General Wesley K. Clark on "Hannity and Colmes"
Fox news interview transcript by Reg NYC
October 19, 2005

Sean Hannity: Saddam Hussein's trial began today nearly two years after US forces captured him in that spider hole near the town of Tikrit. The former Iraqi leader was defiant, but he ultimately pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and torture. The first session of the trial lasted about three hours and the judge ordered an adjournment until November the 28th. If convicted, Saddam and and his seven codefendants could face the death penalty for the 1982 massacre of 148 Shi'ites.

And joining us for more on this historic trial General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He's also a Fox News contributor. General, first let's talk about his reaction in court today - very defiant, asked the judge, by the judge what his full name is, "You know me! You're an Iraqi! You know who I am! Who are you?" And he goes on the offensive there, and then of course he had this little shoving match, if you will, as described by the media, when they tried to grab him. Your thoughts on his reaction.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, he's going to play a lot of different games against this court, Sean. I testified against Slobodan Milosevic. Saddam Hussein has obviously followed the Milosevic trial. He's going to contest the legitimacy of the court. He's gonna demand he's innocent. He's gonna say the evidence isn't there. He's gonna have every defense you've ever seen, but it's going to start by his trying to put himself above the court. He'll probably claim presidential immunity from prosecution. There'll be any number of legal maneuvers he'll go after, and he'll try to intimidate witnesses and the court.

Hannity: General, we have enough evidence. We even have torture video of some of Saddam's thugs. We have video of the Kurds laying in the streets in the north after he used chemical and biological weapons. We know when he first came to power he began what would become a routine to execute political opponents. There's nothing in dispute here in terms of truth and reality of how brutal a murderer he was, is there?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I don't think so. But Sean, there's a couple of things to be aware of here. First of all, in a legal case you have to connect Saddam Hussein, through the chain of command, to the actions, and it's not clear that we do have all the evidence of that. We know what happened at the bottom, but we don't know what happened in the intervening levels, and that'll have to be established. And secondly, we want to make sure that, we want to make sure that we've cautioned the Iraqis who are running the court to slow down and get all the facts out, because there'll be a group of people in Iraq, the Sunnis who are the defenders of Saddam Hussein and who have benefitted from his rule, who will want to argue that what he did was only normal, that of course you would kill people if they tried to kill you. This is what presidents do. This was justice. Yes Iraq. They'll make a lot of excuses. So, all this evidence needs to be laid out in a very deliberate fashion, because what you have to do is you have to break through the barriers that the Sunni population has put up. You want to do it slowly. You don't want to do it with a rush to justice.

Alan Colmes: General Clark, it's Alan in New York. Can he get a fair trial?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he can get a fair trial if the rules of evidence are made clear and if there's enough patience.

(overlapping)
Colmes: And what constitutes fair trial?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you've got to have enough patience to listen to the objections and argue the objections out. But I do think that the case of Slobodan Milosevic is an indication of going a little too far in the other direction. That trial has dragged on for three years now. Any number of people have testified. The defendant has been sick and so forth, and he's played games with the court. He's tried to intimidate witnesses, and that shouldn't have been permitted in that case. So, I think that there's a balance. I hope the Iraqis will find the right balance, Alan.

Colmes: Is it important that this be perceived as not an American put-up job? We provided the infrastructure for the courts. We were in charge when some of the stuff was created. So, how do we disassociate from that image so that the world sees that this is not an American run trial and that is indeed fair, regardless of the outcome?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that's a really important issue, because I think that if this is seen as an American run trial and it's us behind it, that it invalidates the legitimacy that the Iraqi government's trying to get from this trial. So I think that it's got to be done scrupulously. It's not only got to be fair, it's got to be perceived to be fair, and it's got to lay out the facts in a way that's incontrovertible even for previous Saddam supporters.

Colmes: Doesn't this go to the legitimacy, the heart of- how legitimate the new Iraqi government is perceived, both within and without Iraq?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it both goes to the heart of it and it will contribute to or detract from that legitimacy, but they do have the power. They're certainly the majority of the Iraqis who apparently voted for the constitution will feel that this trial represents the legitimate Iraq. The Sunnis probably won't, and again that's the reason why it has to be so scrupulously conducted.

Hannity: Alright General, thanks for being with us.