General Wesley Clark on The Ed Schultz Show

November 20, 2006
transcript by RegNYC

Ed Schultz: We do know this, the complications continue in Iraq by the day. Word is there's more debate and more uncertainty within the White House than ever before when it comes to a successful conclusion, and we wonder if that'll even happen in our lifetime. There's a secret military study out - commissioned by General Peter Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - that's basically, as we said earlier in the program, given three options: interjecting more troops into Iraq, shrinking the force but staying longer, or flat out just getting out altogether - three alternatives. For more on that, let's go to the great General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show. General, great to have you back with us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you. Good to be with you.

Ed Schultz: I, I harken back to an interview I did with you two years ago, General, about Iraq, and I feel like we're right back at the same place. You, you've called this play-by-play right on the money throughout, and, and now we seem to be at a very critical juncture as to what to do because of our resources. As you see it right now, General, what about Iraq?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we need to really intensify the political dialog in Iraq. I wouldn't commit to a timeline. I wouldn't even commit to when we're going to start to redeploy. But I would send a high-level team over to Iraq to talk with the Iraqis and the people in the region. I'm not talking about Jim Baker. I think it's wonderful that Jim Baker wants to talk to the Syrian ambassador. That's not going to produce the kind of results we need. I'm talking about a sustained dialog with people in the region, working it on a daily basis to produce a safety net, a regional safety net, of, of economic and diplomatic and security issues that are out there holding up all the countries in the region.

Ed Schultz: General Clark-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We've got to talk.

Ed Schultz: Alright. General Clark, are you talking about Iran and Syria?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I am.

Ed Schultz: And-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We've got to talk to these countries.

Ed Schultz: And we haven't talked to Iran in 27 years, but-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's about time we started.

Ed Schultz: Do you think that they would be open to that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think they're open to talking. I don't think it's going to be an easy dialog. You know, the longer we've stayed in Iraq, the less bargaining power we've had over Iran, because the worse we look over there, the less incentive they have to give in to what we want them to do. They're emerging as the big winners. So, we have to be careful in talking to them we don't just ratify their success in Iraq.

Ed Schultz: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And that means you don't want to go into it with a preconceived timeline. What you want to do is go in with sticks and carrots and, and take it from there, and then make it an integrated regional strategy.

Ed Schultz: I was won-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It may require pulling some combat brigades out of Iraq and putting trainers in in their place.

Ed Schultz: I was-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It may require troops in other regions, and it may not require troops, changing troop strength at all for a while.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley Clark with us here on the Ed Schultz Show. I was watching a documentary last night by Ted Koppel, and he had interviewed a number of journalists there in Iran, that they believe that Iran has a greater influence on what happens in Iraq than the United States does.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that's a legitimate concern, because Iran is working the politics of it, and we have got to work the politics of it. We're doing too much on the military side and not enough on the political side.

Ed Schultz: Is there a way to pull back the military involvement in Ir-, in Iraq but yet still maintain a presence there? W- would that be part of a solution?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It might be part of a solution, but it can't be the starting point for a solution, because the solution is not simply to get the troops out. It's the end state that you're left with. That's what we're trying to work. So, it's not good that we've got troops there. I feel badly for, really badly for the troops, for their families, and especially when there are casualties and losses. But we've got our whole national security at risk in the region, and we've got to succeed in this.

Ed Schultz: What about-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Failure is not an option.

Ed Schultz: What about the Iraq Survey Group? You mentioned Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton. Last week I spoke face to face with Senator Harry Reid, now the Majority Leader, saying he, he thought that nothing dramatic was going to come out of the ISG. What are your expectations?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that they'll propose some kind of regional dialog. I think it'll be rejected by the White House. The, the White House has always wanted to deal with Syria and Iran as enemies. If they are enemies, then they don't want to talk to them. And the, the, the truth is that they are rivals to our side in the region, but there are also common interests that we could form with these, I believe. For example, I don't think Iraq wants a broader, deeper war in Iraq. The reason is that there are a whole lot more Sunnis in the world than there are Shias, and if it becomes a Shia against Sunni thing, the Sunnis will pour in from all over the world to fight against the Shias there. So, that's not necessarily a fight that Iran's going to win in the long term, and they know that.

Ed Schultz: If it's a political solution that we're looking for in, in Iraq, why wouldn't the United States just go ahead and support the majority, the Sunnis and, and cut your losses? Would that be an option?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we've got to be careful how we do that, because if we were to just support the majority, and it just turns into a war against the Sunnis, and you have ethnic cleansing and so forth, that doesn't bring peace in the region. That just brings in more fighting. So, we have to find a way to back out of this that leaves a, a durable political settlement in place.

Ed Schultz: It's-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They don't have a durable political settlement right now. If they did they wouldn't be fighting the way they are.

Ed Schultz: No, in a, in the- Maliki, his position, he seems to be fence-riding an awful lot. Don't you get that, that signal?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Some people think that politics is only in America, you know, but these instincts for survival are pretty strong anywhere.

Ed Schultz: (laughs)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And he's got, he, he's balanced against strong forces on all sides.

Ed Schultz: General Wesley Clark with us here on The Ed Schultz Show. Congressman Charles Rangel has proposed a military draft. Would you agree with that? Is that worth discussion at this point?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think it's feasible to get it through the Congress, but I do think it's a great thing if people have a sense of obligation to public service. And I, and I, and I deeply disapprove of the way the burden of the President's policies has fallen on the small group of men and women in the Armed Forces. I think it's a real tragedy.

Ed Schultz: And with that, our resources continue to be deployed for- depleted. For instance, in visiting with Senator Reid last night, or last week, he, he was saying that, where are we going to get the troops. I mean, John McCain is out there saying we should put in more troops, and that is, of course, is one of the options - injecting more troops into Iraq. It, it's Reid's feeling is that we don't have those troops. What do you know? What do you think?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you could come up with 20,000 troops for six months, but at the end of that, you're really in trouble. At that point, you cannot sustain the additional troops, and so you're going to have a big cutback. And I think what has to realized about this is, it's not a mechanical problem. There's a strong opposing force against the U.S. presence there. There are active measures taken against us. So, it's not a matter of, of, of like stacking blocks up and how many blocks per hour can you stack, because there's someone coming around and knocking those blocks down as soon as you stack them up. And until we can deal with the political problem of that - which is a political problem, not only inside Iraq, but Iran and Syria - we're not going to succeed.

Ed Schultz: Now, you say you would not be in favor of any timeline or any timetable. What do you think would happen, General, if the United States were to pull out 140,000 troops and see if the Iraqi government could survive on its own and protect itself?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think you'd find that it couldn't, and then you couldn't put the troops back in, and you couldn't recreate the Iraqi government. What you'd then have is a free for all.

Ed Schultz: And so, exit-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It'd be a massive defeat for- I think it would be read as a massive defeat for the United States.

Ed Schultz: Okay. What do you think the voters said on November 7th, General Clark?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Pull back troops. Stop taking so many losses, but don't lose.

Ed Schultz: : That's a tough thing to do. Isn't it?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah! (laughs) But that's where America is. They want to see the losses go down. They want to see the troops come home over time, and they want to see- they don't expect to see a Western style of Jeffersonian Democracy in Iraq. They just want to see the killing stop, really, and they don't want to see Iran emerge as setting the stage for another war in the region.

Ed Schultz: Has there ever been a military complexity in American history, in your opinion, that we're faced with right now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think this one's really challenging. There are a lot of us who said this wasn't a good idea in the first place, but George W. Bush thought it was, and we went. And people then thought the complexity worked in our favor. I remember people saying, 'Well, you know, if you want peace between Israel and the Palestinians, first you got to knock off Saddam.' Now paradoxically, I hear people saying, 'Well if you want a peace in Iraq, now you have to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem.' I think (sigh) that's a huge problem, and I think when you link try to link them like that, you may have to have a dialog that involves all those things, but, but, but trying to do it in serial fashion, first one and then the other, I don't think it's going to work.

Ed Schultz: General Clark, look into your crystal ball. Where do you think President Bush is on this? How could someone be so stubborn? We have got oil being produced below prewar levels. We've got electricity and water being produced below prewar levels. This just isn't progress. Yet it's still more of the same. I, I-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think he's listening to the very fine man and women in uniform who are telling him that they're going to do the best they can to carry on with the mission he gave them. And when they do that, then he takes that as- it's a reflection of his determination, but they've thus far been unable to raise the issues to get the kind of diplomatic strategy that's necessary. Even this latest Pentagon study doesn't sound to me- And I have not read this study. It's not released to me, people like me as far as I know. I have not seen the study and, but it doesn't deal with the diplomacy in the region. It doesn't real- deal with the causes of the trouble in Iraq. It tries to look at putting more troops in or less troops as mechanical solutions. This is not a mechanical problem. It's a profound political problem.

Ed Schultz: General Clark, when do you plan on deciding about 2008?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'll have to make that decision before too long.

Ed Schultz: 30 days?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, I'm not giving myself a fixed date, but thanks for asking. I haven't said I won't run.

Ed Schultz: Well, I, I think it'd be great if you'd, you'd run. (Chuckles) You, you've been right on the money about Iraq since day one. People ought to listen to you all the time, and of course I'll always be indebted to you for your work helping us get on Armed Forces Network. I'll, I'll never forget that, and I appreciate it very much.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well Ed, I think they ought to listen to you a whole lot more than they do.

Ed Schultz: Well, that's because we can get people like you on the program. (laughs) I, I'm, I, I just- What can - final question - what can the Democratic majority do about this? I mean, we still have the Commander in Chief.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Probably less than the American people would like, because I think that short of subpoenas and funding cut-offs and so forth, it's, it's hard for Congress to directly shape foreign policy. But clearly this election has been a real shot across the bough for the Republican Party, and I think that despite the protestations of, of the President and Dick Cheney, they got the message. They cannot stay the course, because it's not working, and they can't lie about it, or they can't represent it as progress to the American people any longer. It's not progress.

Ed Schultz: General Clark, always a pleasure. I appreciate your time.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.

Ed Schultz: You bet. General Wesley Clark with us here on The Ed Schultz Show.