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General Wesley Clark on WLS Chicago Talk Radio
October 12, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC
Roe Conn: In our last hour, we talk to Hollywood actress Eva Mendez.
Bill Leff: Mm hm
Roe Conn: One of the most beautiful and striking humans ever to draw breath, just as beautiful as General Wesley Clark, I got to say. The man is, the man is-
Bill Leff: Stunning.
Roe Conn: : -as stunning as, as they come as Generals. He's got a new book out.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I've never heard anybody say that about me but I'm sorry to, you know, lower the standard here in the studio.
Roe Conn: You have, you have definitely lowered the standard, but that's okay. You know what? We, we knew we couldn't keep it up. You know, these Hollywood actresses, they come and they go. They, they don't stick around. Generals however are forever. I think George S. Patton said that. General, this is an interesting new book you've got, which kind of chronicles your life. You've written other books, but this one's kind of more about you and then about you-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's very personal. One guy wrote me back and said, he said, "Are you worried you were too candid?" It's, it's a very candid book, but I wanted to talk about leadership.
I wanted to talk about America. I wanted to talk about what the 2008 election's going to be about. It's going to be about what kind of America we are. You know, there, there, there's two competing versions of America. There's one America. It's, it's an America that's fearful, worried. 'We've got something to protect.' 'Everybody's trying to take it from us.' 'Let's build up those walls.' 'Let's send out those Marines.' 'Let's be tough.' 'Let's strike out.' 'Let's bully those..' 'America'll never let itself be threatened again. If anybody ever threats- threatens us, we'll knock their block off.' There's that fearful America. And then there's the other America, the America that's confident, the America that says, 'Our values are the best in the world. Come challenge us. Argue with us.' 'Come see the America for yourself. Check us out.' 'Build bridges not walls.' 'Invite students to come here and study.' 'Open our gates to others and let them come and compete with us. We'll compete with anybody, and we'll whip them fair and square.' It's-
Roe Conn: : But that-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: 'We're traders. We're businessmen. We're students. We're scholars.' And you know, 'If you push us up against a wall and threaten us, we, (laughs) we will take action. But we're about leadership, not about fear.'
Roe Conn: Can't we be both though. I mean, when you use the word fear, it, it, obviously you don't want to be fearful. You want to be confident, but, but there is a certain amount of defensive posture that America's had to take since September 11, 2001. I mean, there we clearly did not see that coming. We clearly did not, we were not properly prepared as, as a people. You know, whether the government was or wasn't is, will be debated for centuries, but as a, as a culture, we weren't ready to get attacked on our shores and then to have to stop and reevaluate are we really safe here. So, that is, that's a legitimate question. I mean, it was legitimate question in 2004.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, let's answer it then.
Roe Conn: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Look, this is a very, very important issue, because if you're fearful in the world, your reactions, your relationships, everything changes. And, and we'll end up with an America that's very different than the America that we created and led in this country. America's been a proud country, but we've never been a country that lived in fear. Let's, let, let's look at an America, the America I grew up in. It's what I talk about in the book. I was in an America in the 1950's that lived under the threat of constant Soviet attack. First, we had the A-bomb. Then the Soviets got the A-bomb. Then we were fighting in the Korean War. I was a little kid. I remember-
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -hearing about the fighting. I remember-
Roe Conn: You grew up in Arkansas.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah. I remember seeing a soldier coming back and, and people saying, 'Oh, he's, he's shell-shocked. You can't talk to him. He's been fighting the Chinese communists.' And I remember the duck-and-cover drills in school. I remember when the Soviets launched their first satellite, Sputnik, and America went to, we were concerned. There was a wave of concern, but you know what we did? We didn't live in fear. We had, we had six thousand nuclear warheads pointed at us. Chicago would've been hit by 25 or so nuclear warheads followed by chemical warheads followed by bugs. It would've, you know, obliterated life in this part of North America. That was their intent, and yet we didn't shrivel up, live in fear or anything of the sort. We lived confidently, and we won the Cold War, because we were true to America's values. There's no existential threat against America out there from Osama Bin Laden. Yes, it was a terrible thing that happened in New York City, but no one's got six thousand nuclear warheads to blow up America right now. Osama Bin Laden doesn't have that. He doesn't have the KGB behind him, the Russian research department. He doesn't have these things. And for us to live in, in mortal terror because of Osama Bin Laden who's being chased around in Pakistan by the Pakistani army and going from cave to cave trying to eke out an existence while he taps out little coded messages in the internet and once every six months releases a TV tape, I mean that's cr-, that, we can't do that. We're a great nation. We're the most powerful nation in the world. We can protect this nation without living in fear. No American child should ever grow up living in fear, and if we do, it's because our leaders whoever they are must want to use that fear for their purposes. And that's what this 2008 election's going to be about. I hope that we're brave enough as a people to recognize the truth about our situation.
Roe Conn: Let me, let me drag you that, toward that Cold War issue for just one second. It, there is more and more and more talk and evidence and, and, certainly rhetoric around about a return to a Cold War with Russia, because Russia wants to stake out its position in the new energy, in the energy race of the 21st century. There's all this talk about whether or not they want to plant a flag in the North Pole. There's talk about using their secret service now, their, their military intelligence secret service to, to go out and do this sorts of things that they had been doing before. Are we, are they a potential threat?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think they're a potential military threat. They're certainly want to be included, and there's certainly a sense on the part of, of the Russian power ministries and perhaps Putin himself being in competition with the United States. Remember they've fallen-
Roe Conn: Competition over what?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Competition over status, competition over who's important, competition over who gets to be consulted on everything that happens in the world. I remember being in Moscow with a Soviet Three-Star, a Russian Three-Star in 1995, and he spun the globe. He had a big four-foot globe in his office. He says, "I can tell you," pointing to himself in a very braggadocio way, "I can tell you," he says, "Pick a spot on this earth anywhere. Put your finger on it, and I can tell you what is happening in that place." I mean, you know, that's, that's Russia. It's a nation with an historic inferiority complex, and the first Bush administration did its best when they won the Cold War and the, and the Iron Curtain collapsed in 1989 not to exacerbate Russia's feelings of inferiority. Bill Clinton did the best he could in the first part of his administration. We had a little bit of a problem in the Balkans because-
Roe Conn: Do you think they're, do you think they're dangerous if they're offended?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think the, I think the more they are pushed, the more they're going to want to regain their status. I was at a conference the other day in Italy and a guy was saying, "The Russian fleets going to come back into the Mediterranean." Well, why does Russia want to put a military fleet in the Mediterranean? The answer is not to strike somebody. It's because they want to be considered important.
Roe Conn: They want to be noticed.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They want to be noticed. 'We're not, you know, some- we're not like Ukraine. We're a vital important power.' So, let's don't overreact to it, but Russia's different from Osama Bin Laden.
Roe Conn: I'm going to stop you there. We'll get back to that in one second. I just want to- 'cause your expertise in this is unmatched by everybody else in this room. So, I want to pick your brain on this. In terms of Russia though, because you, you mentioned Ukraine, Ukraine is a a big power source for Mother Russia. A lot of, a lot of their electrical power and a lot of their resources are actually in Ukraine, and now they have a government in Ukraine that they see as a potential threat to them, one that would not necessarily be friendly to them. And, and they have, and there, there seems to be a trend away from, away from, you know, being a, a direct satellite of Mother Russia for, for Ukraine. Is that why they are reaching out to these other places, that's why they are rather provocative with our relations in the Middle East and also trying to plant a flag in the North Pole?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it, it's deeper and, and, and a little even more strident than that - deeper in the sense that in the minds of a lot of these Russians, the Soviet Union should never have broken up. It broke up almost by accident at a conference in December of I think it was 1991, in which a drunken Boris Yeltsin and his cohorts from Ukraine and, and Belarus-
Roe Conn: Uh-huh.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -couldn't agree on the new charter of the Soviet Union and, and after two nights and one day of drinking and partying and arguing and, and finally as described to me by a Ukrainian who heard this second hand, wasn't there, said Boris is asking, (doing impression) "Who is this Mikhail Sergeyevich that he should tell us to do this? Who is he to tell us anything? Why should there be a Soviet Union? We are Russia. You are the Ukraine." And just like that, it was gone, and, and that was the end. And so, I don't think that necessarily represented the will of all the people that were there.
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was a surprise and kind of a shock. And, and so, a lot of-
Roe Conn: To break up the party?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah, to break up the union of the-
Roe Conn: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -you know. This is what they fought to develop over two centuries, through the Czar's conquests in the caucuses and the expansion into Siberia and, and even the, the overrunning of Eastern Europe.
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They sought an empire in the, i-in that region, and suddenly it was gone. So, I think there's a lot of grievance about that.
Roe Conn: And they're concerned. Alright-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And I, I think, and, and as far as Ukraine is concerned, I think it's not that they're afraid of a hostile Ukraine. I think they want Ukraine back. President Putin, when-
Roe Conn: Do you think they tried to kill, do you think that the Russian government was behind trying to kill the, the-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I, I don't know. I, I wouldn't, I, I just wouldn't know. And without evidence, I wouldn't want to get into that. But what I would say is this: at the inauguration of President Kuchma of Ukraine in the fall of 1999, President Putin was there, and he'd just been inaugurated I guess as President or was about to be, and he said, he said, "Russia and Ukraine, we are more than brothers," he said, "We are in each other's souls." The Polish people who were there, the Polish President, his National Security Advisor, they came back and they told me, (laughing) they said, "This is really frightening, because this means Putin is going to grab Ukraine." He wants Ukraine.
Roe Conn: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: He wants it to be part of that empire. Without Ukraine, Russia cannot be a great empire again.
Roe Conn: Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They know it.
Roe Conn: They, their resources are-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They know it. So, it's not that they're-
Roe Conn: : (inaudible)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -afraid of Ukraine. It's that they want their past glory to be recreated.
Roe Conn: Okay. And very quickly, the other superpower that's got- clearly we have this love/hate relationship with China. Do you think that China poses any kind of 21st century military threat to the United States?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it depends on how you look at things. I was in China about a year and- almost two years ago now, and I had this wonderful conversation with a young man who's very close to the leadership. And he explained to me China's position. And he said- he's very close to the Chinese leadership. He had a year at Harvard. So, we did this in English. And he said, he said, "For two hundred years," he says, "China has been victimized by its neighbors." He says, "I don't mean America. I mean its neighbors. They have picked at China and picked China apart." He said, "This will never happen again." He jabbed his finger for emphasis. He says, "As for America," he said, "we know that you weren't part of this." He said, "In fact," he said (clears throat), "we know that you and Britain were best friends, and Britain gave you leadership of the world. China wants to become best friends to America so you will give us leadership of the world." Now, (chuckles) do you think that means they're a threat? What does it mean? It means China is a ascending power. They're rising. They're going to be more powerful. In fact, the more we focus on the terrorist threat in the Middle East, the larger China's reach and scope becomes. They're developing military hardware. they've shot down one of their old, old, own old satellites. That scared a lot of people in the United States.
Roe Conn: Just to, just to see if the could do it.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: To show they proved they could do it.
Roe Conn: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It means space isn't secure. They're buying a lot of hardware from the Soviet Union. They're buying the most advanced jets, these 250 mile an hour jet-propelled underwater torpedoes that could be dangerous for our aircraft carriers. They're looking for very silent, conventionally-powered submarines, long range strike aviation, supersonic sea-skimming missiles, all of the sort of modern suite of hardware that would project their power across the Western Pacific. Of course, that's where we are. And-
Roe Conn: Turns out-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -they don't want Taiwan to become independent. We've had a policy of studied neutrality toward this issue since 1979. We won't say we would support Taiwan, and we won't say we won't. We've said a policy of two Chinas, two systems, one China. And, and so, it's a pol-policy of studied ambiguity. It's not clear that we would support Taiwan in the face of an attack by China, but it's not clear to China that we wouldn't. And that's the way we've kept it deliberately. So-
Roe Conn: We do war exercises in the straits there. We, we-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Anything could happen.
Roe Conn: We let them know that, that we're th-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They know what our capabilities are.
Roe Conn: Right, that we're there, we could be there to support them.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We know that they're cap- they know what our capabilities are. They're working against them, not maybe because of us, but because of Taiwan. It's hard to say, but here's the thing: Anytime a great power comes along, they always want to be more powerful, and they always are scrapping for their day in the sun. We don't want a war with China. We don't want a war with anybody. We need to find ways to get along.
Roe Conn: General Clark, one kind of Pentagon question for you and then we'll take a break and we'll talk more about the book and more about the situation in Iraq.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What about actresses and-
Bill Leff: Mm hm.
Roe Conn: And we're going to see if Eva Mendez will come back and give us all back rubs.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Right. (laughs)
Roe Conn We have a lot of different things we need to discuss with you, but do you think, I mean, there's- It's a funny thing, we had General Richard Myers on a couple days ago. I asked him this as well. Because of China, because there's this entire suite of hardware you just described, do we need to, there's been a lot of reluctance in Congress to spend money on big ticket military items - fighter jets and-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, you have to keep spending money on big ticket military, yeah, yeah. Absolutely got to. Got to.
Roe Conn: -submarines and stuff like that. You got- we have to keep doing that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Got to do it.
Roe Conn: We have to, we have to prepare for a conven-, potentially conventional battle, because the Congress loves to fight, loves to fund the war they think they're fighting-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Exactly.
Roe Conn: -as opposed to the one they will fight.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You have to have what we call full spectrum dominance. You have to be able to fight and win high intensity war in the Western Pacific with all the big ticket items, and you have to be able to win a peacekeeping operation in the Middle East or in Asia or in Africa.
Roe Conn: Mm Hm. Alright, don't move. General Wesley Clark, the, the new book's called A Time To Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country, and it is, it's a personal look not only at his life, but how the General feels his life folds into what the past, present and future American experience'll be. Is that the best way of putting that? You think that's, that's accurate?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's a great way to put it.
Roe Conn: Alright.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's about leadership and America.
Roe Conn: Alright, we'll come back and take your phone calls from 1-591-8900.
(break)
Roe Conn: General Wesley Clark is with us. A Time To Lead is his new book, For Duty, (pause) Honor (pause) and Country. And you may remember that Wesley Clark ran for President in 2004, and just quickly so we understand, political aspirations- clearly you're not running for President in 2008, but are we done with politics or are we taking a rest? What are we doing?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, for me, I'm supporting the candidate that I think's going to be the best President that we've had in a long time, and that's Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton - of Chicago.
Roe Conn: Yeah, well, well, wait a second. Hold on. She says she's from New York. She says she's a Yankees fan.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's like America, I mean-
Roe Conn: I wouldn't, I wouldn't start with that whole 'She's from Chicago-'
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Americans move all- She said she was a Yankee fan?
Roe Conn: Yeah, oh yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, okay.
Roe Conn: And the Cubs were just in the playoffs.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Okay.
Roe Conn: I don't know if she noticed that.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Okay, I didn't know. I don't know. I did-, I didn't know about her baseball preferences, but-
Bill Leff: If she asked you though, if she just calmly said, 'I think you, you should be the V.P., any interest in that or no.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well look, let's, let's not jump ahead.
Bill Leff: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Okay?
Roe Conn: Let's, let's.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: She's not the candidate yet.
Roe Conn: You know, who's going to listen to it? It's just between us, General.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: She's not the candidate yet.
B
Bill Leff: We wouldn't tell anybody your answer.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I, it'd be premature, and, and you know, that's really her call. She has to decide. The President has to pick a- or the, the nominee has to pick the running mate that can best help them achieve the office-
Roe Conn: Mm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and then help them when they're in office. They have to- there are a lot of factors that go into that. I think it's premature to speculate on it.
Roe Conn: Alright. And then at, then you'd decide whatever, let's say she's not the next President of the United States-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sure, but I just want to-
Roe Conn: -then you'll decide what you're going to do?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I want to help the country pick the right leadership. Here, here, here's the thing that I talk about in the book that was really interesting to me. When we were in the military, we always felt pretty self righteous about ourselves. You know, we serve. We, we shed our blood. We would give up our lives to protect this country. Well, when I was running for office, I found people that were giving up their jobs, leaving their families, changing their professions, suspending their school activities just to support my run for the office-
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -of President. I mean, Americans give up a lot to get the right people in government. There's a lot of selfless service out there in the, in the name of politics. And I know that, you know, my parents in Arkansas, they'd have never given a dime to a politician. They thought they were all crooked.
Roe Conn: : Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But the truth is that a lot of Americans believe in this country. They give a lot to the people of, of both parties who run for office. They care a lot about the country, and it's one of the reasons I love America.
Roe Conn: : Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And that's why I wrote the book. I wanted to express my gratitude to the people of America. They've made- this is a country where anyone who works hard and has a little bit of luck can, and, and common sense can do incredible things.
Roe Conn: Let's go to the phones, 'cause I, we've got a limited amount of time here with the General, and I want to get as many calls we possibly can in here. Mike, you're in WLS.
Mike: Thank you, Roe, for allowing me this opportunity to ask this question. Mr. Clark, earlier you said that, you know, Russia no longer has 6,000 nuclear warheads aimed at us and so forth. But how do you take into account the one billion or so Islamic believers that have had a mandate since 673 AD to conquer the world and turn the entire world Muslim? I, for me and my family, I'm not converting to Mu- to Islam. I'm not doing it. I refuse.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Look, there are a lot of Muslims out there who could care less whether you convert. Just like there are a lot of Christians who aren't as zealous as maybe some of the people who go to Regents University. I spoke at Regents University a couple of years ago in the so-called 'Clash of the Titans'. It was me against Newt Gingrich, and we had a long talk with Pat Robertson. He's a very interesting guy.
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And, and, you know, I learned all of the things he's doing. He was doing- to, to apostlize, and, and bring people in. But not every Christian's like that. Not every Muslim is like that. The Muslims I know in the region, they're just family people.
Roe Conn: Well-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They're businessmen. They're family people. They love their families. They grew up as Muslim. Most people are, stay pretty close to what they grow up with.
Roe Conn: Thanks, Mike, but let me refine the question. The, the, the issue about, about the, the warheads, that's a very scary thing, and thermonuclear war, biological war, chemical weapons of mass destruction - very, very scary stuff. BUT there is, there is, there is a threat however that still does exist with terrorism and with, with whether it's domestic-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There's no doubt about it.
Roe Conn: And so now, what do you think would, is the right path for, for combating that as a military, as a man who spent three decades in the military.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You have to take apart terrorism from the outside in and from the bottom up. So, what you have to do is you have to first cut off the terrorists from their flow of recruits.
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You do this in various means. You break up their communications. You break up their financing. You break up their ideological propagandizing. By the way, you also avoid doing stupid things that energize their base, like invading countries unnecessarily. And you use police methods and intelligence sharing and a lot of other things to squeeze them. You identify that hardcore leadership and you take it out. Ideally what you do is arrest them. You put them on trial. You show the evidence. You show the horrible things they're planning to do to innocent people, and then you finish them off. It's better to put them on trial than it is to just shoot them in the back of the head in a dark alley somewhere, because the whole thing about terrorism is it's an attack on the legitimacy of our system. And what you want to do is use the battle against terrorists to strengthen the legitimacy of our system. We're right. We're not afraid of, to expose our own values. Put them in court. Let a trial by jury be held, and let ordinary people decide on their fate. That's fine. We can do that. We're Americans. We believe in the rule of law.
Roe Conn: Brian, you're on WLS with General Wesley Clark. Go ahead, Brian.
Brian: Hi. It's a pleasure to speak with the General.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good to speak with you, Brian.
Brian: I would like your informed opinion on United States Army. I'd like to know what your sources and what your opinion is of the current state of the United States Army after our adventure in Iraq as far as especially manpower and the men that serve, but also the equipment - the helicopters, the trucks, the tanks, everything. I'd like just to hear your synopsis. Thank you.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Equipment's in, in, in, in pretty tough shape. There's a lot of equipment that's broken and needs fixing down at Anniston Army depot and Red River Army Depot. We need some rebuilds. We need some new equipment. We need some better armor on some of the trucks and so forth. The training is, on the one hand we've gotten wonderful training. I mean, this is an army that knows how to operate, and we do operations every day in Iraq, and you're producing some exceptionally qualified officers and noncommissioned officers and soldiers who are very, very good at their jobs. Some of the skills have atrophied. We're not doing the kind major unit training, maneuvering against other armored forces that we did during the latter part of the Cold War, let's say at the National Training Center or even during the 1990's. So, we'd have to rebuild that. People are tired. They're proud. They've worked hard, but they're tired, and they need more time with their families.
Roe Conn: What, what about, there was a story yesterday about readiness and about the United States Army taking less and less qualified people into their ranks.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's gone down, the quality. There's no doubt about it. You've got more people who don't have high school diploma grads-
Roe Conn: : Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -or grad-
Roe Conn: : Some people, some people have
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -high school diplomas.
Roe Conn: -criminal records.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You have some people with moral waivers where they've gotten in trouble for, with the police. But this is still a, a very small minority of the fine young men and women who are coming into the Army. I believe the Army's a great institution. It's a great way for someone to begin their life. If you don't know what you want to do, if you don't know whether you're going to college, you don't have the funds for college, if you want to serve your country, if you want to get out of your hometown, if you want a great healthcare system, whatever - you go into the United States Armed Forces. It's a great way to begin, and I believe in it and I sell it every single day.
Roe Conn: Bill, you're on WLS. Hi, Bill.
Bill: Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen.
Roe Conn: Hey.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good afternoon, Bill.
Bill: I, well really you kind of stole my thunder about asking him about political (inaudible) Mrs. Clinton. But I have two quick questions and I'll hang up, because my battery's ready to go.
Roe Conn: Mm hm. Who's isn't?
Bill: Pardon me?
Roe Conn: Go ahead.
Bill: (chuckles) One, do you think we need another General like George Patton?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No.
Roe Conn: (laughs)
Bill: And your, your comments about what Senator Dick Durbin said about our troops embolden the terrorists. Thank you.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, we don't need a General like, exactly like Patton right now, because it's not exactly like that kind of war. We have to, to win this war you've got to win the trust of the Iraqi people. So, you got to be very precise in the use of force. You can't use a sledgehammer.
Roe Conn: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You don't want to kill innocent people, because that turns the population against you. So, you don't want to get the troops all charged up about running out there and, and, and so forth. The troops have got plenty of bravery. They don't need any bombastic statements from the senior commanders to get them going. As far as what Dick Durbin said, look, Dick Durbin is a Democratic Senator. He's a fine man. I know him personally. He would never have called our troops terrorists. That was not what he said. I can't quote you exactly what he did say, but I know he's a patriot. I know he believes in the men and women in uniform, and he supported me, and I was one of those people. And so, I call him a friend, and please don't judge him too harshly by what others say about him.
Roe Conn: What do, what do you think the long term answer is in Iraq?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You're going to see, in all likelihood, some kind of a division of the country. It may not be a three-way division.
Roe Conn: A partition.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: N- it may not be a partition, but I think a year from now what you'll see is that the Shia have pretty much consolidated power in the South and much around Baghdad. Baghdad will look like Berlin during the Cold War with some isolated Sunni neighborhoods and maybe some pockets of Sunnis in the provinces North. And then a lot of the area further North where the Kurds are will still be a battleground. And then in the west, the Sunni tribes will have consolidated their grip. They'll have a strong front supported by other Sunni nations to oppose any move by the Shia militia and, and, and they may or may not trust the Iraq Army in their area. They'll be asking for the Americans to stay. The Shia will be, will be grateful to have the Americans leave, and the troops strength will be cut down a lot. It won't be a victory. It, it will be, have been a crazy war, a war we didn't have to fight in which the result was we made our enemy, Iran, stronger and we made ourselves weaker. A crazy war.
Roe Conn: Well, do you think that we're looking down the barrel at a conflict with Iran, a direct conflict with Iran?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: it depends on how we handle the issue. We certainly have a direct issue. I think it would be very, very dangerous for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. You couldn't tell how they'd use it. They might give it to, to their terrorist organizations. A nuclear weapon could be evolved into something very small and mobile that could be put on a ship. you don't know where it's going to go. And the, could they get away with it? Maybe, maybe not, but you don't want to take that chance. It's a lot better if we don't give them the opportunity. How we handle that is what's critical. We should be talking with Iran instead of just threatening them.
Roe Conn: Alright. General Wesley Clark, A Time To Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country is the, the name of the book. This is kind of interesting. General Clark is going to be at the Abraham Lincoln Book Store signing this in 357 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago at 7:00 tonight I believe this is, right?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, it is.
Roe Conn: And you can order books on-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: 6:30, actually.
Roe Conn: 6:30.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: 6:30
Roe Conn: And you can order books online and then people can watch you sign their book online.
Bill Leff: Hm.
Roe Conn: Is that right?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's what we're going to do.
Roe Conn: virtualbooksigning.net
Bill Leff: That's pretty cool.
Roe Conn: What, what are we coming to here? What the hell's going on in this world?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: This is, isn't Chi- isn't this Chicago. Isn't this the highest-tech coolest town in America?
Bill Leff: I didn't say that about it.
Roe Conn: One quick question: Stratego or Risk? And can you even get anyone to play those with you?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The last person that played with me lost.
Roe Conn: Oh. Yeah. That's what I thought. General Clark, thanks for being with us.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you
