General Wesley Clark joins the Bax and O'Brien Morning Show on WAQY

October 6, 2006
transcript by Melange

Host: We talked to Senator Ted Kennedy earlier this week. He had been campaigning for Ned Lamont in Connecticut. Another guy who is also campaigning for Lamont is General Wesley Clark. Good morning General, how are you?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Just fine, thank you.

Host: Thanks for being on the show, we appreciate it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Great to be here, love that music.

Host: Oh, well somebody's got to. <laughter> General Clark commanded the Operation Allied force, NATO's first major combat action, saving 1.5 milion Albanians in Kosovo and responsible for the peacekeeping operation in Bosnia. What've you been doing since? <laughter>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Business, politics, media and now I'm associated academically with UCLA in addition. It's been a full life. I'm trying to help do public service. I still believe in Duty, Honor, Country and I'm up here today in Connecticut campaigning for Ned Lamont.

Host: Now, we've been seeing you on tv for the last several years, you ran for president back in the last election. You're getting a really cool website - securingamerica.com. Uh, you've been very critical of the Bush administration, how they've handled this war and obviously you're a guy with a tremendous amount of experience in war and about combat and trying to figure out how to get through the disaster of war. What do you think is the biggest problem the Bush administration has had from the beginning here?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It came in with a fixed idea of what the solution was. It was just looking for problems to apply the fixed solution to. After 9/11 the Bush administration was looking for a country to invade and they picked Iraq and they never devoted the resources to it.

And I want to say personally, I've known Joe Lieberman for a long time and I've been very disappointed that he's gone right along with the Bush administration. He's a guy who had tremendous background. He was over in Europe all the time and frankly when I was NATO commander, I thought he understood what was going on, but I guess he didn't because he didn't ask the tough questions. He didn't help the country get the right foreign policy and the right security policy. Instead he's been part of this sort of rubberstamp Republican Congress.

Host: General, when you say the administration after 9/11 was looking for a country to attack and they picked Iraq, I kind of think of it as the other way around. I think they were looking to attack Iraq and they used 9/11 as an excuse to do it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, both are true. I was in the Pentagon about a week after 9/11 and talked to my friends - the generals who are on the Joint Staff and they told me…they said the administration's already made its mind up to attack Iraq and I said 'why…why' and they said…the general who was there and who knew what was going on, he's right on the inside of everything. He said 'well, there doesn't seem to be a good reason…I said 'did they find [a connection] with Saddam Hussein' he said 'no, there's no linkage with Saddam Hussein and 9/11,' he said 'but they don't know what to do about terrorism' he said 'but I guess you know if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail and we've got a great military, we can invade and take down Saddam's
army and they're just looking for something strong to do.' I think that was part of it. I think the other part of it was there actually was a plan - to sort of use military power in the Middle East, starting with Iraq, going into Syria, going into Libya, going into Lebanon and maybe even going into Iran later on.

Host: You know, I was never in the military so I don't know how the military mindset…and I don't understand <crosstalk>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There isn't a military mindset.

Host: <laughter> Well, when you hear about these retired generals - and even some active generals sometimes, criticizing the way the administration handled the war and the post-war plan and also criticizing Rumsfeld, and obviously that's why we have a civilian Defense Secretary but why is it supposedly unpatriotic for either an active general or even a retired military person to criticize the Defense Department and the Pentagon?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, they are two entirely different things. When you're active duty, you take a…you raise your hand, you take the oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the orders of the officers that are appointed over you, and that means the President. He is your Commander in Chief and if you've got criticisms to make when you're on active duty, you need to make them within the chain of command and if you don't want to do it within the chain of command, there's an Inspector General you can go to. But, you're supposed to stay on the inside. If you want to criticize publicly, it's your duty to get out of uniform. Now once you're retired, you're out of uniform. You're just like everybody else with one difference - you have had experience. And so I think you have
a special obligation to give that experience to the American public when you're retired.

Host: General Wesley Clark is on the phone. You know, we've been hearing for years about, you know…what to do with terrorism. The Bush administration has one solution. What I find is I don't find the Democrats are coming up with solutions other than to criticize George W. Bush. I mean, in your estimation, how do you combat terrorism? What do you do?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, before I answer that question, I'll tell you there's just lots and lots of Democratic ideas and solutions. What you're giving me is the Republican party talking points. I hope you know that because this is what the Republicans say: “you Democrats don't have a plan.” In fact, Democrats have got lots of plans. I've written a whole book on it and so have other people. You must start with learning the mettle of ideas. You must promote the kinds of economic and social and political developments the bring people into government and help governments meet their people's needs - all over the world. You must use law enforcement and intelligence and only as a last resort use your military forces. Only as a last, last, last resort. I think the Bush administration has
it upside down.

Host: I apologize General. My partner's been spouting that kind of propaganda crap for months now. <laughter>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you! Thank you!

Host: You know we can't all agree, can we General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well look. The point is the Democrats aren't in office to put forward a single, coordinated plan. People give their ideas, somebody agrees with 90% of it, he gives another idea - there's no way of…and you can't get most of the media to listen because whenever the president makes a speech, he gets full prime-time tv coverage. When Democrats make speeches, they get a snippet here and a snippet there and it's hard for people to understand there is another view out there.

Host: Well, but don't forget also you get these tiny little morning radio shows in places like Springfield Massachusetts too which isn't bad. <laughter> General, obviously as a career military guy, can you say…who I'm sure is also a war historian, is it safe to say that whatever administration has been in place at any given time during war, there has been a level of misinformation given to the public?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't know about that, honestly and I don't think it's relevant. I think the point is the administration says this is a long war against terrorism. Well I don't believe you can win a war against terrorism if you give up the very values that your country stands for. <crosstalk>

Host: No, what I mean…

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I'm saying freedom of information, public dialogue, democracy, protection for individual rights - those ideas and beliefs are our principal weapon in the war against terror. You can't surrender those and win.

Host: But in the war…like in the war in Iraq when you have you know the President or the Vice President saying that the insurgency is in its last throes and the death toll is lowering and then you have a National Intelligence Estimate that says it's not only worse now than it's been, it's going to be worse next year and then people start to say well that's because the White House is lying to us. Does that…

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that's true. I agree with that statement.

Host: Does it happen to a certain extent in every war, with every administration?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No.

Host: It doesn't? Nobody ever lied to us?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't think so. There may be things that are known privately that aren't disclosed publicly but this administration believes that somehow they can win in Iraq if they can keep the American people from knowing the truth. They think the American people's knowledge of what's going on in Iraq is the biggest obstacle to winning. I think that's crazy. I mean, the real obstacle to winning is what we've done in Iraq and failed to do in Iraq and in the region. We won't talk to people in the region. We haven't put our efforts into the political side of what's going on in Iraq. All we've done is use our military. Our military people are wonderful, the generals are real smart and they're the first ones privately to tell you that they need more help - not more troops, more help.
More leadership from Washington, more diplomacy in the region.

Host: General, I want to ask you about Iran here for a minute. You know we had the President of Iran come to New York, talk to the UN. There seems to be a lot of people very scared about what Iran is capable of doing, what they want to do with nuclear weapons or nuclear technology but they don't seem to want to be…it almost seems like no one wants to get too deep involved in this because I think they're just afraid of what this guy is capable of doing. Do you think that we are at the point where diplomacy is probably out the window and some sort of action in Iran is inevitable?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think this administration, or there are elements of this administration that want to bomb Iran. And you know what, they've wanted to bomb Iran for a long time. They've sought regime change for a long time. No, I don't think diplomacy's out the window. I don't think it should be. We haven't even started diplomacy. This administration hasn't even talked to Iran and until it talks to Iran, we as Americans - the greatest power in the world, the most powerful economy, the greatest military, the greatest values, in my view. We don't know what the Iranians really want. We don't know whether it's possible to dissuade them from proceeding toward nuclear weapons. Now the Iranians have had a bad demonstration - they saw that a country that didn't have nukes got invaded, they
saw another country halfway around the world that did have nukes did not get invaded and has been handled with kid gloves. So, that's a pretty simple lesson. If you were in Iran's place, you might think the best way to protect myself from the United States is go get them nukes right away.

Host: And that country you're talking about obviously would be North Korea who now says they're going to test a nuclear weapon. Who do you think we should be more afraid of in the next two years - the Iranians or North Korea? I think it's George Bush, but do you think it should be the Iranians or the North Koreans?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that if we'll talk to people around the world and set a steady course that emphasizes dialogue, works for American interests, that there's every reason to believe that we can smooth out what's going on. But, what you have to understand about the Bush administration is they have actually sought to destabilize the Middle East - to de-stabilize it. They've promoted democracy at all costs and what they have gotten is the election of Hamas in the Palestinian areas, they've gotten chaos in Iraq. They will not talk to the government of Syria or Iran and they didn't act properly with respect to Lebanon. When Lebanon was [bombed] by Israel, we should have gone over to the Prime Minister of Lebanon, said 'we want to help you, you just have to get rid of Hezbollah'.
Instead we became the cheerleading squad for Israel. We forced Lebanon to bond with Hezbollah so we actually made it worse for the Lebanese as well as the Israelis. Bad leadership. Incompetence and an administration that simply doesn't do its job.

Host: General Clark, you are in Hartford today and you're going to be with Ned Lamont later on today?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I am.

Host: Very good. We appreciate the time this morning and it's great to talk to you. Again, you can go to the general's website, securingamerica.com - Very good weblog there.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you much. Great to be with you.

Host: Thank you for your time this morning, General. We appreciate it. Take care.

General Wesley Clark and Rock 102.