General Wesley Clark on Fox News

October 8, 2006
Transcript by Melange

Trace Gallagher: And for countless months we have been told we have two options on Iraq: cut and run or stay the course. But there is a third option, apparently - that is to federalize the nation of Iraq. That is to divide the country into three parts. Richard Perle is the former assistant Secretary of Defense and one of the key planners behind the war in Iraq. He spoke with Fox News Live last hour and is not in favor of this idea. Listen.

<clip of Richard Perle>

Richard Perle: If you did divide Iraq into three national entities, they would almost certainly be in conflict with one another across national lines rather than internally. At the moment there's a great deal of violence in Iraq of course but it isn't organized along the lines that it would be organized if the country were divided so I think it would make matters worse and not better.

(VIDEO BEGINS)

Trace Gallagher: And General Wesley Clark is a Fox News Analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and General, I guess I find the thought of the fact that they'd be in conflict across nati…international lines or on country lines versus the internal conflict - it's kind of one in the same, is it not?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think you have to take two additional factors into consideration. One is that we don't…I don't believe we want to be the ones proposing this. The Iraqis are going to have to decide themselves how to survive. They've got to get along with each other whether there are borders in between that divide nations or borders that divide provinces or streets that divide Sunnis and Shias, or walls and houses. They've still got to get along with each other because there's no ocean that's going to appear between them. And secondly the process of doing this…can you imagine all these people being thrown out of their homes, chased down the street and having it 'made in America'? Why would we want to bring that on ourselves? We've got to work politically to help the Iraqis come to their own solution, not one made in America.

Trace Gallagher: The question would be then General, how long do we wait? How long do we keep troops in there while waiting for Iraqis to come to some sort of agreement and try and come to this solution? I mean, how long do we stay before somebody somewhere has to come up with a solution that is workable, feasible and something that could be accomplished in a limited amount of time?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well President Bush says we have to stay in there for years and years and years and years so I don't know that anybody's got a definite answer but I'll tell you what we need to do. We need to work at three levels. We need to have our diplomats and our national leaders talking to the leaders of other countries in the region. Countries that we don't like, included, like Iran and Syria. Secondly, we need to be working politically with the Iraqis. And third, our military has to not only provide security and training but it has to provide us some leverage so that we can get the Iraqis to stop killing each other and start working for a solution to their…what are political problems. This is not a war that can be won militarily but it could be lost militarily. We have to be able to help the Iraqis make their own solution. It's not a matter of a timeline, it's a matter of having the courage to have the right strategy.

Trace Gallagher: But you know General, we've got cops…Iraqi cops, that are now turning out to be crooked. We have death squads running rampant over there. Is it your sense the Iraqis want this say as badly as they wanted it a year or two years ago?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think you've got 25-30 million people in Iraq who want to live. They want to live in peace. They want the same things people want everywhere. They want a home, they want a family, they want their kids to have an education and a chance for a future. That's universal among mankind - that's what they want.

Trace Gallagher: But does living in peace General, necessarily mean democracy? Does living in peace mean democracy or can they say 'you know what, we'll settle for something that is quick and allows us to live in peace sooner than later'?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it was never my vision that we'd have a Jeffersonian democracy there but I do know that the President was extolling that Iraq is a model for democracy. A number of us warned that this wasn't actually likely to be feasible, that the invasion of Iraq wasn't necessary - it was an elective war. Now we're in there. What we need to do is let…work with the Iraqis, work with the neighbors and find the right way out. There is a way through this that will hold Iraq together as a state, will reduce the killing and will prevent Iraq from becoming a threat to its neighbors again. Dividing it in three parts, 'made in America' - that's not the way.

Trace Gallagher: General Wesley Clark. General, thank you very much.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.