General Wesley Clark on Fox News Live

November 7, 2005
Transcript by Reg NYC

Anchor: U. S. and Iraqi troops fight a fierce battle against Al Qaeda in Western Iraq, near the Syrian border. It's day three of Operation Steel Curtain, the latest major offensive to try to root out elements of the terrorist group. The military says at least 36 suspected terrorists have been killed, 200 people detained since Saturday. The area along Syria's border with Iraq is known as a hotbed for insurgents.

Joining us now is General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He's also a Fox News analyst. General Clark, good to have you here.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thanks, good to be with you.

Anchor:There seems to be so much trouble coming in, not only across the Syrian border, but also the Iranian border. I mean, we just heard that complaint last week from one of the British generals over there. Why, you know, two years after this war began, why are the borders still so porous?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Iraq's neighbors have an interest in meddling. Both Syria and Iran want to effect the outcome in Iraq and they want to effect the success of the American forces there.

Anchor: And they want to keep Iran, Iraq rather, destabilized

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Iran wants a buffer state, and Syria is basically playing a game against the United States. It's a serious tit-for-tat to get back at Washington's pressure and also to speak up on behalf of some of the Sunnis, because the Syrians, although they're allied in one way with Iran, they don't want Iran to take over Iraq. So, it's a regional competition. One of the things we have to avoid is the sort of tunnel vision focus on just the military and just Iraq, because it is a regional problem. That having been said though, the first rule of military operations in a situation like this is isolate the theater of operations. We've never done that in Iraq.

Anchor: Why not? I mean, you've got a huge border there, but it's relatively easy in the desert to see a pick-up truck streaming along at 50, 60 miles an hour.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Don't have enough troops. Have never had enough troops to really isolate the border, and some of the border is tough. Even though it's desert, and you think it's really easy, it's not that easy. I mean, things happen just like that and they're gone, and they're out of the zone of observation. So, it does take a substantial military commitment, and it's just now that General George Casey has really, he's been there eighteen months and he's just now able to really sort of finish off these, taking down these key border cities. That having been done, if we can hold those cities, then we've got to help secure the rest of the border.

Anchor: Alright well, you say it's just now happening after eighteen months. If, in fact, he does accomplish that, it sounds like that bodes for perhaps turning the tide in this battle.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's a clear and hold strategy. So, you've got to not only get into Husayba and stay in Talafar, you've got to hold them and not let them go back under insurgent domination. There was a lot of work to be done last year with Falluja and Ramadi, and there's still hotspots and still trouble there. And so now they've moved beyond that, out to the border on the periphery of Anbar Province, but it's going to be a continuing challenge.

Anchor: There seems to be no shortage of these homicide bombers who are willing to blow themselves up for Allah. If, You've got two problems. You got to recruit them, then you got to get them across the border. It sounds like that's pretty easy. If, if you can seal up that border, can you put an end to, you know, the kinds of attacks that we saw at the hotel, for instance, a couple of weeks ago.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, if you could seal a border, but we've never been effective at sealing borders and it's unlikely we could ever do that. What we really need to do is work with the nations in the region, the other nations: Jordan, Syria and Iran, and convince them that they don't need to support the infiltration.

Anchor: Syria could put a stop to the smuggling if they wanted to.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: To most of it. Most of it. Probably not all of it. None of these countries, it's not like the Berlin Wall. They can't just, sort of, build a concrete wall and electrify it to go thousands of miles across the desert and flat stop everything, but they could do more than they're doing.

Yeah, but President Assad's government has basically said, "Hey, it's not us. We're not doing it." They've been turning a blind eye to a lot of this stuff.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They're playing a cagey game. They're getting it on both sides. They're helping us a little bit and having a pass. They've clamped down on some of it. Some of it they let through. They've got competition between intelligence agencies, but this is a great opportunity for the United States, because right now Assad is in trouble. His regime is in great trouble. If we are smart, we'll take advantage of this to encourage Assad to tighten those screws up even more.

Anchor: Give us the military man's perspective on that milestone that we just passed, the 2,000th casualty coming from Iraq. I mean, you know, if you look back in our history there were tens of thousands lost in single battles in the Civil War or in World War II, some of the Japanese islands and so forth. You know, from your standpoint as a military leader, is that milestone that we crossed, is it worth the kind of reflection, attention that it's been getting?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's really more political than it is military, perhaps, but we are engaged in a war after the war, and after the fighting was supposed to be over in April of 2003, the war has actually intensified. It's much more difficult. It's very much open-ended. There's no clear end in sight. This war is just going to fritter off as we reduce the insurgents. So, this milestone is an indication of pain that we're feeling, and you know, you have to think, not only of the soldiers who have died and their families, but the 10,000 or more who've been wounded pretty seriously. I've visited some of them in Walter Reed and other places, and it's a real hardship on the military and their families. People are going back now for their third and fourth tours. In a volunteer force, it's asking a lot.

Anchor: But the insurgents know, you know witness Vietnam, if you can keep grinding away and turn the public opinion against the war, they have a pretty good shot. Right?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There's no question that we have to stay and finish this job, but to do that it also requires American political leaders to do more than just talk about resolve. You have to have the right strategy. You really have to have the public get some understanding about this and put it all in perspective, and that's why I'm saying, "Put it in a regional context."

Anchor: And some success. Nothing succeeds...

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Success helps.

Anchor: Right. General Wesley Clark, good to have you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thanks, good to be with you.