and Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Muslims and it was so confusing I didn't get it until I sat there in the White House situation room and watched the Secretary of State, the Vice President, the Security of Defense, the National Security Advisor, the Deputy National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all of the talking about air tactics and radars and how to shoot down Serb airplanes, and what was the Law of War. And for 3 hours I sat there trying to follow this. Then I realized, they were talking fighter pilot talk and there wasn't a fighter pilot in the room. It was the darndest thing I'd ever seen.

And on Monday, I got a visit from .... and he said -- he knocked on the door and he said, "Sir, I'm Brigadier General Hill," he said, "I work for ... I've been gone last week, but I, I need to tell you something. I'm not allowed to tell you this is a secret, compartmented plan, but since I'm working for you, I feel I have to tell you. We're planning on invading Haiti." I said "Okay, let me get this straight. We got war and revolution in Rwanda, we're getting ready to go to war with North Korea, we're fighting a war in the Balkans and we're going to invade .... Haiti..." It was the darndest thing I'd ever seen. And people all over the country were asking "What's the strategy, what's the strategy, what's the strategy?"

After about 6 weeks, General Shalikashvili, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he said "Wes:. He said, "We have hired you" in his Polish accent "We have hired you to be the strategist because you are supposed to be so smart." He said. "So what is this strategy that us in a crisis every week?" It was a trick question, because there was no strategy. And he knew it.

Eventually, we put together a strategy. It was a strategy called "Engagement and Enlargement". And it was about supporting our friends and reinforcing our allies and helping bring peace and security and enlarging the perimeter of democracy in the world. If you just heard the title "Engagement and Enlargement" you'd think today it was an advertisement for a men's pharmaceutical product.

(laughter)

It never caught on with the American people. And during the 1990s, I think Bill Clinton did a great job as our Commander in Chief. When our World Trade Center was attacked, we didn't start a war, we actually did an investigation, found the perpetrators, arrested them, brought them to trial, convicted them and they are in American jails today.

When there was fighting in Africa, we sent a 1000-man taskforce to deliver supplies and relieve the humanitarian suffering. I wish we'd done more in Rwanda, and so does Bill Clinton. And I was there, and I watched it and watched our failure, and that was what gave me the resolution to do what I had to do later in the Balkans and I think it probably did the same thing for President Clinton. Because, we realized a war that killed 250,000 people in Yugoslavia, made 2 million homeless, and Bill Clinton stopped that war. Diplomacy and a little bit of force, and President Slobodan Milosovic said, "Oh, General Clark, this is not fair." He said, "Your NATO with your missiles, you attack Serb forces. We cannot stand against you, we must have peace."

And we had peace. And 3 years later, when Milosovic decided he'd start a fourth war in the Balkans, we stopped him. We stopped him with a 78-day air campaign. We stopped him with the threat of ground troops and we stopped him with diplomacy. And at the end of 78 days, we broke his will, we saved 1.8 million Albanians who went back to their homes. Now all of this was done with not the loss of a single American life in combat. Bill Clinton was an extraordinarily able Commander in Chief.

(applause)

By the way, at the same time, we attacked Saddam Hussein , we finished off the remnants of his weapons of mass destruction in 1998. We DID strike at Osama bin Laden and probably Clinton (as he said the other night on television), he probably tried a half dozen times to take out Osama bin Laden. He failed to do that. But he tried. And he warned George Bush when he came to office what the real threat to America was. It wasn't China, it wasn't North Korean missiles, we didn't need to make the top priority a theater missile and national missile defense program. What we needed to do -- and Clinton and his team -- told this to the incoming administration. We needed to focus on the threat from Osama bin Laden.

The warning was given, and it was ignored by George W. Bush. He was asleep at the switch. He didn't call meetings, he didn't produce a national strategy, he didn't alert the allies, he didn't do a thing extraordinary.

You know in the United States Navy, when you're the commander of an aircraft carrier, and you're docking in San Francisco, and it's got some pretty strong currents, and you don't do anything extraordinary -- you just sort of let the aircraft carrier drift and it runs aground. They don't even do an investigation. They don't care if you're on the bridge, asleep in your stateroom or on leave in Kansas -- YOU"RE FIRED. You're derelict in duty. Our President didn't do enough before 9-11.

Ladies and gentlemen, he was derelict in his duties as Commander in Chief.

(applause)

They used 9-11 to embark on this cockamamie notion of invading a bunch of countries in the Middle East to change their governments. They used weapons of mass destruction as an excuse.

Let me tell you, in 1991 when I was a one-star general at the National Training Center, I had to go back to Washington on a visit and I paid a courtesy call on Secretary... on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and then went upstairs and paid a courtesy call on Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. Nineteen-ninety one (1991). I said, "Mr. Secretary, congratulations on the Gulf War." He said, "Thanks, but not really, " he said, "because we let Saddam Hussein get away." I didn't say anything. I wasn't in the Gulf War, I was in Ft. Irwin, California at the, as the commanding general of the National Training Center. Wolfowitz said, he said ,"You know," he said, "Some people think Saddam's going to be overthrown. I know" he said, "our President thinks that, but I don't think so." He says, "In fact, we failed." He said, "But we've got a window. We learned that the Soviets won't use force against us when we use force. We can now use our military," he said. "And we've got a window -- an opportunity -- of 5, 10 years, maybe more... to go into the Middle East in force and clean out these old Soviet client states -- these Soviet surrogate regimes -- like Iraq and Syria before the next great superpower comes along and bring the Middle East over to our side.

I listened to him. I just said sort of, "Oh,yessir" and walked out. So I thought to myself, "Well, that certainly is a strategic nugget." Think of that. We're going to embark on a campaign of cleaning up the military, cleaning up the Middle East by invading countries, knocking over their governments, taking over. Goodness gracious."

I. um, I walked out of the office in 1991, and it was like a time warp. That's what they did after 9-11. They put the plan in place.

I was in the Joint Chiefs of Staff 10 days after 9-11, and a 3-star general said to me, "Sir, come into my office." I said, "No, you're too busy." He said, "Sir, come in. Close the door." He said, "Sir, I have to tell you this." He said. "We're going to invade Iraq." This is 10 days after 9-11. I said, "Why? Did they find some type of linkage with Saddam Hussein?" He said, "No, sir." He said," I don't know why." He said," I guess they don't know what to do about terrorism. But they know that the Army can, we can invade Iraq and take down his government." He said, "I guess it's like the old saw, you know, if all you've got is a hammer, then every problem's got to look like a nail."

(audience laughter)

I came back about 6 weeks later. I didn't want to, you know, overstay my welcome in the Pentagon as a retired officer and we were at that time, bombing in Afghanistan. I went back to see that same general. I said, "So tell, me, um, are we still going to go into Iraq?" He said, "Oh Sir, it's worse, it's worse than that." Then he picked up a piece of paper on his desk. He says, "Ah, here's a, this is a memo I just got from the 3rd floor (meaning the Office of the Secretary of Defense) that outlines a 5-year campaign strategy. We're going to go first into Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and then Iran. Five years, seven countries." I said, "Is that classified?" He said, "Oh, yes sir." I said, "Then don't show it to me."

(audience laughter)

Ladies and gentlemen, they lied to us. They haven't told us the truth. They didn't level with the American people. They haven't leveled with us about the difficulties that are there. They've been incompetent. Didn't put enough troops in. Didn't have the right mission. Didn't plan for what was going to happen afterwards. They've starved Afghanistan for resources where we could have achieved success and now we're in a failing mission there.

They actually believe that the major obstacle to success in Iraq is the American people. Can you imagine? They think we're the obstacle to success. If they can just keep us from knowing the truth, they think they can win. It's the most cockamamie, crazy, undemocratic notion I've ever heard in 38 years years of following national security. They don't deserve to be in office and we are going to throw them out starting in THIS election in 2006.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have to do this!

This is more important than healthcare, education, a minimum wage or energy independence. We've got to get these people out before they take American over the precipice.

This threat briefing that the President gave on Islamo-fascist-salafist trying to create a caliphate? It was sophomoric.

Every lieutenant in the army, captain and sergeant first class could have given the same threat briefing. They could have given it in 1928, '38, '48, '58, '68, '78. These are old ideas. There's about 50,000 people out there aligned with Osama bin Laden. Not one government supports Osama bin Laden. It's NOT World War III. Unless we make it that way. Unless we make it that way.

An that's my greatest concern. If we don't get our Democrats in office, around America and in the Congress in Washington, this administration is going to take us to war with Iran, and try to start a war with a billion people. People of the Islamic faith. There's no reason to do it. In my view. There's a solution to the problem we face.

I say, let's talk with people we don't agree with. We should right now, be talking with the government of Iran, the government of Syria, and I'm talking about face-to-face talks at senior levels of government. Not outsourcing it.

I'd like to tell you this administration was too cowardly to talk with people it doesn't agree with. But of course, that's not true. It's not cowardice. What they still harbor is the intent to attack the governments of Syria and Iran and therefore they block any diplomatic dialog. And the consequence has been that they dump the problem of Iraq on our good men and women in uniform and they force them to try to treat it as a military problem when it is not applicable.

A military solution will not work in Iraq. You've got to have a diplomatic solution, a political solution, and you've got to use your military as leverage.

You can't win it by killing people in Iraq. It's not that kind of a struggle.

So, what I learned in 34 years of uniformed service, commanding a company, and a battalion, and a brigade and a division. Watching a lot of people go through the process is that: People at microphones, they don't win battles. They don't. I know you all know about General Patton and Eisenhower.... MacArthur. Most of you have seen the movie "Patton". You've seen Patton stand up on that stage with the American flag behind him and give that speech with that little helmet liner, that shiny helmet liner with his stars and saying, "I'm not asking you to die for your country. I'm asking you to get that other poor SOB to die for HIS country." Or words to that effect.

It's a powerful speech, but you know what? Generals and colonels don't win battles. They're won by the soldiers. By the person driving the truck, manning the bulldozer, fueling the tank, aiming the rifle, loading the artillery piece. There are men and women who are working under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, in fear, uncertainty, lack of knowledge. And they do their job. And they do it better than the enemy does it. And that's why they win. The generals, the captains -- they can lose a battle or they can set the conditions for success, but they can't win it. That winning's done at the bottom.

We're coming up on one of the most important elections in American history. You've got a fine slate of candidates in Iowa and I'm very proud to be associated with them. But they can't win this elect. Not Chet Culver, not Patty Judge, not Selden Spencer, not any of our candidates. They can't win it. They're not going to lose it, but for them to win it, YOU have to do that. You have to do it by being there. You've got to make the phone calls, knock on the doors, make the converts. We're all proud to be Democrats, but I don't care if we're going after Republicans. I'm in favor of every Republican who votes for us.

(audience laughter and applause)

Look, this is a matter of national security. This is a national priority. It's the most important thing government does. To protect our country, our citizens, and right now we've got a government that's failing in its most fundamental duty. If democracy's going to work, if we're going to save this country that so many men and women have fought and died for we have to make that democracy work and we have to make it work this November. This is the time, this year -- 2006. In this county, in Warren County, Iowa. It's not about Washington, DC, that fight's here. It's with your neighbors who aren't reading the tea leaves, they're not focused on the country. They're busy... people have got busy lives. People aren't standing in breadlines, bombs aren't falling, but this country is in danger. And I'm calling on you, each and every one of you, and your families to open your hearts to the mission at hand and give it your 100% best for America, for our flag, for the men and women who have died for this country.

They need your help to save this democracy.

Thank you.