General Wesley Clark on the Diane Rehm Show
Military Strategy and the Debate Over the War in Iraq
July 12, 2007 | Transcription by Melange
President Bush is threatening to veto any attempts by members of Congress to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq "without regard to conditions on the ground or the recommendations of commanders." Diane and her guests talk about the military/strategic implications of proposals to abandon the strategy behind the "surge" and get U.S. troops out of Iraq.
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July 12, 2007Guests
Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander
Lawrence Korb, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration
Kimberly Kagan, affiliate of the John M. Olin Institute of Strategic Studies at Harvard University and executive director of the Institute for the Study of War in Washington
Erik Swabb, former Marine infantry officer and a veteran of the war in Iraq. He's a member of Vets for Freedom.
Diane Rehm: ... this morning to talk about his report on benchmarks in Iraq. Joining me here in the studio to talk about that report and proposals in Congress to change course, Lawrence Korb. He's Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, he's former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration. General Wesley Clark is former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and Kimberly Kagan is Executive Director for the Institute for the study of war in Washington. Throughout the hour, I'll look forward to hearing your questions, comments. Join us by phone at 800-433-8850 or send your e-mail to drshow@WAMU.org. Good morning to all of you.
Good morning.
Diane Rehm: General Clark, may I start with you. What do you make of the White House report on benchmarks in Iraq?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Well, they would have liked us to wait until September for anything so this is an interim report. The president views it as his job to basically sell the program and keep the surge alive and I think that's what it's attempting to do. I've been very disappointed with the surge from the outset because it's not a change in strategy, it's a change in tactics on the ground and hope the American people will recognize it as such. We need a new strategy in Iraq and we don't have one.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb, what do you make of it?
Lawrence Korb: Well I think it's important to keep in mind that the president himself said we would know within six months whether the surge was working. A lot of people are blaming Congress, but for example he gave the speech on January 10th and gave every indication we'd know in six months. Secretary Rice on January 12th said we would know it in six months. So, this idea that somehow or other he's being forced to say it before he was ready I don't think is quite ... quite true and then the Congress put that into the law and he signed it, so the idea that he's being forced to do this, I think he's unhappy because none of the significant benchmarks that he himself laid down, that he signed into law, have really been met and the purpose of the surge is that, theoretically ... and I'm agree with General Clark, I don't think it was a change of strategy, but theoretically it was supposed to get the Iraqis to uh, do the things that they need to do for a national reconciliation. They haven't really done anything meaningful.
Diane Rehm: Turning to you Kimberly Kagan and full disclosure here, you're married to Frederick Kagan, who with General Jack Keane formulated this strategy which has now been implemented in Iraq. You've written that there's a perception that the new strategy has already failed. In your view, what's the reality?
Kimberly Kagan: The reality is that General Petraeus and General Odierno who have taken command in De ... in February and in December respectively, have actually implemented a change in strategy in Iraq and that change in strategy is working.
Diane Rehm: What kind of change?
Kimberly Kagan: We see for the first time, the implementation of a true counterinsurgency program in order to secure the Iraqi people from the sectarian violence that's plagued them for years, to protect them from the insurgents who have been fighting in Iraq since 2003 and to wage a major campaign against al Qaeda in the stronghold it has established over the past three years surrounding the city of Baghdad.
Diane Rehm: General Clark, what do you make of that statement?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK I think we needed more troops on the ground for a long time. I think we've had other efforts to protect the population in Baghdad. I agree the Army lost a lot of its counterinsurgency common sense after the 1990s. We, I think, concentrated on building a warrior spirit and maybe we lost some of the legacy of Vietnam that a lot of us learned the hard way over there about counterinsurgency. But I would say this, that you cannot win this war militarily. Everybody says it, including Generals Petraeus and Odierno. So, the question is what is the administration doing to help the men and women in uniform? What are they doing diplomatically? What are they doing politically? The answer is, diplomatically they've done very little. From the beginning of the invasion of Iraq, it was known that this administration had plans for regime change throughout the Middle East. Iraq was the first, Syria was going to be the second, Lebanon and ultimately Iran. Those countries viewed their first line of defense as keeping us bogged down in Iraq. So they've had an incentive to feed the insurgency. If you don't deal with that incentive, whatever the efforts of the military, they come to naught because we're going in a very resistant medium.
Diane Rehm: Kimberly Kagan.
Kimberly Kagan: I would say that General Petraeus and General Odierno have actually worked very hard to plug many of the holes in the lines of supply that the Iranians have been using to feed weapons and fighters and advisors into the conflict and this is actually one of the most interesting and important new departures of their strategy because they have been working very hard to reduce the power of the secret cells, the Quds force operatives who've been advising Shi'a militias within Iraq and therefore although we may speak of incentives that the United States needs to provide to Iran, we also must remember that this is the first time that we are in fact trying to interdict Iranians within Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb.
Lawrence Korb: Well I think that the big mistake is to pretend that the enemy is al Qaeda and they're associated with bin Laden. The groups in Iraq ... only 5% at most of the insurgents are foreign fighters. They're primarily Iraqis who are inspired by bin Laden, but they're not taking orders for him, they're not part of it. You don't just have al Qaeda, you've got problems with Shias and Shias in the south. You've got Shias and Sunnis in Baghdad. You've got Kurds and Arabs up in Kirkuk area. And again, going back to the strategy, General Abizaid was the first one to recognize it was an insurgency and he had it. What you basically have now is you're pretending you're doing things different, you're not. And I agree with General Clark, they never sent enough troops. They should have listened to General Shinseki, they didn't do it -- that's been the problem.
Diane Rehm: But, the last of the troops that make up this surge just arrived last week so why is an evaluation so important now, so soon after the reality of that surge has arrived?
Lawrence Korb: Well I think the reason is this is what the President said. When he changed his strategy in January, he rejected the bipartisan recommendations of the Iraq Study Group which members of Congress and the American people wanted to embrace and he said ‘no, I'm going to change strategy and within six months we'll know whether it's working' and it's not. These are his words and Secretary Rice's then we will go back and take a look at the Baker-Hamilton, or Iraq Study Group.
Diane Rehm: Kimberly Kagan.
Kimberly Kagan: I think that it's important to remember that General Petraeus took command on February 10th and that what the President has done is ask General Petraeus for his military advice about when, in fact, the surge might work and when in fact he should ask for reports. Right now we have a July 15th report that is supposed to focus simply on progress toward benchmarks, not the achievement of all of the goals that we hope that the Iraqi government will achieve. And the debate and discussion that we should be having now is about whether or not, first of all, there has been any progress toward those benchmarks and secondly, can the surge, as it is transpiring, actually help to improve security and buy time for the Iraqi government.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK So, I think it's pretty clear that given the porous border, the proximity or Iran, the cultural relationships, the family relationships, the deep historical and cultural connections, that military interdiction along the border is not going to build an impenetrable fence around Iraq. So, military measures alone aren't going to insulate Iraq. You've got to do diplomacy. You've also got to do the heavy lifting of politics. We've never put in the kinds of teams we need in the provinces to help government really deliver services so the surge has been sort of a wish list. It's been more of 'hey, let's dump the problem back on the guys in uniform and gals in uniform and then let's hope that by greater effort somehow like magic the Iraqis will somehow agree.' The government is made up of factional leaders who have more to gain by continuing to fight and maintain their militias and hold out their options than they do by compromise and the surge has not affected that.
Diane Rehm: Kimberly Kagan I want to pick up on something General Clark has said, namely the lack of diplomatic and political effort to resolve these issues rather than, as so many people have said, continuing to try to do this militarily.
Kimberly Kagan: I think it's very important to realize that although perhaps we cannot win the war militarily, we cannot win the war without military action, without securing the population of Baghdad, without securing the Maliki government from Shi'a militias that undermine his ability to negotiate within his own political party. And we are, I think, deluding ourselves if we think that only diplomatic solutions or only negotiation or only withdrawal can solve a problem that is based on violent interactions between enemy groups fighting the United States and the government of Iraq. So what we need to do is look at the surge, understand that it is a prelude to negotiations within the Maliki government and we also have to recognize that Ambassador Crocker has established uh, many negotiations within Iraq, also uh with Iraq's neighbors, also has resourced the embedded provincial reconstruction teams and all sorts of new efforts to develop governance in Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb.
Lawrence Korb: Well, I think it's important to keep in mind that Maliki was opposed to the surge. When he and Bush met in uh Jordan in November, he said he did not want a surge. Uh, basically General Casey and General Abizaid, who were the on scene commanders said more troops is not the answer. This is not the first escalation. We had two in the fall last year, this is the third one and the violence is not down overall in the country.
Diane Rehm: Lawrence Korb. He's Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration. Do join us. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Welcome back. Here in the studio, General Wesley Clark former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Lawrence Korb, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, Kimberly Kagan, she's Executive Director for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington and we are talking about the surge, the report on the surge that has come out from the President today. And joining us now is Erik Swabb, he's a former Marine Infantry Officer and a veteran of the war in Iraq. He's a member of Vets for Freedom. Erik, tell us briefly about Vets for Freedom.
Erik Swabb Vets for Freedom is a group of people I served with uh, in the Marine Corps and we're basically a pro-mission group. We're not for indefinite presence in Iraq, but we are for giving General Petraeus the time that he's asked for and Congress promised him, the time to evaluate whether the surge has worked or not.
Diane Rehm: Tell me why you support the current strategy.
Erik Swabb Pardon me, could you say that again?
Diane Rehm: Why you support the current strategy?
Erik Swabb I support the current strategy because I've seen with my own eyes that it works. When I was over there, my unit engaged in classic counterinsurgency strategy, but we did it on an ad hoc basis and now it's great to see that that strategy is being implemented strategically throughout the country and we're seeing real signs of progress. The Anbar province is a major success story. It's not for sure that it will remain as secure as it is right now but there's been great progress and it's due to the implementation of this counterinsurgency strategy in the region.
Diane Rehm: So you believe it's really working. What do you think is behind the perception that the surge is failing?
Erik Swabb I think it's four years of very understandable frustration with a war that has not progressed as fast as the American people have expected and I completely understand that frustration and I've felt it myself. There are many times I've been pessimistic but when General Petraeus was appointed as Commander of Coalition Forces and he implemented, across the entire country, a real counterinsurgency strategy, I became more optimistic. And for those of us in uniform, when we were serving and we were so frustrated, we finally have a glimmer of hope and it's ... it's tough to see that we're not going to be given enough time to see if it works or not.
Diane Rehm: I think General Clark would want to comment on that glimmer of hope.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Erik, thanks for your work for the country. Thanks for your service in uniform and for speaking out on coming home. I was in probably the same position you were in when I came home from Vietnam in 1970 but I'll tell you what I'm concerned about. You mentioned Anbar province and you mentioned throughout the country but I haven't seen any evidence that we're running a counterinsurgency campaign throughout the country. In fact, in most of the country, the militias are in control. Take the area around Basra where the British are, they've been driven back into one simple ... one single position in Basra. They're under continuing attack and threat there. So I'm fully supportive of counterinsurgency but I don't see the glimmer of hope. I see one more turn of the wheel while Iran and Syria mark time against the United States.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb.
Lawrence Korb: Well I think it's important to keep in mind that one of the reasons things are going better in al Anbar is some of the Sunni insurgents are cooperating with us and the reason they're cooperating with us is they understand the American people are going to force us to get out. In fact, they said ‘now that we know you're withdrawing,' because they don't like al Qaeda either so I think that's very, very important. And the other is that yes, it's going ... these Sunni insurgents will cooperate to go after al Qaeda, but they don't support the Maliki government and even Mr. Maliki was not happy with us sort of bringing them into the fold and arming them and overall violence in the country is not down. The President told us at one time how good things were going up in Tal Afar, remember he gave that speech. Well, then the next thing you knew, there was all kinds of devastation up in Talafar. When we fought in Baquba recently, Iraqis were supposed to send 11,500 troops only 1,500 showed up.
Diane Rehm: Erik, I'm sure you'd like to respond to some of these comments.
Erik Swabb Yes, well first of all, Anbar has been a incredibly important region of the country as our very distinguished guests know of course, but it's always been the heart of the insurgency. Ramadi's been the heart of the insurgency and attacks in Ramadi have plummeted. There are definitely concerns about working with insurgents but as I'm sure General Clark knows, counterinsurgency involves bringing in insurgents that is a part of the process and coalition forces and the Maliki government have taken steps through vetting, through ensuring that payment to these provincial auxiliary police forces um, is through the government and they receive ammunition from the government and they're doing a good job, as best of a job as possible um, to integrate them and Sunnis are now joining the Iraqi police and the Iraqi Army so I think there is a little bit less concern there than ... although there should be some concern, but less than maybe you would expect about simply rearming another militia that's going to go after the government. Um, but of course there are challenges throughout the country. I think it's recognizing success in Anbar and trying to export that to other areas of the country by forming alliances with tribal shieks and building local security forces.
Diane Rehm: So clearly you and General Clark have a very different view of what has happened in Anbar. Let me ask you this Erik, what do you think will happen in Iraq if the US withdraws troops earlier than is now called for under the current plan?
Erik Swabb It's so hard to predict what would happen. I'm certainly not qualified to predict whether it would descend into civil war however this is my gut feeling and this is from working closely with Iraqi security forces when I served over there. There are bonds of trust that have been built between US service members and Iraqi security forces, bonds of trust formed by being under fire together and part of that is that they think that we're going to be around and they expect us to live up to our word and leaving before we fulfill pretty much our promise to help them stand up and leaving in a haphazard disorganized manner, I think will destroy a lot of leverage and a lot of trust that we would have with the Iraqi government. I would argue that that is leverage and trust that we want to have no matter what the aftermath of the surge is.
Diane Rehm: Kimberly Kagan, do you want to comment?
Kimberly Kagan: I do indeed because what I saw in Iraq when I visited in May is the extension of these uh relationships between US forces and local populations that have developed in Anbar, now spreading through the assistance of the US armed forces into all of central Iraq. That is to say Diyala province to Baghdad's north, Salahaddin province to the north of that, to the western portion of Baghdad and also to north Babil province to its south. And I think that this is a result of the wider counterinsurgency effort and an extremely important development, perhaps the most important in years because we have locals trying to help the US armed forces. We have the command, Generals Petraeus and Odierno trying to facilitate links between local government and local leaders and the government of Iraq and although we'd like to see the government of Iraq in Baghdad make every change that's possible, what is so important about this grassroots movement is that it's actually establishing a political connection between communities that were not part of the political process before and who are now suddenly part of a political process in Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb, I saw you raise your eyebrows as Kimberly was speaking.
Lawrence Korb: Well, I think that if you look at USA Today, you find out the lead story was that an Iraqi policeman basically killed Americans. This idea ... yes, you'll get some of them to do it but look, there's 350,000 Iraqi security forces – that should be more than enough to deal with 20,000 insurgents. It's not a question of training, it's motivation. They are loyal more to their tribe and sect. After all this big battle of Baquba, we asked for 11,500, only 1,500 showed up. That was last month so the idea that somehow all these bonds ... we've been hearing this over and over for the last four years and that's why I think you ... yes, you'll see some temporary things, but the recent key to Iraq is when they know we're leaving, then they will not cooperate with these insurgents.
Diane Rehm: At the same time, we have given our word to the Iraqis that we would not leave. What happens to our relationship not only with Iraqis but with other countries around the world if we now pick up and leave?
Lawrence Korb: Well, I think we've got to leave in an orderly manner. Erik was talking about ... nobody wants to leave in a haphazard manner, but I think you need ... General Odierno said it would take 10-12 months to get out. I think we need to set a date to get out. That will give the Iraqis incentive they need to do what they need and then you work with the countries in the region because it becomes their problem as well as ours if Iraq becomes a failed state.
Diane Rehm: Erik Swabb, do you have a further comment?
Erik Swabb Um, I have to go shortly but
Diane Rehm: I know you do.
Erik Swabb It's a very contentious issue but you can see both sides of the story and I'm just trying to get a the perspective of someone who worked at a very tactical level over there. Um, the reports I'm getting from people who have been over there is the security forces are improving. These people are not all ridden by a sectarian agenda, some of them genuinely believe in the country and you look at number of security forces, number of Iraqis soldiers that have been killed, members of Parliament who have been targeted ... I don't think that you can paint all Iraqis with a broad brush and say they're committed to a sectarian agenda. Um, I think that would be a great disservice to real patriots that are in that country right now.
Diane Rehm: Erik Swabb, Vets for Freedom. Thank you for your service. Thanks for joining us this morning.
Erik Swabb Thank you Diane.
Diane Rehm: And General Clark, I know you had a comment.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Well, I do. I think that General Petraeus and General Odierno get a lot of credit for what they're trying to do over there, but the essential point is that the administration hasn't given them the kind of leadership and support it needs at the policy level. I'm talking about the diplomacy, the dialogue with the countries in the region. One tactic after another has been tried in Iraq and these techniques work. We know what the counterinsurgency techniques are. We know that personal connections can be established. We know that people forge bonds in combat. We know that friendship goes so far but this isn't our culture. It's not our home court but it's very close to the home court of Syria and Iran and until we can deal with the larger playing field and take away some of their incentive to continue to meddle in there, we're ... we're trying to balance on a very shaky life raft over there, so whatever gains we might make in one operation or another, in arresting five people or ten people, we have no idea the extent of true Iranian or Syrian connections and influence inside that country. This is not a problem that's going to be resolved militarily with a change in tactics on the ground. It requires a regional approach.
Diane Rehm: At 27 before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm show. Let's turn now to the political debate that's going on on Capitol Hill. Uh, Kimberly Kagan, why do you believe that there is such defection on the part of Congressional Republicans from their previous support for the current strategy of the President for this war?
Kimberly Kagan: I think that the kinds of changes that we are seeing on the ground in Iraq that are very evident if you set foot in the country, if you work with and travel through with military units. Those successes and those changes are not being reported or understood very well here in Washington and there's a perception in Washington that the surge is failing. There's a perception that the Iraqis are not stepping up. There's a perception that the Iraqi security forces are insufficient. There is a perception somehow that the surge is failing.
Diane Rehm: And you're saying that that's all wrong.
Kimberly Kagan: What I'm saying is that is not at all what I saw on the ground when I visited in May. Rather, I saw that there was is a coherent military offensive that was being prepared by General Odierno that has been underway now for just less than a month, that there is a coherent approach to routing al Qaeda out of the areas around central Baghdad in an offensive that is really not part of the debate and discussion that we're having in Congress and that there is an extraordinary amount of progress in reducing sectarian violence within the city of Baghdad that uh, is somehow under ... uh, not factored into the discussion that we're having.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb, do you believe that the press and those who are on the ground – the reporters, the military personnel, have only been reporting the bad news and that we're not hearing the good news that Kimberly Kagan is speaking of?
Lawrence Korb: Nonsense. The press has been much more right than the government. I'll take the press statements and compare them to things that the Bush people have been saying since 2003. The other thing I think to keep in mind is Senator Dick Lugar said and I think ... the costs of this far outweighed the benefits. He knows what's going on. Lugar has been in the Senate since Richard Nixon. He's got contacts, he is not swayed by things that don't make any sense. I was in Iraq in April but I didn't go with the Generals. I went with the troops and I also spoke to the Iraqi people, okay. Seventy percent of the Iraqi people want us out so this idea that we need to stay there for them ... of course some of these government people want us in because then they don't have to make the tough choices that are necessary. No, if it wasn't for the press, we would continue to do the dumb things we've been doing all along so I'm glad we have the press. I think if we didn't and we listened to the Bush administration, we'd think the war was already won.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK This whole debate has been on a lesser agenda that keeps out of the public debate the real issues that are at hand. Those issues are: the war against the terrorists, dealing with Iran's nuclear issue, trying to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians, working the issues of Lebanon and Syria. Instead we're arguing about a few thousand troops and their tactics on the ground in Iraq. It's a crazy, misplaced debate. It serves one interest. It serves the interests of those who want to label people who question this as not supporting the troops. The real issue is the grand strategy of the United States. We were attacked on 9/11 and we responded by briefly intervening in Afghanistan and then turning our attention to Iraq. It was a fundamental strategic failure by the United States to do that. We're living with the consequences. The latest report shows al Qaeda's regained its strength and every day that we're in Iraq, we're feeding the al Qaeda recruiting machine.
Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark. He's former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He's also founder of WesPAC: Securing America's Future, a political action committee to elect Democrats to the White House and Congress, State offices and local offices. We'll take a short break. We'll be right back.
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Diane Rehm: As we talk about the report being issued by the White House today and as the President holds his press conference outlining that report, we're talking about the content of that report, saying that it is a mixed bag, that we have apparently succeeded in several areas but meeting benchmarks has not been a great success. Let's go to Belvedere, Texas. Good morning Robert, you're on the air.
Robert: Thank you so much Diane. Diane, one of the journalists that I really love in this country and whom I trust is Martha Raddatz who has been to Iraq maybe 13 or 14 times and in her repeated interviews of Iraqi security forces, they to a man have told her things were better in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and they don't want to leave their compounds to risk their lives. Now, a historic view of this whole situation needs to be taken because we have made an absolute moonscape of Iraq and maybe two to four million Iraqis have left, we've killed maybe 700,000 of Iraqis and they're leaving at the rate of 500 thous ... excuse me, 50,000 a month and the problem is we've gone into Iraq under false pretenses and on a foundation of lies. I mean ...
Diane Rehm: So Robert, tell me what your question is for the panel.
Robert: Well, I want the panel to ask if they recognize who and how we got into this thing. I mean we're talking ... I listened to an interview ...
Diane Rehm: You know Robert, I don't want to go back at this point, we've got to go forward. I do understand your concern, your anxiety, which I think we all share but now I think the time has come to concentrate on what we're doing now and how we might move forward. I hope you understand. Thanks so much for your call. Larry Korb, why do you think Congress ought to be pushing for a timeline for a complete withdrawal now before this surge strategy has a chance to really work?
Lawrence Korb: I don't ... until you have a timeline, you're not going to get the Iraqi government to meet these benchmarks. They're under no pressure. You're not going to get the cooperation of the other countries in the region until they know that we're leaving and if you don't set a timeline you're not going to have an army that's worth anything because of the problems you're having recruiting and the problem that you have by extending these people for 15 months is going to cause all kinds of problems.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK I think right now the Congress has to assert its authority to insist on a change – a real change – in strategy by the administration. This is not southeast Asia. We can't simply walk away ...
Diane Rehm: It's so interesting to me that during the break General Clark, both you and Larry Korb said that while you were in Vietnam, you believed that the war, the strategy, was working. The difference between being in there and looking at it from the outside?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK I spent years afterwards trying to understand what went wrong in Vietnam because when you're in it, especially when you're in it with an American unit, you feel good. I mean American units are competent, they believe in each other, we've got great leadership, we've got good equipment, we may not have everything we need, but we believe in each other and we generally succeed in what we do but tactical success doesn't necessarily add up to strategic success and what I think the Congress has to do is insist that Bush get a grip strategically on the region. So I'd like to see them start the withdrawal. I think we're overcommitted right now, we need to pull a couple of brigades back to reconstitute the force so we have strategic reserve in the United States. But I think what really needs to be done is Congress needs to demand that the Executive Branch produce and brief to the Congress a comprehensive regional strategy that folds all of this together because without dealing with this on a regional basis, our troops' effort is not being used productively inside Iraq.
Diane Rehm: Let's go to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Good morning Robert, you're on the air.
Robert: Thank you. I just wanted to say that I read the paper this morning and the first thing I read was al Qaeda, according to the latest intelligence report has rebuilt to capabilities before 9/11 and they have regrouped along the Pakistan/Afghan border. I thought we were fighting a war on terrorism. Why are we concerned about benchmarks in Iraq?
Diane Rehm: Kimberly Kagan.
Kimberly Kagan: al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is actually the central front in the war on terror according to the global al Qaeda second in charge Zawahiri who issued a statement just a couple of weeks ago encouraging jihadists to fight the United States in Iraq. And I think that before we decide that al Qaeda is elsewhere and must be fought elsewhere, we must realize that whatever the situation was in Iraq in 2003, right now al Qaeda is in Iraq, it is fighting and killing US soldiers, Iraqi civilians and it is in fact funneling regional assets into Iraq rather than elsewhere around the globe.
Diane Rehm: General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Well I certainly wouldn't take my enemy's definition of what the central front on war should be. In World War II, we didn't listen to the Nazi high command tell us where they wanted us to invade, we didn't listen to the Japanese tell us where they wanted us to invade and we shouldn't listen to Zawahiri when he says Iraq is the central front. It's a good front for Zawahiri because he's got access to a lot of American soldiers to attack and train against and build al Qaeda. It's been a diversion and a distraction for the United States to have engaged in the war in Iraq. It was a strategic failure. Having said that, I think we have to be realistic about Iraq. We can't simply pack up and leave. There is a threat there. It does have to be dealt with.
Diane Rehm: Alright, to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Good morning, Dave. Dave, are you there?
Dave: Hello?
Diane Rehm: Yes sir, you're on the air. Go right ahead. <pause> I'm sorry.
Dave: Hi.
Diane Rehm: Yeah, go ahead.
Dave: Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm a Veteran for Peace. I was a creator of that and I'm also a member of Military Families Speak Out. I've got one grandson that served a tour in Iraq, he'll be going back soon. His younger brother was told he'll be deploying to Iraq Saturday. Now, I respect the people you have on the air but you know what bothers me is when people say they've been to Iraq, they know what's going on. I think it's not exactly accurate because people see what they want to see. Uh, we've got 70% of the American people that are saying enough of this war. Uh, the majority of the Iraqi people want us out. The GIs, if they were allowed to speak themselves which they're not and that's why I'm a member of Military Families Speak Out, are saying ‘we don't know what our mission is and you know it's really a waste of time for us to be here; my life is at risk 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.'
Diane Rehm: Thanks for calling, Dave. Comment Kimberly.
Kimberly Kagan: I feel that all Americans should recognize the sacrifices that our soldiers and their families have made.
Diane Rehm: I cannot recognize that kind of sacrifice because my son is not there. Congress cannot recognize the sacrifice because their sons and daughters are not there. I think it's very difficult to simply say ‘Americans must recognize the sacrifice.' How do you recognize the sacrifice?
Kimberly: The people, many people who are in Iraq are my good friends, my former students, people whom I have mentored and kept in touch with over multiple deployments since they graduated or since they left West Point where I taught from 2000-2005. These are people who are very important to me and I think that these are people who are very important to others and I would never compare my relationship to the relationship of a military family but I think it's very important that we remember that soldiers and officers are human beings and that they are there in support of a mission that they are given but that the question of success and failure in Iraq is a question of success and failure for America.
Diane Rehm: Larry Korb.
Lawrence Korb: If you had a draft, you'd be out of Iraq yesterday because the American people don't support it and if the President ... I disagree with his policy, but if he wanted to do this, he should have instituted conscription and then he would have been able to send the troops that General Clark was talking about and others have urged and he didn't do that. He tried to fight it on the cheap and because of that he is now having all of these ... all of these problems.
Diane Rehm: So, I understand that military analyst Stephen Biddle said that while compromise might be a good idea in politics, you cannot compromise in military strategy. He specifically referred to the approach suggested by the Baker-Hamilton commission. Uh General Clark describe what's been proposed there and whether you agree with it.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Well I think there have been a number of recommendations under the Baker-Hamilton approach, but essentially setting a timeline, pulling out over a lo ... over a definite period of time doesn't address the regional problems. It's a lot better to do the diplomacy before you have the timeline and I think we've got one more chance ...
Diane Rehm: What kind of diplomacy would you do right now?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Richard Holbrooke led a team to the Balkans in a very ambivalent situation. We started with a state of principles. We went to each of the leaders that were there. He didn't know whether it was ... it wasn't like an orchestra, it was jazz. You just went there and you tried to create something, um starting with some tools in your toolkit. You had the commitment of troops, you had some reconstruction money ...
Diane Rehm: But don't we still have troops in the Balkans?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK Well we're ... US troops are out of Bosnia and uh a solution to Kosovo is at hand if we can get the Russians to agree. And once we put our troops in, we never had any problem. We did the diplomacy up front. What we need now is ... there's still a window with the right leadership in the White House or the right attitude in the White House, we could put a team in that region. We could stitch together these countries, find common interests and within that context, then find the right way to bring others in and get US troops out.
Diane Rehm: Kimberly, what's wrong with that idea?
Kimberly Kagan: Iran is at war with the United States in Iraq and it seems to me that in order to have a diplomatic solution, one needs to recognize the intentions of one's enemies ...
Diane Rehm: How do we know that Iran is in the war with the US in Iraq?
Kimberly Kagan: I know that this has somehow been controversial here in Washington, but the Quds force operatives, that is to say uh secret service operatives from Iran, have actually been training and advising Iraqi Shi'a militia groups within Baghdad and we have arrested over the past several months quite a number of these Iranians. We've also had weapons that have shelled the green zone that are Iranian weapons, advised by ...
Diane Rehm: Of course we don't know how they got there.
Kimberly Kagan: Well I think actually if you take a step back, we do know how they got there because we are finding the caches of weapons along various supply routes between Iran and Iraq
Diane Rehm: But couldn't those have been weapons actually supplied by military armamentarium actually supplied by US to Iran and making its way into Iraq eventually?
Kimberly Kagan: If you want to have a grand conspiracy theory, I suppose you can, but those weapons have Iranian markings on it.
Diane Rehm: I'm sorry. General Clark.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK We've known from the beginning that when we went into Iraq, as we told everybody, including a lot of the NeoCons who testified before Congress that Iraq was just the first step. So we gave Iran and Syria every reason to oppose us. If you were in the Iranian's position right now, you'd see themselves surrounded by US forces with US aircraft carriers there, an insurgency trying to be fomented from Baluchistan which would be hard-pressed not to blame on the United States, the continuing rumors of special forces operations inside Iran and perhaps overflights from unmanned aerial vehicles.
Diane Rehm: At six minutes before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm show. I'm afraid I'm going to have to end this conversation somewhat early. I want to thank you all for being here – General Wesley Clark, Kimberly Kagan and Lawrence Korb. Obviously this conversation is going to go on for many months.
