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December 14, 2006General Wesley Clark on NPR's Diane Rehm Show
December 14, 2006
transcript by RegNYC
Diane Rehm: Thanks for joining us. I'm Diane Rehm. More than 50% of Americans now believe the U.S. is losing the war in Iraq, and nearly eight in ten support the idea of switching the primary U.S. military mission to Iraqi troop training, but President Bush has put off until January any announcement of a policy change. Joining me to talk about U.S policy in Iraq General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Good morning. Welcome back, General.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Diane. Good to be here.
Diane Rehm: Yochi Dreazen is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, and welcome to you, Yochi.
Yochi Dreazen: Thank you.
Diane Rehm: Joining us by phone from Brussels, he is Robert Kagan. He's Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Good morning to you, sir. Thanks for joining us.
Robert Kagan: Good morning to you Diane.
Diane Rehm: Glad to have you with us. And throughout the hour, we'll take your calls. Join us on 800-433-8850. Send us your e-mail to drshow@wamu.org. General Clark, what did the President hear yesterday from the Joint Chiefs of Staff?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he heard their concerns that this is not simply a military problem, that it is at heart a political problem. It can be lost militarily. It can't be won militarily. There are not enough forces to try to go in there and post a platoon at every street corner in Baghdad, and if you could, it wouldn't solve the problem anyway. And I hope he heard the cry from the military to put the whole weight of all the power of the United States - our diplomatic power, international law, our alliances, our economic strength, everything behind this, the, the mission to create a strategy within which our troops are expected to perform.
Diane Rehm: Yochi Dreazen, give us some of the details that, of the political and economic work that the Pentagon wants to see go into Iraq.
Yochi Dreazen: Th- their main focus is they want to see job creation. This was something that had been talked about three and a half years ago. I, I remember hearing briefings in Baghdad from Garner, J. Garner, when he was first there for a very short period about reducing unemployment. In most of the city of Baghdad, unemployment is between 40 and 60%, and the Pentagon believes that you can't drain the swamp of people who might otherwise join a militia simply for a paycheck unless you have much greater job creation.
Diane Rehm: And on the political front.
Yochi Dreazen: On the political side, they think that the efforts to bring in the Sunnis have failed - I mean, that's just the categorical assessment - and that there has to be massive change, both on oil revenues and on amnesty and on de-Baathification, and that unless you get Shi'ites to make fairly far-reaching - and would be, what would be for the Shiites very unpopular in the Shiite community - concessions on those three things, you're not going to have the Sunnis join the process.
Diane Rehm: And to you, Robert Kagan, how would you compare some of these ideas to what we've heard so far from the Iraq Study Group?
Robert Kagan: Well, I think everyone is in agreement that we need to substantially increase our efforts at reconstruction in Iraq. That has been lagging badly since the day that the occupation began. I don't think anybody thinks it's not necessary to get Iraqis jobs, to provide a, a good oil sharing mechanism, and to have a political solution. I think the problem that we're all trying to deal with is a kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. General Clark is certainly right that ultimately this has got to be a political solution not a military solution, but, you know, I just wonder whether you can have a political solution, whether you can create more jobs, whether you can achieve the kind of economic growth that we'd like to see in Iraq if we are facing a situation of fundamental insecurity for the average Iraqi. If people are out there getting killed, no one's able to stop either Al Qaeda or militias from killing people, it's hard to talk about an effective jobs program. So, I think, at least in the near term, our focus has to be, at the minimum, on providing some basic security at least in Baghdad.
Diane Rehm: How do you see that, General Clark?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I, I, I- There's a, there is a chicken-and-an-egg problem.
Diane Rehm: Mm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But Iraq is a political problem. It's being wrestled by military means through the militias. The idea that no one can stop the militias is simply wrong. Those militias take orders. They work for people. They're advancing political agendas, and we need a full court press to work the political agendas. So, when people say, 'The focus has to be on security,' I guess that means there's only one focus. If there's only one focus and it's on security, then we're going to fail, because the fundamental problem is that the security is a dependent variable. It depend on people's comfort with the overall political direction. They're using the militias to compete politically, because the mechanism doesn't resolve the depth of the, of the animosities between the factors.
Diane Rehm: So, given that there's some agreement that this is a chicken-and-an-egg problem, how do you resolve which goes first, Yochi Dreazen?
Yochi Dreazen: If I could just add very briefly, there's, there's a third issue, which is a question of political will in the United States. You know, the, the reconstruction program in Iraq has spent between 30 and 50 billion dollars depending on, on your estimate, and it, it hasn't worked. Electricity is worse. Water is worse, Sewage is worse. And there simply is no will within Congress right now to allocate more money on that scale for reconstruction or more money on that scale for job creation. So, even if we were to all agree - by we I mean policy makers, not the three of us in the studio on the floor or by phone - that the dec- that the solution relied on job creation and the reconstruction, there isn't money in Congress and there isn't a willingness in Congress. It's, it's very difficult to see four years in what is essentially arguing for restarting the entire process again.
Diane Rehm: Yochi Dreazen, he's a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Also here in the studio General Wesley Clark, former NATO Allied Commander and Robert Kagan is on the phone with us from Brussels. He's Senior Associate at the the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He's a monthly World Affairs columnist for the Washington Post. Do join us 800-433-8850. Send us your e-mail to drshow@wamu.org . The President has now said he won't be rushed into anything. What's he waiting for, General Clark?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think he's waiting for the political tempest over the elections and the Iraqi Study Group to clear away. I think he's giving it some time for the military to work through the problems. He's-
Diane Rehm: Is that going to happen? Is the tempest going to clear away. I'm looking at poll numbers.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's a function of casualty rates on the ground in Iraq. It's also a function of the output of new ideas and initiatives from the various parties. I think the President's calculations would be that over the Christmas holidays, provided there's no disaster on the ground in Iraq, he's got a breathing spell, and he can put some of the animus behind him. And so, he'll hold and he'll try to recapture the initiative. Rather than appearing defensive by, by offering a policy now, he wants to wait, let the dust settle and then appear to take charge again by announcing a new policy.
Diane Rehm: Yochi Dreazen, the President announced at first that he was going to make the policy speech before Christmas. What changed his mind?
Yochi Dreazen: I think there are two things. One: There is the tactical political question of, timing-wise, do you do it before Christmas or as the General suggested, do you do it early next year, and there's an advantage to saying, 'Do it next year,' for the reasons that, that he outlined. But there, there's also the very substantive reason that his advisors are very deeply divided on specifically on the issue of do you put in a temporary increase of troops even if that's simply to stabilize Baghdad and transition the broader military from combat to training efforts in, in some large-scale way, and there is no agreement right now on that question.
Diane Rehm: Robert Kagan, the President is meeting again today at the Pentagon I gather that outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is chairing that meeting. What does that mean as far as incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates' concerns, which he expressed before his confirmation committee?
Robert Kagan: Well, I, I don't know what it mean, and I, I have to say we're all in deep Kremlinology here trying to figure out exactly why this administration is doing what it's doing. I find often that we don't have a clear understanding of these things until they finally emerge. My, for what it's worth, my speculation is that if the President had wanted simply to adopt the basic thrust of the Iraq Security Group and even the recommendations of some of his top advisors, including Donald Rumsfeld, he didn't need to wait until after December to do that. I think the fact that he's delaying suggests that he is going to head in a different direction, and if I had to bet right now it will be in the direction of increasing troop strength in Iraq. And that's also something that, as a political matter, you wouldn't want to announce before Christmas.
Diane Rehm: Would you agree with that, Yochi Dreazen?
Yochi Dreazen: I would agree with the second point. I mean, that he's right that there's a lot of criminology to this and sort of reading the tea leaves. In conversations, though, you do hear much more conversation internally about the increasing troops temporarily than you do about anything else.
Diane Rehm: How would you react to that, General Clark, increasing troops now?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think, I think first of all, it's a temporary measure. Secondly, I think you'll probably get some results on the ground.
Diane Rehm: What would it accomplish?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you'll get more patrols on the streets of Baghdad. I think you'll get more snipers on rooftops. I think you'll get more roadblocks. I think it'll be more difficult for militias to move. I think you'll be able to occupy certain areas for longer without having to pull the troops back. In other words, I think you'll get some marginal military advantages. If the major problem is political not military, the question is: What is the President going to do to gain the political initiative? He's met with Maliki. He's met with Hakim. He's now meeting with the Sunni leader. What's going to emerge from that? Is there going to be a political strategic consensus? That's what's going to determine our success or failure in Iraq.
Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. When we come back, we'll talk further. We'll open the phones for your questions, comments. 800-433-8850.
(break)
Diane Rehm: And as we talk about what's ahead in Iraq, I have three guests. Robert Kagan is on the line with us from Brussels. He is with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He's also the author of a new book titled DANGEROUS NATION. Yochi Dreazen is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. General Wesley Clark is former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. Here's an e-mail from Tom, who says, "As you recall, every military leader who's had differing opinions from this administration has been retired or replaced. The meeting at the Pentagon lasted an hour. Did they really solve it, come up with a working solution in an hour? Do you think the Generals and President, their Commander-in-Chief actually agreed on a message or do you think the Generals may have caved to the implied pressure of their boss' wishes and are speaking the company line?" General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think, I, I think the question is a perceptive one, because I don't think much gets done in an hour meeting. But I do think that the Service Chiefs will have made a statement. They'll have said what they believe the issues are, and I think the, the question is: Was there really a give and take dialog? Can you have that kind of a dialog? Not in an hour. Not with six people, eight people sitting around a table at that level. Can you really get down into the issues, sort the evidence, weigh the alternatives? Probably not, but you can get your military leaders on record for what they stand for and believe in. Someday that will all be public.
Diane Rehm: Robert Kagan, what has happened to the idea from some quarters, John McCain for example, about a so-called troops surge, and what does that mean in your mind?
Robert Kagan: Well, I, I would say that that idea has, has sort of been gaining a, a lot of adherents, including from some highly respected former Generals. I think, whether it's this morning or sometime this week, General Jack Keane - who I'm sure General Clark knows a good deal better than I do - is rolling out a proposal for an increase in the size of the forces in Iraq that would be sustained actually and not temporary and also explaining the means by which that troop increase can be sustained, which of course includes a large increase in the overall size of American ground forces in both the Army and the Marines. McCain has made the point that we need more troops. I noticed that the incoming Democratic Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Sylvestre Reyes had also called for more troops, and I think that it's an idea that, that has real respectability and again because of people like Jack Keane, who used to be Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army presumably understands how the Army works.
Diane Rehm: Yochi.
Yochi Dreazen: It's also, I think, in many ways the most politically palatable option for the White House. If they go in any other direction, if they go towards a timed withdrawal or any type of, of withdrawal, that opens the floodgates to, 'We've lost. It's over. We're heading for the exits.' It would also, if they went away- towards that and away from a troops increase, they would hang John McCain out to dry politically, and he's been to them a very loyal ally, especially on Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Hasn't- haven't the Generals in Afghanistan also asked for more troops, General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Certainly, and Generals can usually need- use more troops, and you know, this mission in Iraq has been woefully short from the beginning, not to take out Saddam's military, but to do the follow-on job of taking care of the country and establishing authority and preventing civil disturbances and other things. From the beginning we've been short troops. I've, I, I've, I like Jack Keane. He's a great guy. I welcome his proposal. I, I can't, I want, I want to see it, but all that said and done, we must not forget we're dealing with opposing forces. It's not that the United States is modeling clay, and somebody says, 'Well, let's just put a little more, one more pound of clay, and I, I'm sure we can build this statue the right height.' There are other people out there who don't want us to build that statue. When we add clay, they take away clay. When we form it one way, they pull it out another way. I'm talking about Iran and Syria and other forces. We're operating against resistance. That resistance takes many forms. It takes the forms of blackmail, threat, intimidation, education, money, weapons, technology, and if you stand back and look at the mission thus far, what's, what stands out is a persistent underestimation of the opposition - their resourcefulness, their dedication, their ability to mobilize and embed in the population. And so, what my concern is not the troop level, but what is the program-
Diane Rehm: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the administration's going to undertake-
Diane Rehm: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -to bring this to a successful conclusion.
Diane Rehm: But if, as Yochi Dreazen has just said, that's the most palatable way to go, what about those who say, 'If you send more troops, you run the risk of further flanning, fanning the flames, that you escalate the violence by our very presence'?
Yochi Dreazen: That's been the view of, of many within the Pentagon for some time. The idea was first that the presence of U.S. troops is a crutch for the Iraqis, that they feel they don't have to make the compromise or make the hard decisions as long as the U.S. is there, and secondarily that it's an irritant, that having large numbers of U.S. troops indefinitely. I mean, you know, one of the things the Iraq Study Group recommended and it didn't get a lot of attention - it was actually near the back - was for the President to say definitively 'The U.S. will not build permanent bases in Iraq,' which seemed relative to the other things like a fairly obscure, fairly esoteric issue. And it's not, because we have never said that formally. We've hinted at it. We've come close to saying it. We have never said definitively for su- for certain we will not be there permanently, and in Iraq, that's an enormous issue.
Diane Rehm: So, the President this week also met with Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'ites. He also met last week with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. What was he likely to have heard in those meetings?
Yochi Dreazen: I think that in those meetings, he was trying to get a sense of politically within Iraq, is there a way of breaking the Maliki government, even if it reforms in some way, away from Muqtada Al Sadr, I mean, politically speaking, as, as separately from the military issue of can you militarily take out Sadr and his forces, but as a political question, can the Maliki government remove Sadr and survive.
Diane Rehm: What about breaking up the Maliki government itself. Hasn't there been some talk of that?
Yochi Dreazen: There has. There's been a lot of talk of that, I think more within Iraq than there has been within the U.S.
Diane Rehm: Do you agree with that, General Clark, breaking up the Maliki government?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, there's, there, there's been talk about that, but, Diane, we, we've got to talk about the bigger regional picture. We've got to talk about Iran and Syria and the neighbors, and what the President is doing by focusing on the troops strength is he's putting his head down and not seeing the big picture here. There are reasons for that. This is a very painful set of discussions, and what we're doing is we're moving more and more sharply into opposition to Iran. Iran is the neighbor. Iran has 70, 75 million people. They're strong, and they've got a grip on our interests in places like Lebanon and on the borders with Israel. So, this is going to come out in many other ways. You cannot answer a strategic political problem simply by a temporary increase of troops on the ground in Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Robert Kagan, what about Iran and Syria?
Robert Kagan: Well, I, I must say, I, I find it odd to think that, you know, somehow the President has made Iran an opponent of the United States all by his lonesome. As we speak, I think Iran is rapping up its Holocaust denier's conference. Iran is moving ahead in it- the enrichment of its nuclear program in defiance, not only of the President and the United States, but also of the European allies that General Clark used to work with. Iran is aiding Hezbullah in Lebanon, and now the idea coming out of the Iraq Study Group is that we should go and ask Iran for help in Iraq. I must say, I don't see a.) what's in it for Iran, unless we are willing to take- to do what they care most about, which is take the pressure off the nuclear program, and I think it's just folly to imagine that we're going to get help from Iran or from Syria in the case of Iraq. And, you know, no one believes in the strictly a military solution. That's an, a caricature of the, the position, including the position of Jack Keane, who also understands that it's not a matter of adding clay. But in order to have any hope of dealing with the region, we can't be heading out the door and begging for their assistance in heading out the door. That is not going to be successful. At the very least, we have to put ourselves in a position where we have a strong bargaining hand, but right now we don't have that hand with Iran, and right now Iran is not going to be helpful.
Diane Rehm: Fr- from your perspective, Robert Kagan, what is the best course for the U.S. to take at this moment?
Robert Kagan: Well, I, I must say, I find myself very much in support of the proposal that General Keane is talking about of increasing forces so that we can begin to bring real stability to Baghdad as a first step. It's the, it's the proposal that's been supported by John McCain, and I know it's also supported by many of the lower level troops below the Generals in Iraq.
Diane Rehm: By how many troops are you talking about?
Robert Kagan: Well, I'm not- There's no poll, but you know, you- there, there's a lot of people who, and you know, this- General Clark knows this well - I mean, there's a lot of Colonels at the Colonel level speaking out. Some of them are working right now in formulation administration plans who've said that this light footprint approach that General Abizaid has favored over the past few years and which Don Rumsfeld has favored has actually managed to give us the worst of both possible worlds. We had enough troops to offend the people who are going to be offended by the American troops presence but not enough troops to provide basic security to the Iraqi people, and they think that, and I agree, our first obligation now as for three years ago, is to try our best to provide basic security for the Iraqi people so that political solutions then become possible.
Yochi Dreazen: One thing I just wanted to say quickly, there are a series of very painful ironies the these- to all of these discussions, particularly as they pertain to the region around Iraq. You know, when U.S. forces went into Iraq, there were those who said the next stops would be in Iran or Syria, that invading Iraq would be a, a way of forcing changes of behavior in those countries. Now we are, I think Robert Kagan said it well, seeking their help in getting out of those countries. Saudi Arabia and Jordan were both deeply opposed to the war. Now they are effectively telling us, 'You cannot leave. Iraq is so destabilized and in such chaos that you cannot leave right now even if you want to.'
Diane Rehm: And Saudi Arabia is saying, "We'll support the Sunnis if you get out."
Yochi Dreazen: Exactly. I, I think that that was probably more of an attention-grabbing device than anything else, but certainly what they're saying strongly - Abdullah has said this as well in Jordan - is 'You can't leave,' that 'We're scared that Iraq will become a black hole if you do.
Diane Rehm: But it sounds, General Clark, as though Robert Kagan is talking about a huge surge of military. Where does that huge surge of military personnel come from?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, that's, that's-
Robert Kagan: Can I just jump in before we talk about-
Diane Rehm: Sure.
Robert Kagan: -those numbers that I'm talking about-
Diane Rehm: Sure.
Robert Kagan: -because we're talking about numbers in the range of 20 to 30 and possibly 40 thousand, and just, just, I know General Clark knows this stuff very well, better than I do, but in the short term at least those, those numbers can be achieved by stretching out rotations, which is very, which is a real hardship for the soldiers-
Diane Rehm: Sure is.
Robert Kagan: -which is one reason why we have to move very quickly to expand the overall size of the Army and Marines.
Diane Rehm: And before you respond, General Clark, let me just remind our listeners at :27 before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm Show. Go right ahead.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know, I think it's possibly on a short-term basis to surge 20 or 30 thousand. It's a question of the level of pain you're willing to inflict on the rest of force, the people who are back here preparing, the people who are in the Guard and Reserve. That can be done. That, that's mechanically possible. The question is: What do you gain from it? As Robert said, we don't have any leverage against Iran. So, we're going to put these troops in there to try to stabilize the situation. Are we likely to succeed by increasing 20 or 30 thousand troops. Temporarily, I think you'll probably suppress some of the violence. They'll have more difficulty moving and so forth, but within six weeks, eight weeks, six months, if Iran wants to crank up the heat on the United States forces, they'll find a way to do this. So, how are we going to come back and deal with Iran? That's the question.
Diane Rehm: Hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We're moving into tighter and tighter confrontation with them. Just as Yochi said, there were many people who said, 'Ah, Iraq, then Syria, then Lebanon, then Iran. We'll clean up the whole mess over there.' These countries are reacting against that. They want to make sure we don't succeed, and one of the things the administration hasn't done is come to grips with the implications of its overall policy. If we favor regime change in Iran, then they're not likely to want to assist us.
Diane Rehm: Alright. We've got lots of callers waiting. Let's go to the phones now, first to Benbrook, Texas. Good morning, Steve. You're on the air.
Steve: Good morning. I'm really upset about the delay that President Bush is putting on putting out policy, a change in policy. He's had several months that he's announced that policy was changing, and I believe that this is because of one of the features that's not getting enough coverage from the Iraqi Study Group. They've discussed how this administration has not been honest about funding. We are not telling the American people how much this war is costing us at the present level, and if they want to talk about going for a strategy for victory, they need to start talking about how much it's going to cost to increase troop levels. We need to start talking about repairs to the equipment. We have an Army and Marine Corps that are badly depleted.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely right. We've got to put the full resources in. You, you need to understand the full cost of this. It's a lot more than the 300 billion dollars that, the figure that's sited.
Diane Rehm: How would you estimate? How much more?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: Maybe, long-term costs laid out over 30, 40 years of the United States budget, maybe a trillion dollars in terms of veterans expenses, healthcare, recovery for the Armed Forces and the tail-off. Even if you started to withdraw, as the Democrats have wanted to do this year, you'll have forces in there for a long time. So, this is a very, very expensive commitment, but fundamentally, it's not about money. It's about the safety of the American people. It's about our national security, our purpose in the world. We're involved in something here that's, that's very, very central to who we are as Americans.
Diane Rehm: So, as I understand it, you're saying that we need to stay there until the job gets done, but I still don't understand what getting the job done means.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we've put ourselves in a position where if you pull the plug- We took out the stopper in the bottle at the top of the Persian Gulf when we got rid of Saddam Hussein. We're now the stopper in the bottle. All of our friends in the region say, 'Don't leave.' We don't have a political answer. So, we're now talking about military answers, but they're insufficient.
Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
(break)
Diane Rehm: Welcome back. We're talking about what happens next in Iraq. We have many phone calls. Here's an e-mail from Francis who says, "It was reported this week that the Iraqi government has spent only 15% of the moneys allocated for rebuilding the country. Please comment." Do you know anything about that? Yochi.
Yochi Dreazen: I do. That was report that looked at how much of the oil revenue, that is flowing into Iraq that is the main source of revenue for the government, has been spent, and it found that it was about 15% or 20%, Which is somewhat shocking. Also shocking though is when you look at that U.S. that was spent, this 30 to 50 billion dollar figure that was allocated by Congress, spent either by the Pentagon or, or by the civilian authorities in Iraq, most of that we don't know where that went either. The Special Inspector General for Iraq reconstruction has found literally billions of dollars just missing. We don't know if it was used (but there are no receipts) if it was stolen, if it was embezzled. Our money also, which should've had much better controls, we don't know where our money went either.
Diane Rehm: Let's go now to Vienna, Virginia. Good morning, Bill, you're on the air.
Bill: Yeah, thank you. What- I would want to comment that anyone who's read Ricks' book, and I would, I would assume that your, your panelists have, and if they haven't I would ask why not.
Diane Rehm: That's titled FIASCO. Go right ahead.
Bill: Correct. There's, there's, I mean, if you, if you read that book and you accept it as, as I do as sort of the definitive text of the, of the policy and how it laid out, particularly in military terms, you would, you would pretty much say that all this, this talk, this notion that 30 or 40 thousand troops that we may or may not put in there is, is absolutely ridiculous since Ricks basically postulates that what we would need to, to achieve quote, unquote "success" would be a prolonged classic counterinsurgency campaign that would have our troops basically living - a large number of our troops by the way, 200 to 300 thousand - living among the Iraqi people. The military, of course, has given lip service to that but has gone completely against that by building basically hotels for the troops with Burger Kings and what have you. So, there's no, there's no notion that they're going to, that they're going to be living among the Amer- the Iraqi people. But the second thing that Ricks lays out that I think we need to- has to be talked about is how much more prevalent the abuse of American- of the Iraqi people was - throwing them on hoods of, of 150 degree cars, et cetera, at cetera - that has probably caused such bad will, ill will among such a large number of the people that any idea that we would win the hearts and minds of Iraqis is complete, complete fantasy.
Diane Rehm: Robert Kagan.
Robert Kagan: Well, I mean, I wouldn't call Ricks' book the definitive book. There are, there are aspects of, of, of Ricks' assessment that I thoroughly agree with, especially the fact that, as General Clark was saying, we didn't have nearly enough troops as we needed at the beginning of this occupation and I, you know, I w- I was critical of the administration going all the way back to the summer of 2003 for not having that number of troops. I don't agree, and I think that, you know, there's a lot of, there are a lot of military folks and, and experts on the counterinsurgency question, I don't agree that, that the numbers that Ricks is talking about are, are necessary. And I think that actually when, when you talk about a, a specific place like Baghdad as being part of the first wave of concentration, you certainly don't need 300 American troops, but you do need more than we currently have since every one of the operations that have succeeded in Iraq have succeeded with a, with a larger number of troops - whether you're talking about Tal Afar or other places - and, and operations that have failed, like the recent sweep in Baghdad, failed because we were unable to leave any troops behind. We, we swept out the insurgents. We, we, you know, left some Iraqis behind, but ultimately we didn't have the ability to hold those territories, those areas of Baghdad-
Diane Rehm: Wh-
Robert Kagan: -and I think that what this new plan that General Keane is promoting would in part be designed to do, which is to actually, as the administration said, clear, hold and then make the possibility to build in these areas.
Diane Rehm: But here's what I don't understand, because according to Army General John Abizaid, the top U.S Commander for the Middle East, the Army and the Marine Corps today cannot sustain even a modest increase of 20 thousand troops. Yochi.
Yochi Dreazen:Yochi Dreazen: Yeah. The concerns that General Abizaid is referring to, one is the, just the manpower strain.
Diane Rehm: Right.
Yochi Dreazen: And oftentimes these are troops who have been back to Iraq two, possibly three, and a small number of cases, four times, whose deployments have been extended from ten months to twelve months, some cases 14, 15 months. So, there's the manpower strain. There's also, a caller indicated correctly, there is the equipment strain. We- a lot of supplies are running low. A lot of Humvies, which were not meant for this kind of usage in a, in a hot desert-type climate, are breaking down. So, just the, the idea of getting the, the equipment back running is itself a challenge as well.
Diane Rehm: Here's an e-mail from a Marine whose name is James. He says, "I've served two tours in Iraq, have seen nothing that would make me believe there is not an underlying hatred between Shia and Sunni. It may be different in other Arab countries, but with such resentment at street level, I foresee a civil war on a level much greater than we are seeing now. Having sparked this conflict, I don't see how we can get out." General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, he puts it very well. I mean, I think there are a lot of problems there. I don't know that there's an intense Sunni-Shia conflict everywhere in Iraq. I mean, there are, there were some tribes in Iraq that were mixed Sunni and Shia, and people got along just fine, and it can happen again. In some places, the hatred's been fanned. Obviously that was Al Qaeda's strategy, but James is right that I think for us to just pull the plug, pull our forces out of there and let it rip, I think we'd be, I think it'd be a disaster for the United States and our friends and our posture in the world.
Diane Rehm: Let's go to Gulfport, Mississippi. Hi there, Rachel, you're on the air.
Rachel: Thank you. I was just calling to see if, if your guests could comment. As, as the President is going on his listening tour, I'm wondering if he's hearing anything like what former Secretary of State Colin Powell told him in the lead-up to the war that 'if you, you own it'. I've heard, you know, there's obviously wide, wide agreement among the American people that this war was ill advised to begin with, but now that we're in this situation, I, I, I, there seems to be this, I think a Washington Post article, a new analysis recently called it "bi-partisan Iraq-bashing", about why can't they get it together. Is there any voice that the President might be hearing, and I hope this doesn't sound too idealistic and naive, that we have some sort of moral obligation. It's not just about achieving victory or, or saving face for us at this point, but that we have a moral obligation to, to ensure that this country is not completely destroyed?
Diane Rehm: Yochi Dreazen.
Yochi Dreazen: There is and unfortunately, in some ways, I think that voice is being largely spoken outside the U.S. You know, when Vice-President Cheney went to Riyadh, that was the message the Saudi government, not phrased in a, in a moral way, not phrase in an idealistic way, but in a sort of cold, realpolitik way of 'You've unleashed this. Iraq may take, not only itself down, but also Jordan down, also, also, our country down.' So, the argument of saying, 'You broke it, you fix it,' that is coming in from our allies in the region much more so than I think it's coming in from anyone inside the U.S.
Diane Rehm: And here-
Robert Kagan: Can I just jump in here for a second? I mean-
Diane Rehm: Certainly. Go ahead.
Robert Kagan: Yeah, if there's one thing that this President doesn't need to hear, it's that we have an obligation in Iraq. I would say he's the leading advocate of that position, and, I mean, I don't think, I think he's acutely aware, both of the moral responsibility of the United States and his own personal responsibility. You know, he did launch this conflict, and he feels very deeply, and he shows it every time he talks about this subject, that he has a personal moral obligation not to leave Iraq in ruins.
Diane Rehm: And here's an e-mail from Helsinki, Finland from K.P., who says, "Would it not be polite if your panelists had at least a word for all the people who are going to be slaughtered over the holidays while the President, quote, 'thinks it over'." General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well yes, it's an unfolding tragedy, and every single day over there more and more people die. We know that. This is a problem that has seized the United States of America. It was the dominant issue in the election. The question is, now that the Democrats have at least one House of Congress, maybe two, what actually dif- what difference will it make, because the reality of the situation is, as Yochi just described, our friends in the region believe that we do have an obligation to be there. They don't know what the answers are. I just came back from the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai. I, I couldn't believe how many people came to me and said, 'You've got to put more troops in.' I said, 'What is it you want these troops to do?' They said, 'We don't know, but you just got to put those troops in there,' because they don't have a political answer. They don't have a diplomatic or strategic answer, and troops are like, they're like black magic in the civilian world. People don't quite understand what they do, but they must be part of the solution. So, let's have more of them.
Diane Rehm: But you know what's interesting, as we debate this and as the President, quote, "thinks it over", his poll numbers have gone to the lowest point in his Presidency. How do those poll numbers effect the thinking of this administration about their strategy on the war in Iraq?
Yochi Dreazen: W- when you talk to people who are fairly senior in the White House, you know, with the obvious caveats, not knowing necessarily if what they're saying is what they actually believe or it's for, for press consumption, but a word that comes up quite often is sustainability, that they're aware of the fact that this war is unlikely to end by the time President Bush leaves office, which means his successor - whether it's Democratic or Republican - will have something to do with Iraq - whether it's accelerating the withdrawal or whether it's keeping the same number of troops or more troops. You know, who knows? And they're very aware, despite what they say publicly about not looking at polls, that if 70% of the country thinks we're losing, 60% want the timetable to leave, massive majorities think we shouldn't've invaded in the first place, that it is not sustainable.
Diane Rehm: General Clark, here's an e-mail from Dallas, Texas. Theeshall says, "Could it be possible that President Bush's decision to speak about Iraq after the holidays is because he intends to reinstitute the draft?" That question becomes particularly relevant when we think about sustainability. If you're talking about staying in Iraq, perhaps ten, 15, 20 years.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that, I think that's a, certainly a consideration. I think there's no doubt about it, that if you want to increase the size of the Armed Forces substantially during an unpopular war, it's very difficult to do it in a volunteer force. That's what we found out, and we do need more troops in our, especially in the Army and Marine Corps. I'd be very surprised if President Bush ever institutes the draft. That truly would provoke a political outcry in this country, which would certainly make whatever strategy he picks unsustainable. I think instead I think this idea of the 20, 30 thousand, 40 thousand bump-up, if you could get some temporary relief from the casualties, if you can show a strategy, this President's looking at two years left in office. There are no more elections. I can't help but, but suspect that there are those in the White House who have worked this problem politically-
Diane Rehm: Hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -all along and that that factors into their solution.
Diane Rehm: At 7 minutes before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm Show. Yochi.
Yochi Dreazen: I, I, it's one thing I, I want to add, two of the, one caller, one e-mail, have both essentially asked variants of the moral question of Iraq: I think that the Study Groups, it's lasting impact, will not be in the recommendations. It won't be that the blueprint it lays, it lays out will be adopted, because I don't think that, that it will be, at least in full. I think the lasting conclusion of this Iraq Study Group is that what we all sort of intuitively and those of us who follow the news closely knew in some detail to be absolutely dire, that a much broader swath of the country has now read in detail - about 100 thousand Iraqis fleeing every month, about underreporting what is already a staggering amount of, of ci- violence in the country, of 4 thousand civilians dying a month - I mean these numbers are, you know, it's all, it's very difficult to get your arms around them. And I think that the, the sort of, the change of the way Iraq is seen - from being seen as very bad to being seen, in the point of view of the Iraq Study Group, as, as horrific and, and tragic and unsustainable - I think that that is what you're seeing in the poll numbers, and that's why the poll numbers are falling.
Diane Rehm: Robert Kagan, what do you believe that lasting impact of the Iraq Study Group will be, if any.
Robert Kagan: Well, I, (sigh) I actually have a perverse sense that the effect of the Study Groups is perhaps the opposite of what its members may have intended. I think in their effort to come up with some alternative to staying in Iraq, some effort to cobble together a way that we can draw down, I think they actually wound up exposing how difficult, if not impossible that is, and therefore re-, re-, bringing us back to the question, first of all, can we leave Iraq regardless of the consequences, and I think, I think most people think we can't leave regardless of the consequences, and if you're not going to leave, then what do you do. I think actually they've allowed the President and his supporters to frame the discussion, you know, as these things get framed rhetorically, as retreat or move forward to success. And I think that if the President comes up with a plan, I think that General Clark is right, if he comes up with a plan that at least offers some, some hope, then I think he will actually have benefitted from the Iraq Study Group's efforts in a, in an odd kind of way.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think one of the major efforts that the opponents of the Iraq Study Group have, have worked on is to discredit the idea of dialog in the region. I think this is really unfortunate. It's the United States strategy posture before we went in there that created a lot of resistance on the ground to us in Iraq, and whether we agree with the Iranians or the Syrians or not, we ought to be talking to them, and we ought to be talking to them without preconditions. We may not be asking them for help, and I wouldn't ask them for help, and they're not going to offer help, but what I do think is important is to set Iraq inside the regional context. There's no advantage to anybody in moving toward a war with Iran. We're not going to occupy Iran. It's too large. We're not going to change its culture. It's too diverse. We're not going to democratize it. It is not going to be, after a war, converted to a Western-style Democracy. So, therefore why are we moving in this direction? We need a dialog first, and bring all of the other instruments of U.S. power to bear though that dialog.
Diane Rehm: So, you would take Iran's proposed or purported development of nuclear weapons off the table?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, I'd say that's one of the things we're going to talk about directly.
Diane Rehm: But would you talk about that first?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: No, I'd talk first about-
Diane Rehm: Would that be a precondition?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I'd go in with a set of principles that we agree, in the region, that we want for the region that borders should be respected, security needs should be respected, that the Iraqi people should have a right to determine their own future, and have that dialog with Iraqi and Syrian and Turkish leaders - all the people who are effected by it-
Diane Rehm: Gen-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and see what comes from it.
Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark, Yochi Dreazen and Robert Kagan, thank you all so much.
Yochi Dreazen: Thank you.
Diane Rehm: And thanks for being with us this morning, I'm Diane Rehm.
