General Wesley Clark on Washington Post Radio

January 11, 2007
Transcription by Melange

Host: Our front page story for you. President Bush is calling for a troop increase of 21,500 in Iraq. He says boosting troop numbers will break the cycle of violence and hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

Bush: Now let me explain the main elements of this effort. The Iraqi government will appoint a military commander and two deputy commanders for their capital. The Iraqi government will deploy Iraqi army and national police brigades across Baghdad’s nine districts. When these forces are fully deployed, there will be 18 Iraqi army and national police brigades committed to this effort, along with local police. These Iraqi forces will operate from local police stations, conducting patrols and setting up checkpoints and going door to door to gain the trust of Baghdad residents. This is a strong commitment, but for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help.

Host: Retired Army general Jack Keane, former Army Vice Chief of Staff joins us along with retired Army general Wesley Clark. Good morning to both of you gentlemen. Thanks for being with us on Washington Post radio.

Jack Keane: Good morning.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good morning. Good morning, Jack.

Jack Keane: Good morning, Wes.

Host: General Keane, you conferred with the President at the White House, gave him some of your thoughts December 11th, um, did you see some of them included in what he talked about last night? And the President said ‘we made mistakes in the past,’ but he thinks that this plan will work and he tried to spell out reasons why it’s different from what we’ve done in the past. Was he convincing to you?

Jack Keane: Well yes, I mean the concern that uh many of us had looking at where we were certainly is is that you know, we over-relied on the Iraqi political solution because we never forced the Sunnis to heel, uh militarily. I mean, the military enables a political solution and just relying on training the Iraqi security forces so that they could take over the mission which is the centerpiece of our military strategy – the enemy reacted to that, exploited our…the vulnerabilities and raised the level of violence so high that it’s beyond the capacity of the Iraqi forces to cope. So, this strategy is about buying some time over the next 18 months and two years to bring the level of violence down and for the first time truly protect the people in doing this, which is the way to bring it down so that these Iraqi security forces can cope with it. I mean, that’s…that’s essentially what this is about and then you can bring the political solution that everybody wants and that is, get the Sunnis to seek something other than armed violence and seek a political accommodation and also you know, pull back behind their barricades the Shia militias who are out there causing all sorts of havoc.

Host: Right, but you’re essentially saying that the Shias are not necessarily going to follow along the lines of trying to bring this violence to an end until they see a real commitment to crack down on the Sunnis?

Jack Keane: Well, listen – there is something to work with with the Shia militias despite the horrific nature of their violence and also the political advantage that their leaders seek. The fact is they waited two and a half years, with a couple of exceptions in 04, before they came outside of those barricades and…and they came out of those barricades because they knew 1, the Iraqi security forces could not protect them and 2, nor could the United States coalition protect them. At least the coalition certainly had some capacity to protect them, but based on what we were doing with those forces, in fact we were not protecting them. If you accept that as a…as a rationale, I believe there’s something you can do with them. Once we start to protect the Shia population in the mixed neighborhoods, I think for the first time Maliki then has an instrument to use with the Shia militia leaders. Right now when people say he’s got to work a deal with the militia leaders, I always say ‘based on what?’ He’s got nothing to offer them. He hasn’t been able to protect them. He hasn’t been able to protect the Shia people. So, once we do protect them for a number of weeks and months, I believe he’s got…I hope that we can resolve that politically. If we cannot resolve it politically, we have the wherewithal to deal with it militarily, but I think we should…I think we can avoid it.

Host: Well General Clark, we didn’t forget you and it’s apparent that you and General Keane are friends from…from your Army days, but I have a feeling you don’t agree with a lot he said.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, no – there are a lot of parts that I do agree with and I’ve always felt that we never had enough troops there, that we never really grasped control of Baghdad – I’ve been worried about the militias, but here’s the…here’s the issue that worries me. This…the violence is both the cause and a symptom. It’s a symptom of the underlying political difficulties that are present in the country. What you’re dealing with is an historic shift in power between sects in Iraq and that shift in power is traumatic for the entire region. It’s also an enormous win for Iran. One of the fir…basic principles of warfare is you have to isolate the theater of operations. We failed in Vietnam because we didn’t isolate the theater of operations. And, you have to isolate the battlefield. So, the assumptions that we’re going under here are the conventional assumptions - that the violence is being driven by insecurity and fear and if you can release that, you can create a political settlement. That’s not clear here. It’s more likely to me that the violence is driven by the enormous opportunities presented – historic opportunities after 11 centuries to redress the balance between Sunni and Shia Islam and Iraq is the crucible in which that’s being played out. And therefore the reinforcement by 5 brigades is a tactical move, it’s not a strategic move. If you want to make a strategic move, there must be dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran and efforts must be made to isolate Iraq and work Iraq internally. That is not happening right now because the administration simply refuses to change. So, my

Host: General Clark,

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: My guess would be that what you’re going to see, if I could just continue, is that you’ll see an effective…you’ll see if…if you can produce the Iraqi forces in there, that there will be some immediate impact and you may well quell the violence but these underlying political forces are so strong and so persistent that it’s likely to spring up somewhere else. Remember all these militias and all that violence is caused by people who live there for the most part and so they can hide their weapons, they can go visit relatives on the outsides of Baghdad but those underlying political tensions are still going to be there.

Host: But you’re…General Clark, the point I thought that General Keane made interestingly was that you know, while everyone talks about ultimately there’ll have to be a political solution here, he says that there can’t be a political solution until you’ve made some military progress here and this plan might enable that progress to happen which would therefore open the doors to the political solution.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: What I’m saying is this is…we’re looking at this at a microscopic level, you must look at it at a larger level and that’s where the administration has failed from the outset. When we invaded Iraq,

Host: General Keane, can you respond to that?

Jack Keane: Well I think, you know Wes, General Clark is right about that. I mean, certainly one of the things that we have to do with Iraq is look at it as a regional issue and not look at it as just the problems internal to Iraq. You know, I completely agree with that and I’ve also been frustrated uh, by the mischief of what the Syrians have been doing in aiding and abetting the Sunni insurgency for…almost from the outset and certainly what the Iranians are doing as well. I mean, those are serious problems that uh, that need to be addressed and I absolutely agree that you should look at Iraq as what’s taken place in the region and the shifting of power that’s taking place in it but I still…you still have to cope with the harsh reality of what is taking place inside that country and to bring the level of violence and bring security to the…to that nation state as best we possibly can. I would hope that the vigor and effort that we’re going to make in dealing with Iraq as a regional issue would be appropriate to the level of military and tactical commitment that we’re making. I don’t have visibility of the details of what the administration is doing diplomatically to deal with this problem and last night there was not much said about it, to be frank. And this is a concern that our military commanders have always had and it’s a concern that they have to this day and that is, is that you know, the effort in Iraq has been disproportionately military. The other elements of national power while well-intended, many times they have not shown up very much in terms of their effectiveness and I think that remains an open question as to how effective they will be this time.

Host: General…

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So let me just come back on what Jack’s saying and put it in practical military terms. Iran has their hand on the rheostat of the violence. In other words, they can counter-escalate if they want to continue the violence and if they see the emergence of a political settlement that’s not in their favor, they will ratchet back up the violence and they’re next-door neighbors and those 5 brigades are a tactical move, not a strategic move. And my concern is that the administration is not addressing the strategic issue. The NeoCon vision has failed and until the administration moves away from that vision – the idea that it can promote regime change, force governments out of office all over the region because it doesn’t agree with them, we’re not going to have a chance for our military measures on the ground in Iraq to have the desired political impact.

Host: Well gentlemen we are out of time. General Keane thank you so much but before we leave you General Clark, a hot potato for you real quickly – quick answer, Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd has thrown his hat in the ring for the Democratic nomination for 2008, uh, any thoughts from you sir?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think Chris Dodd’s a…he’s a fine public servant and I think it’s very appropriate that he would want to be the nation’s president.

Host: How about you – you thinking about this?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What I’m thinking about are these policy issues and I’m thinking about the men and women in the United States Armed Forces that are being sent over there and their families that are left behind. This administration as Jack Keane said, and I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but we’ve been from the beginning we’ve understood that the burden has disproportionately fallen on the military. I think it’s time for the President of the United States to take his responsibilities and come up with a strategy that will succeed, not dump the problem on the generals on the ground.

Host: David, that’s another way of saying ‘I’m not going to tell you this morning.’

Host: Yeah, I’m not going to talk to you about it.

Host: Very nice.

Host:: You know, to the extent that both individuals talked about Iran, I want to pass along one little piece of information here. It comes out of Baghdad, from the Associated Press, apparently the Iraqi officials say that the US-led multinational forces have now detained five Iranians in an overnight raid on Tehran’s diplomatic mission in the northern city of Irbil. Uh, the forces stormed the building about 3 in the morning their time, detaining the 5 staffers and confiscating computers, documents as well as other what was considered to be sensitive information. So it’s pretty interesting how all that’s folding out.

Host: Gentlemen thank you so much for being with us. General Jack Keane and Retired General Wesley Clark.