General Wesley Clark on Hardball with Chris Matthews
September 19, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC
Chris Matthews: Welcome back to Hardball. Well, the Democrats have found a way to shift war policy in Iraq. Their strategy is an amendment by Democratic Senator Jim Webb that would require troops returning from combat in Iraq to get the same amount of rest time at home before they're redeployed to the battlefield. The Senate's debating the bill right now, but the Bush administration says the measure is unconstitutional and would amount to a backdoor troops withdrawal. Would the Webb Amendment protect our troops or cause even greater harm to them on the ground in Iraq and should the bill be passed? General Wesley Clark is the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He's also author of a great new book, A Time To Lead. And Pete Hegseth is a Iraq war veteran and Executive Director of Vets For Freedom. General Clark, make the case for the Webb Amendment.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The case is very simple. We have for over four years kept our troops deployed or redeploying back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of troops is finite. They're limited. These are the same troops that have been there two, sometimes three times previously. The families are getting tired. They need recovery time if we're going to sustain this into the future. I think the Webb Amendment is a prudent way of getting that recovery time. It's no more than what the Army committed to several years ago in saying that the troops would have at least a year at home after they'd been gone for a year, and we found we were unable to do it. So, this is Congress' responsibility. It's responsible for raising and maintaining an army. It's in the Constitution, and Congress is asserting its authority. I think it's time to do it.
Chris Matthews: Pete, what's wrong with this amendment to give the troops time at home equal to the time they're serving on their tours, so that they go back rested and ready for battle?
Pete Hegseth: Well, it, it's just another example of Congress trying to legislate strategy in Iraq. You've got generals, all the way up to Secretary Gates, General Petraeus, General Pace, and others, have all said this would do great damage to the Army and the military's ability to deploy, deploy troops, if necessary, to different areas for emergencies or for just natural troop rotations. When the leadership of your military is saying this is something that will not only hurt our rotations, but put our troops at risk, if you read what Secretary Gates said the other day in a letter, he said, "This amendment will put our troops at risk, because it will not give our commanders an opportunity to deploy them in the way we may need to in a dynamic war environment. "
Chris Matthews: General?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think they'd be more likely to be deployable in a dynamic war environment if you had a reserve of troops that was prepared and well-rested and ready to go. They can always be bou- brought back to Iraq in a tactical emergency, if that's necessary. The fact is that when they're there in Iraq, they're-
Pete Hegseth: But-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -continuously in combat. The units are wearing down. The equipment's wearing down. And, if we're going to have an effective force, we need to have it rested, ready to go and able to sustain for the long term. This is a force that's, that's wearing down rapidly. It needs recovery time.
Pete Hegseth: Well, there's, there's no doubt it's, it's a difficult situation for the men and, men and women over there. But you- it's oversimplifying the problem, oversimplifying the solution to something. What you have got right now is, you've got a one-for-one ratio that the Congress is trying to legislate, that when you bring troops over there, you, we can bring them back and have them stay the exact amount of time that they were in Iraq. But the thing is, is units do not deploy - and you know this, General - units do not deploy back and then stay together. The units come and the soldiers disperse into other units. And when other units are then asked to mobilize and deploy, a lot of the new soldiers in those units will not be able to go, and you'll break up the cohesion of units that are heading into a war zone. If there's one thing I know we need, and I know this from firsthand experience, it's platoons and companies that trust each other, that have trained together and had the cohesiveness necessary to deal with a very difficult environment. And this amendment oversimplifies troop deployment. You just can't-
Chris Matthews: Let me ask- let me go to the General, because I know he has a policy, a view on this whole war in Iraq. Is this a way of opposing the president's policy on the war, in other words, of restricting his ability to prosecute his view of how we should protect our national defense?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it does, in some way, restrict the President's ability to continue to put forces in there at, at the expense of the long-term health of the Armed Forces. But the President always has the option of creating more forces. If it's that urgent, let's get those forces built up. The President has not chosen to do this, even though a number of Democrats have called for, for him to do this and called for an increase in the size of the Armed Forces.
Chris Matthews: Well, why- let me ask you, Pete, a larger question. Why don't we have a military capable of meeting the foreign policy objectives of the current administration? We have a very aggressive foreign policy under way in this administration.
Pete Hegseth: Mm hm.
Chris Matthews: We all know it's forward-leaning. It's aggressive. It's get them there before they get us here. Why don't we have a military establishment that's built to meet that mission?
Pete Hegseth: I-I-
Chris Matthews: Why do we keep trying to meet a new kind of aggressive, neoconservative mission, whatever you want to call it, with a traditional army force?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's a great question.
Pete Hegseth: Well, I mean, we have-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's a great question, Chris.
Pete Hegseth: We've been-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And what's happened is, this administration has tried to do this mission on the cheap from the get-go. They did not plan it adequately. They didn't put enough troops in at the outset. The troops weren't prepared-
Pete Hegseth: General, but-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -didn't have the equipment to protect themselves. And they now don't have a large enough military to do the kind of aggressive foreign policy mission that they're seeking to use it for.
Pete Hegseth: General, they have planned to increase the size of the military 92,000 troops. But I agree, we do need more men and women in uniform to execute what were trying to do.
Chris Matthews: If you, if you go- let me go- Pete, you speak for the troops, all right? That's what you're doing here, right?
Pete Hegseth: That's what our organization does.
Chris Matthews: Do you find- do you think, that this were ever passed and signed by the President, this requirement that troops get a full rotation home, a year home, a year on, like police sometimes do, an hour on, an hour off, OK?
Pete Hegseth: M hm.
Chris Matthews: You think they wouldn't like it?
Pete Hegseth: No. It's not about that they wouldn't like it?
Chris Matthews: They would- no, wouldn't that- just answer the question. Wouldn't they like to be able to get home for the amount of time they're spending over there?
Pete Hegseth: Everybody wants to be home a-as long as they can.
Chris Matthews: Well, then they would like this.
Pete Hegseth: Sure.
Chris Matthews: So, who doesn't like this?
Pete Hegseth: But it's- you- It's about doing what's right, not what you like. If this feels good in your heart, but you have got to think about how it works in your head.
Chris Matthews: No. I'm asking do, do, do- You're here for- Who are you speaking for, if not the troops?
Pete Hegseth: Well, I'm speaking for myself and for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who com- want to complete the mission. And they want policies from their generals and from their leadership that allow them to do so.
Chris Matthews: And they don't, they don't want to have this rotation.
Pete Hegseth: They don't, Chris, they don't need Congress deciding-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Chris, I, I think
Pete Hegseth: -General, excuse me. They don't need Congress deciding when, how we should
Chris Matthews: Well, I- I-
Pete Hegseth: -deploy troops. They need generals doing that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Chris, I think you posed the question exactly right.
Chris Matthews: I think the General raised the point that Congress raises the Army in the Constitution.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Who is Pete speaking for? Because if you're speaking for the troops, you'll hear the troops that come to me in e-mails and many other ways, they need time to recover. They're as patriotic and committed as they can be. But this is an argument between Congress and the administration. The administration tries to say Congress has no role. Congress has a very important role to raise and maintain an army. Congress is asserting its authority under the Constitution. I say it's high time it did so.
Pete Hegseth: General, you say this is an argument between the administration and the Congress. This is an argument that needs to be made by, by the generals, by the leadership of the military that deploys troops. I mean, the way you're- with all due respect, sir, you're speaking with a political hat and, and not, and not thinking about --
Chris Matthews: The Congress-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I'm speaking as a strategist who is looking at the long-term needs-
Pete Hegseth: No, absolutely.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -of the Armed Forces. And I know this-
Pete Hegseth: General-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the most critical asset we have-
Pete Hegseth: -if you listen to what-
Chris Matthews: (inaudible)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -just a second. I gave you a chance.
Pete Hegseth: Yes, Sir.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You give me a chance.
Pete Hegseth: Yes, Sir.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I'm speaking as someone who's looking at the long-term health of the Armed Forces. It takes a long time to bring the right people in and train them the right way. And they're family people. And they and their families need a chance to have as normal a life as possible while this country's going to war. The President hasn't asked for a draft. He hasn't asked for, for taxes. He hasn't asked the American people to sacrifice. All the burden's coming on the men and women in uniform. I think the least he can do is get enough people in uniform to give them a decent break when they're back here. Let's face it, the surge hasn't worked.
Pete Geseth: (huff)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It hasn't brought the political relief. It's time we recognize it and start thinking about the long-term health of the Armed Forces. That's why the Webb amendment is a very timely idea. It's the right idea, and I hope Congress'll pass it tonight.
Chris Matthews: OK, thank you very much General Wesley Clark and Pete Hegseth. Thank you, Sir, for joining us.
