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January 11, 2007General Wesley Clark on "Politically Direct" on Air America Radio
January 11, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC
Mark Green: Who better to talk to talk to us at Air America than a General who's won a war, occupying another country in Europe - Kosovo - and who on Monday wrote a Washington Post pre-buttal on what Bush should be saying, and on Wednesday had a press conference with Senators Jack Reed, Schumer, Murray and others, who ran for President in 2004, and may run in 2008? Of course, I'm talking about General Wesley Clark. He is so relevant and ideal a guest that Rachel Maddow, of course of Air America, interviewed him earlier this evening, but he has so much more to contribute and say. So, I'm delighted that you're with us. Welcome, General Wesley Clark to Air America and Politically Direct.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Mark. Good to be with you.
Mark Green: Well, Apparently you're the ideal guest, because earlier tonight Rachel Maddow, the one and only on Air America, interviewed you, but I know you have so much more to say to our very, very interested and, shall I say, sophisticated, Air America audience. So, thank you for being the ideal guest, apparently. Last night, when I ended the pro-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (laughs) Let's see if I can live up to the billing.
Mark Green: (laughs) Y-you can't. I've never been able to l-live up to introductions.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Exactly.
Mark Green: Or obituaries, but I ha- I'm not there yet. Last night, two minutes before the President spoke, I closed our program, and I was talking with your friend and mine John Soltz of Vote Vets.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah, he's a good guy.
Mark Green: He's a wonderful guy. And I said, "You know, the classic definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Now, you are a very dignified man, and, and you don't usually use the words "insane" to describe a (laughs) President. How insane is what he's trying, and what is the chance that some more troops, three years later, some more reconstruction aid, three years later, could be the right medicine?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think it's, it's unlikely, but on the other hand, you have to understand he's out of options, and, and this is a man who's made his entire Presidency about Iraq and tried to link it to the war on terror, which it isn't, to try to justify it by weapons of mass destruction, which we didn't find there, and then tried to justify it by bringing Democracy there. So, this has been a hard problem for him. And I have to tell you, I was in the region in December, and-
(background noise)
Mark Green:: But by the way, General Clark, let me tell our listeners that what you're hearing-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't know if you can hear in the background, but I am at Newark Airport.
Mark Green: He's at Newark Airport. It doesn't get more real and dirty than this. So-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thanks.
Mark Green: So, we'll both talk through it, and it's still valuable for us.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (inaudible) The Iraq Study Group came out, it was met with a lot of unhappiness in the region. People want America to succeed, and I think Americans want themselves to succeed. I, I, I, I believe the problem with what the President's doing is that it's a tactical tweak-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -but the strategy's wrong, and it assumes that, it assumes about Baghdad that the problem is people are scared and therefore they're fighting and that if you can just put enough troops in to sort of smother it that the fighting will stop, and then they can have a normal dialog.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That may be the way Americans think, but I don't believe that's what's happening there. What's happening there is that this is the absolute front line in a 700 year struggle for power between two rival sects of Islam, and that struggle is being fought out in the streets of Baghdad.
Mark Green: How astonished are you that-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (inaudible) issue. It's a-
Mark Green: Mm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -sectarian issue. It's- there are a lot of different forces at work.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that it'll make it more difficult for the fighting to occur if there are a lot of American troops, but that doesn't mean the fighting will not continue and the struggle won't continue. And this is an issue that has to be addressed first by trying to isolate Iraq from that struggle-
Mark Green: Let me-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and that means talking to Iran and Syria. That's what the administration needs to do, and craft a strategy that works the big picture before it gets into the little picture.
Mark Green: Alright, let me ask you a question: I saw Secretary Rumsfeld at that time, about a year ago, asked by Tim Russert of NBC, 'What were your plans post-invasion?' He said, 'Oh, I has sixteen things that- contingencies we were going to watch out for in terms of refugees, in terms of oil.' And Russert said, 'Was an insurgency one of the sixteen?' And Rumsfeld said, 'I don't remember.' General Clark, how crazy was it for them not-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think there was enough thought-
Mark Green: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -put into what, what has to be done when they occupy.
Mark Green: Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And their basic was we're going to go in there, kick out Saddam's government and everything'll work. They just- It was a very naive and uninformed view, but there were a lot of us who tried to warn them that they needed to really plan for this. Look, when we invaded Haiti in 1994-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -to put Aristide back in charge, the big rallying cry in the Joint Staff and around the military was, 'Hey, we're not going to do police actions. We tried it in Somalia. That's what got us in trouble. We're not doing that.' So, we sent the troops in there. They landed after negotiation, didn't have to invade-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -from an air drop. We just loaded them off the ship, and we said, 'No police work.' Fine. And the very first day, a man was beaten up by a mob in front of the U.S. troops. The press went wild, and that night we, (laughs) we completely rewrote the instructions for the American Armed Forces-
Mark Green: Mm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -with regard to police work. You can't allow stuff to happen in front of you. You've got to do your best to provide order and stability when you are the major force in a country. I don't know why we didn't realize that in Iraq from the outset, but apparently we didn't.
Mark Green: At the outset, if this country had listened to General Shinseki, and let's say there were 2-300,000 troops, and let's say the Army manual had plans on counterinsurgency - actually that Lieutenant General Petraeus of course had done previously, and now he's commanding there - if that had happened at the start, would we be in a better or winning position now, hypothetically?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't know. It's hard to say, because first of all, there were Army manuals on insurgency. Maybe they weren't updated, but the more important thing is, the Army didn't want to think about them.
Mark Green: Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And secondly, I think the war, invasion of Iraq was a mistake in the first place. I was one of a few who tried to warn what would happen-
Mark Green: I recall.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the risks and asking, 'Is the risk of this happening worth the benefit,' and the administration was determined. They were hellbent to go to war, and there was just no turning them off. Everything from the first week after 9/11, pointed to the administration having made up its mind it was going to fight, no matter what.
Mark Green: Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There were even people in the administration who were saying, 'You know, gee I hope that, that, that the Iraqis don't, if Hussein doesn't, Saddam Hussein doesn't give in to the inspections, because wouldn't that be a problem.'
Mark Green: (chuckles)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And this was reported in the press a couple of places, and, and you know, that was a, it's a fundamental problem when you go into a country, you bring in forces, you just don't know what's going to happen.
Mark Green: Well-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's why wars should be used only as a last resort. To go back now and say, 'Well, you know, if we'd had 200,000 or 300,000, things would have been different - maybe yes, maybe no. The Shia were repressed. They were the majority. Once their oppressor was removed, then only one of two things was going to happen: The remaining Ba'athists in the military, they'd been kept together, would've continued the repression. But they wouldn't have gotten away with it, because we wouldn't have permitted it. And then there would've been a Shia uprising again. Or there would have been a Shia uprising at the start, and we'd be right where we are.
Mark Green: S-so, is it too late? I understand hypotheticals a-are not, can't inform us what to do going forward perhaps, but the President seems to say and admit that Bremer's decision to de-Ba'athify the government, basically take out a lot of civil servants with expertise because they happen to be Ba'athists and to disband the Army, creating a, an army of unemployed and likely insurgents - they now want to reverse that, you know, with a jobs program and with reviewing de-Ba'athification. Too late?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Not necessarily too late, but it's going to, it's got some high hurdles to overcome. Think of it though if we didn't do anything. Look at Somalia-
Mark Green:: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -today. We couldn't wait to get out of there. I was part of the planning team when we put General Tony Zinni in as he's a Three-Star. He extracted the last of the U.S. forces out of there.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We basically gave up on Somalia. We didn't do nation-building in those days. That was 1994-95. Okay? So, where is Somalia right now? Those people have been miserable. They've been taken over by Islamists. The Ethiopians have had to go in there and attack the Islamists with some U.S. help obviously. And where will they be six months from now and a year from now? We don't know - nothing but misery there. The difference between Somalia and Iraq is there will be an Iraq, there will be some people living there, but it's a crucial piece of terrain, not only because of the oil, but because of the geography.
Mark Green: Let me take both up with you, unless your plane comes. I hope you stay with us. We have to take a break. This is Mark Green on Politically Direct. We will be right back with General Wesley Clark.
(break)
Mark Green: Welcome back. This is Mark Green on Politically Direct, sitting in for David Bender. I'm on with a gentleman at Newark Airport who I found, and his name is General Wesley Clark, and we're talking of course about the President's speech and plans on Iraq. We were discussing, you were discussing the differences between Somalia where we got out quick and Iraq where it's not so easy. You mentioned oil. I, I saw on television last night General McCaffery said, was asked, 'Why are we still there refereeing between Shia and Sunni?' And he was pushed and pushed, and finally he said, 'Oil.' W-will we be there on 10, 20 years because of oil?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't know if we'll be there because of oil. We're there for a lot of reasons. It's not just oil, but oil, I said, "oil and geography."
Mark Green: Yes.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because this is the fault line between Sunni and Shia. This is a critical piece of ground in terms of a, of putting pressure on our allies in the region - countries that are as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Israel. This is a, an important- Iraq is a, it, it's, it's a lynchpin in the region. And so, there will always be people who live there, and there will always be tension over it. Saddam held it together. And I think what we need to do is try to find a solution that holds Iraq together and that holds it above the Sunni-Shia quarrel, but we can't do that without talking to Iraq's neighbors.
Mark Green: But what, what if they don't want to talk?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But that's, that's the problem with the Bush administration approach thus far. They simply won't recognize what kind of a position they're in strategically.
Mark Green: Well, Baker-Hamilton said let's talk to neighbors. What if hypothe- What if Bush and Cheney tried to talk and then Iran and Syria said, 'Screw you. You, you blundered into this, and we're not going to get you out of it'? what would General Clark do then, if you had a comparable speech last night, if you don't- if the diplomacy card was played and ignored?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it depends on what you mean by diplomacy. Look, if you go over to Iran and say, 'Gee fellas, I really need your help so I can leave,' they'd say, 'Leave! Just leave. Leave right now.' I've heard their National Security Advisor say it. He says, "America's failed. You should leave." If you heard it, it'd make you mad, because it's a, it was a very arrogant and triumphalist statement.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: : But that's not what diplomacy's about. Diplomacy's about trying to create a different vision for the region. Do people in this region always have to fight? Does every issue have to be settled by force? Do people have to hate each other all their lives and pass that hatred on to their children? Do they have to live in fear? Can there be a better way? That, that, that sounds idealistic, but it can be implemented step by step. If we had approached Eastern Europe the way this administration has approached the Middle East, if we'd approached Eastern Europe that way during the 1980's, we might have had a war. Instead, President Reagan went to Reykjavik. He sat down and talked to Gorbechev.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I remember all the criticize, criticism of him at the time. People said, 'Oh my Goodness! He offered to negotiate with Gorbechev.' Yeah, he saw something when he met with Gorbechev.
Mark Green: You know, Bush says he's a Reaganite. Why won't he emulate that piece of Reagan, who was a tough ideologue, but a realist.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think, I, I don't know. I don't want to speculate on President Bush. I don't, I don't know the man personally, and i-it's just not the right thing. He's making a mistake. Not that you can ask Iran for help, but you can help Iran. They have, we have things they want. They want to be admitted into the world community. They'd like to have their assets unfrozen. They'd like to be able to get new technology for their oil fields.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They'd like to be recognized as an important power in the region instead of blocked and turned away. We're the key to unlocking all of these things for them. We could do that for them if they do what needs to be done for us, but there's no trust between the two of us right now. We don't trust them. They don't trust us. They're working against us in Iraq, because they've always wanted to have greater influence over Iraq. Iraq's been a threat to them for a long time, and now if they can work and make sure that the government in Iraq is friendly and, and, and, and, and, and responsive to Iran's needs, then they're more secure at home. Also, their work in Iraq probably-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -advances their regional interests in strengthening Syria and preventing us from knocking off Syria and going after their friends in Lebanon.
Mark Green:: General Clark-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So-
Mark Green: I, I'll have, I have to interrupt, because we have to take a hard break. Then we'll be back with you unless your flight comes in at Newark Airport as our listeners can tell. This is Mark Green on Politically Direct. Stay with us. We'll be back with General Wesley Clark.
(break)
Mark Green:: Welcome back. This is Mark Green again on Politically Direct. We're here of course with General Wesley Clark, who is at Newark Airport. I want to hear your calls when General Clark has to leave us, I want to go back and forth with you. having heard from us, I want to hear from you at 866-303-2270. We were just discussing diplomacy, and President Bush doesn't seem to be a big fan of diplomacy. But the trump card of President Bush and certainly Senator McCain is they say, "We don't know that this new plan will work, but what we do know is it'll be a calamity for decades, a catastrophe if we should leave too abruptly and terrorists will follow us home." Says Senator McCain. Look, I heard that Chicken Little talk of course after Vietnam. Vietnam is not identical to Iraq, and of course President Bush this year went to Vietnam and was applauded. The domino theory was a metaphor, wasn't real. Talk to me about what you think the consequ-, because if have to decide whether to increase our forces or withdraw on a fazed plan, it turns on what will happen if we leave in a year or in ten. What do you think will happen at that time?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Hard to say, because depends on, not only what's going on in Iraq, but also other people in the region. The Saudis have apparently said that they'll continue to support the Sunnis, because they don't want the Sunnis driven out of Iraq. They don't want Iran to be triumphant in the Persian Gulf. They want to hold onto their share and part of these Sunni countries have Shia minorities-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and so there'll be domestic problems in these countries, so, especially if, if there's a lot of triumphalism going on.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, this makes these countries very nervous. I, I, I imagine that we will be there for a long time, but on the other hand, you know, we need to have the right strategy and the right approach. I don't think this is a problem you can solve by force. Forces may play a role in it, but it's not a problem that you can solve just by force.
Mark Green: Well this-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, that's why I disagree with what the administration's doing.
Mark Green: Sure.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's- What the administration's doing is "stay the course" more.
Mark Green:: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's all. What they need is a new strategy. The Neocon strategy failed. The Neocon strategy was, 'Hey, let's go into Iraq. Let's-
Mark Green: Mm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -kick 'em in the teeth, get rid of Saddam. There'll be a Democracy. Then we'll move our divisions into Syria, get rid of the bad guy Assad. Then that'll give us control of Lebanon, and then we can sweep back around and put real pressure on Tehran and try to get regime change there." It was a- it's a great vision. It wasn't very- It was a fantasy, and it, it just misunderstood the way nations and societies are organized.
Mark Green: That, mm, yet President Bush is going back to-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And he hasn't disvowed this.
Mark Green: Yeah. Let me ask you a question.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and that's-
Mark Green: Yeah, I'm sorry.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Until he disavows it and moves away from it, the Iranians and Syrians are going to continue to meddle inside Iraq, because their security depends on keeping us tied down there.
Mark Green:: He's not only not disavowing it, he is listening to the Kagans and Krystols and Krautheimers yet again.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Apparently so.
Mark Green: This raises a, a more imminent question. Within the week, the Senate and the House, Democrats are going to vote, and if you were in the Senate, what would you vote for or recommend, either a, a non-binding vote, you know, a sense of the Senate or House, that this is a, a poor policy, or would you go to the level of a vote to cut off fu- funds for more soldiers in the surge, not effecting-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Look-
Mark Green: -the funds for the current ones?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Look, look, we got to lift our heads up. Bush, Bush is, is, is trying to rearrange the deck chairs as the titanic sails toward an iceberg, and, and, and, and, and I don't want to see good people arguing about whether there should be more deck chairs in the front of the deck or the back of the deck.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's not the appropriate question. The appropriate question is: How can we get the Captain to change course before he hits the iceberg, and his request for troops gives the Congress the chance to say, 'Mr. President, you know, we're not sure that this makes a whole lot of sense, but for it to make any sense, you need a better strategy. So, you'll come back with a change in strategy, and we'll look more favorably at your troops ideas.'
Mark Green: So, would you pull the trigger and vote for a Kennedy-Markey resolution that, to de-fund future troops and use the power of the purse, to stop the surge?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, as I said, I think you've got a lot of power in the Congress-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -but I think we shouldn't be voting on whether the deck chairs on the Titanic are on the front deck or the back deck.
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's not the issue. The issue is: Can we get the strategy changed before it's too late, and we're left with no other option for dealing with Iran but to attack? That's the more urgent problem. I'd like to see the Congress work to get the strategy changed-
Mark Green: Do you think-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -using their power of the purse.
Mark Green: Do you think with Sy Hersh, who's written about this extensively in the New Yorker, that there's been a decision made that it's likely Bush would launch an attack on Iran, probably just from the air, before he leaves office?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, that'd be my guess, and I don't know whether Sy Hersh is right or not. But you know, if, if the intelligence community is right, of they are developing nuclear weapons, if it's uncertain when that is going to happen, if the Israelis our, our, our friends in the region, they're under tremendous pressure-
Mark Green: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -they feel from the Iranians, I think, you know, any American President is going to want to deal with Iran. What I'm asking for is that we deal with Iran now while there are options, rather than later when there's no option but the use of force.
Mark Green: General Clark, you say any American President. In 1952, a NATO Commander who had won a war in Europe was trusted to extricate America from Korea. Hm. Might you run on '08, and might you be (laughs) the Eisenhower for Iraq? By the way, John Soltz told me to ask you that question. (laughs)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't think history repeats itself exactly like that. I haven't said I'm not going to run. I, I haven't taken the steps of forming an exploratory committee. I'm very interested right now in trying to help the Democratic Party pick the right policy as it moves forward, and then we'll have to see as the weeks go by as to whether there's more to be done or not.
Mark Green: One more question on that: Obviously candidates, yesterday Senator Dodd, are announcing now, and having been a candidate, every day you're not running y-y-you're not raising funds, which regrettably is a sine qua non of a candidacy. About when might you have to move from the policy focus you're bringing to Iraq and start actually running and raising funds?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, sometime within the next few weeks.
Mark Green: Oh, that soon? Wh-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't think you're going to wait six months-
Mark Green: Well, I'm not-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -but I don't have a definite timeline, and, and I haven't made a decision.
Mark Green: Sure.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I'm still working through this issue, and, and, and weighing it and mostly I'm worried about the policy.
Mark Green: General Clark-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Once a person becomes a candidate, then everything they say becomes viewed through a political lens. I don't want this viewed through a political lens. This should be viewed as a policy issue. That's why I'm advocating.
Mark Green: Well, I'm no Imus, and I take it you're not going to announce with me on Air America. I, I will, I won't take that personally, and when you say everything is viewed politically, as you discovered with your late candidacy and announced on '03, as soon as you got to the plane and Adam Nagourney starts cornering you, it's a different world. Thank you for your service to the country previously. Thank you for contributing your unique account, intelligence and experience to this morass in Iraq. I'd love to talk to you more when you make up your final mind. General Clark, Thank you.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, thank you very much.
Mark Green: Appreciate it so much.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: (inaudible) Bye, bye now.
