General Wesley Clark with John Gibson on Fox News Radio

November 8, 2006
transcript by Melange

John Gibson: If that doesn't demonstrate it for you, I don't know what will. A special guest now is on the phone with me. Ah, he is General Wesley Clark, former general supreme…former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, 4-star general. He commanded the allied forces in Kosovo. He is a Fox News contributor and of course he is one of several people we call a possible future president. General Clark, welcome.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you. It's good to be with you.

John Gibson: It's nice to talk to you again. So, I gotta…the first order of business is Rummy. Um, I take it you approve of uh his exit?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I think it was inevitable given the problems we've had in Iraq and now Afghanistan.

John Gibson: What would…you know I was talking to someone who ranks way down from you but…on my television show a little while ago, I think he was a, you know platoon commander…in, in Iraq and he said…he listed some things that the troops were unhappy with, reasons the troops would want to have seen Rumsfeld go. In your mind, what would those reasons be? On the level of somebody who's carrying a gun in the backpack and getting shot at. Uh, what were Rumsfeld's deficiencies?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I wouldn't speculate on what the troops would say because I don't think the troops are in any position to judge about Rumsfeld's deficiencies, honestly. I mean, when you're in the military, your job is to do the best you can with the mission you've been given and to take care of your people and hold up morale and focus on the task at hand. So, I don't think I'm capable of speculating on what someone in Iraq might say about Secretary Rumsfeld.

But, I will tell you what the issues were that I saw with Secretary Rumsfeld. First, he had made some egregious errors in judgment early on that shaped the course of the mission in Iraq in a disastrous way. And secondly, he was a man who was so strong, had so much talent, carried so much conviction that it was very difficult for him to receive meaningful input that differed with his own conceptions from the military leaders who worked for him. At least that's my impression. I say that as someone who has known Secretary Rumsfeld for 30…more than 30 years, but not having worked directly for him in a direct report fashion. But I talk to a lot of people who make the rounds and this is their impression.

John Gibson: Well, what…give me an example. I mean I have no way of, of knowing what goes on on the General level, much less the Secretary of Defense level, but even if it's slightly hypothetical if you don't want to be entirely specific, try to give me some sort of specific example of what you mean.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well there's examples all through the written material that's out, in books like Operation Cobra II and Fiasco, or in Woodward's State of Denial. Basically, we made big mistakes going into Iraq. We didn't really have an exit strategy. We didn't know how we were going to turnover the country. We hadn't thought through the issue. We hadn't faced the reality. The Secretary of Defense cut off input from other departments of government. He played bureaucratic politics when he should have been playing international strategy on Iraq. And that put us in a position where we were behind from the get-go. Then we got rid of the Iraqi military - he endorsed that. We got rid of the Baathists - he endorsed that. And we said we were going to run the country and he endorsed that. All
came from Bremer, but he basically is the guy who either could have controlled or did control or should have controlled <crosstalk> those policies.

John Gibson: You're talking about a series of things that…you know that trail of crumbs you're talking about leads me back to Paul Bremer. Is that what you're saying?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, when you send someone over there, you generally give up some policy guidance. That policy guidance should have come from Rumsfeld and the inter-agency. And Rumsfeld was the primary point of coordination for it. So, you don't let somebody go into a country who's never had any experience in the country, doesn't speak the language, never done it before, and start making big, bold decisions. He obviously got guidance from the president and he must have gotten some guidance from Rumsfeld. And if he didn't, Rumsfeld could have changed it when he saw it wasn't good. When Garner talked to him, according to the books, Garner talked to Rumsfeld - said we're making a big mistake and Rumsfeld said 'too late to change'. It wasn't too late two weeks after the decision was made
but it's too late now.

John Gibson: Do you think that in anticipation of the…I mean, do you quarrel much with the original idea that we've got to take Saddam out?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's a question of at what price. I was happy to get rid of Saddam but I also viewed it as a…as, as, as a not good strategic move in the war on terror. I've written it all up in my book called Winning Modern War. You can…it's on page 130, 132, 134 in that book. I go through in great detail a better way to have proceeded. <crosstalk> That was written in 2003.

John Gibson: Okay, but let's say that just…for…discussion's sake, that you had agreed that Saddam had to go and okay, we're going to invade. Should Rumsfeld and Bush and Cheney and Tenet and Condi have known that Iraq was going to turn out to be a place where um, people were…as they're seem to be demonstrating now…were more anxious to kill each other than to actually get along <crosstalk> in this democratic government?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, lots of people warned of that. I mean, I was testifying when General Mike…um, when General Joe Hoar told the United States Senate, and he was the Commander in the Central Command region from about 1991 through about 1995, and he was very clear that you're going to have a civil war in Iraq. He said it very directly. I said 'you might' because I thought there were forces that way but I wasn't prepared to say that under no circumstances could it, would it, could it be saved. He said it very clearly. This was in 2002. The administration didn't want to listen.

John Gibson: Well I'm sure they didn't want to think that it would actually be true.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, but they should have. You have to think about all contingencies and you have to ask yourself how do you deal with it if it turns out it's going this way. They didn't.

John Gibson: General, there's a story uh, today…in the…November 10th, in the uh Times of London, which is a quite reputable paper. Um, the headline is “Handover to Iraqi Army Set for the End of Next Year” and it says that uh, American and Iraqi officials have set a date for giving Iraq's forces responsibility for security across the country. Under a plan to be presented to the UN Security Council next month, the Iraqi government would assume authority for coalition troops by the end of next year, so December 31st, 2007. Um, it says only hours after Don Rumsfeld was replaced as Defense Secretary, American, British and Iraqi officials spoke openly about accelerating the handover process. Does…is…is that, first of all, does that sound to you like a report that's
true?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it might be true but I don't know what it means. The Iraqis have the authority in their country - it's their government. What does that mean in precise terms? It means that the United States will not initiate any operations - well, can it suggest operations? Does it go along on operations? Do Americans have the right to defend themselves? Do they have to ask Iraqi permission to defend themselves? If that's the case, do we have any Americans there? There's a whole lot in that statement that's not clear.

John Gibson: Well…I mean, does it sound like there is actually a timetable now set?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well it sounds like there's a timetable for something that's in…that's not…that, that, that may be discussed but it sounds like they're trying to move it forward but presumably there's little timetables - it's a month-by-month you're going to do this, you're going to do that, you're going to do this, you're going to do that.

John Gibson: The so-called benchmarks.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well no. Benchmarks are not associated with time. A benchmark would be…benchmark number one, the Iraqis would reach 200,000 trained troops; benchmark number two: Iraqis deploy forces to every province, benchmark number three, blah blah blah. That's without respect to timeline. Timeline is you put a date on those benchmarks and say you've got to achieve this benchmark by this point. That's very hard to do. This is not like a factory assembly job. You're dealing with an opposing set of forces on the ground which you can't control. If you could, you wouldn't have any problems in the first place in Iraq. So, to hold a government to these timelines, I mean…it's certainly great that they expect them but what are we going to do if they don't meet the timeline - say
'we quit'?

John Gibson: Well, that's a good question.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: See, that's the problem with the idea of timelines in the first place. It's why I've never supported timelines. If they emerge, they should emerge from a consensus agreement, they should be flexible, they should be understood as the general direction in which we want to go but we won't be tied definitively to this particular time because the enemy has a vote on it.

John Gibson: General Wesley Clark. Ah, General it's always good to talk to you. Thanks for taking the time today.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Great to be with you, John.

John Gibson: General Wesley Clark. You know, Fox News Contributor. We always like talking to the General and he uh ran for president once and he'll probably do it again.