General Wesley Clark on XM Radio: "POTUS Morning Briefing"

November 20, 2008
Audio Courtesy of Stan Davis
transcript by Reg NYC

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good morning.

XM: Last time we talked you were, we were talking about your book, A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country. And so, here we are about a year later, the automotive industry is in trouble and why is it important for security?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because it has such a broad network of supply that they effect not only General Motors, Chrysler and Ford, but they effect all of the other suppliers who have anything to do with trucks, Humvees or the ability in the future to be able to produce things like mine resistant ambush protected vehicles, MRAPS.

XM: You, you, you-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And so, this is a very broad issue for us.

XM: You can give us a lot more perspective on this because we've heard people harken back to World War II when Ford converted its manufacturing capacity to turning out the kinds of hardware that we needed - the tanks, the planes, etc. How much of what we depend on today in our defense industry comes from the Big Three, and how much of it might need to come if, in an emergency?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, (drop-out) could come in an emergency, but the Big Three are very specialized in, into producing profit and quarterly earnings state- (dropout) and vehicles for the commercial market. So, over a period of three or four decades, they've moved away from the defense sector and turned it over to specialized forms. But their supply base supplies both the Big Three and the other firms that generally help the military. So, what you have to think about in this is not just the Big Three, but its ripple effect is it goes through the whole economy. There's between two and a half and five million people who will be effected if the auto makers, the Big (dropout) makers fail in this country. Now, Chapter 11 doesn't necessarily mean a fail. It's supposed to mean a reorganization. But it, the only way you reorganize is by cutting expenses. And when you cut expenses you're cutting people's retirement, their medical benefits, their, their salary rates. You're cutting supply arrangements, and you're throwing a lot of uncertainty into a market that's headed (dropout) already. So, in this case no one really understands how bad this (dropout). There's no modeling of it. Nobody has the access to the proprietary information and the mar- (dropout) the stock market hasn't really priced this adequately yet. But you saw a taste of it yesterday in the 5 percent drop, where analysts are looking at this and saying, 'Whooa, this could be bad.' It could be very bad. It's going to be bad in any case, but we need to think about doing something to preserve the ess- (dropout) of the supply base in the automotive transport industry.

XM: Once again we're talking to retired General Wesley Clark about the auto industry. How much is t- the- research a part of this? You do write a little bit about "Detroit moves to plug-in hybrids and electric drive technology." Is that something that is advantageous militarily?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Certainly. All of these technologies that could be coming onboard have military applications. W-we're, we've struggled for years on better batteries, electric drives. Everybody understands that if you could take the fuel trucks off the battlefield, if you could have a better source of electric power than, than diesel and a (dropout) of propulsion than diesel that we'd be way, way ahead in terms of our effectiveness and efficiency if we ever have to get sent abroad to fight. BUT you can't develop the kinds of efficiency, the cost efficiencies you need without large scale manufacturing. And that, that's the large scale manufacturing that will come about if the Big Three engage properly in this. Now, other nations have national battery initiatives like Japan or Korea. They're working hard on these things. And you could always make the case that you can buy these things abroad. (dropout) a question of do you think there are any essential qualities necessary for our national security industrial base that should be retained that the government should have an oversight of? If it had to do with missiles and space technology, we'd be worried about it. But I want to say that this is not the only area where the United States has done, has made a lot of compromises over the years for outsourcing.

XM: General Clark, I wanted to ask you another question a little bit off the topic, which is that when you were in here the last time a little over a year ago, you were an early supporter of Senator Clinton for the Presidency and now she is being considered Secretary of State - not assuming that you've had any conversations with her about her choice here, and of course it's a great choice for her. (laughs) I mean 'Either be Senator or Secretary of State, what should I do?' Which way would you lean?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'd like to see her as Secretary of State, I, I think that's what she wants. But I think she brings tremendous talent to the, to, to the President-Elect's team, and I think that she'll be able to do wonderful things as a Secretary of State for the United States of America.

XM: And give us a, a note on your website secureamerica.com (sic) for people who want to keep up to with what you're doing - securingamerica.com.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, securingamerica.com, that's my website. You can see my recent writings, op-eds and my publications and appearances and so forth on this and get some perspective on the issues as I see them. I think we're into a really challenging time for America with two wars, a terrorist threat and economic meltdown. And I, and I would say this, with all due respect to my many friends on Wall Street, somehow we've kind of missed the boat here, because the banking industry's important, but keeping the banks alive doesn't keep America alive. Somehow, we've got to reach out and reassure the American public. If every American family will simply save 15 or 20 percent of their income, I promise you we can have a real depression in this country. And that's what's happening right now from the top of the income scale to the bottom. Everybody's internalized the bad news so strongly that they simply clamped their billfolds shut, and, and it has an enormous impact on everybody else. So, a lot of this is leadership. A lot of it goes back to the time that President Roosevelt said during the Depression, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." But this is an enormous leadership challenge that's going to be facing our new President, and I, I'd be delighted if he had Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State.

XM: General Wesley Clark, we appreciate your spending time with us. Thank you so much, Sir.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.

XM: Alright, General Wesley Clark, retired of course and a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles. And the book A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country, a fascinating look at his youth and of you, if you've never read it, trust me the towel snapping his behind when he was a young swim team member will be a story that you will remember, because frankly, I can't forget it when he told it. He was here one time and I just can't forget the story. The latest op-ed from him "What's good for GM is good for the Army" by Wesley Clark, that's in The Wall Street Journal. This is the Morning Briefing.