General Wesley Clark on Morning Joe
February 4, 2009
Transcription by RegNYC
(on tape)
Hillary Clinton: It is clear that, as the Foreign Secretary said, Iran has an opportunity to step up and become a productive member of the international community. As President Obama said, we are reaching out a hand, but the fist has to unclench.
(end tape)
Joe Scarborough: Alright.
Mika Brzezinski: Mmm.
Joe Scarborough: Let's bring in right now former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, retired General Wesley Clark and President of the Council on Foreign relations, Richard Haass.
Mika Brzezinski: Very nice.
Joe Scarborough: Richard, let's start with you with this stimulus package. There's a portion of it that a lot of people, a lot of our allies in the European Union are concerned about.
Richard Haass: For good reason. The House version of the stimulus package basically says that any iron and steel that's used in projects that are funded by the stimulus project have, have to be used- have to be produced from the- in the United States. Senate's even broader. Anything manufactured has to be manufactured in the United States. If we pass this in that form, the Europeans will retaliate, and whatever jobs we save here through the stimulus package will be more than offset by the jobs we will lose when American exporters lose their markets in Europe.
Mika Brzezinski: Oh my gosh.
Richard Haass: This will also mean that there's zero chance of getting a trade agreement. And if we had a new global trade agreement, it would add 1% to U.S. and global growth. Think of the jobs that would produce.
Joe Scarborought: So, British leaders were warning that the United States started The Great Depression, and the Times of London-
Richard Haass: Right.
Joe Scarborough: -matter-of-factly states "Of course, The Great Depression was started by American protectionism in the 1930's."
Richard Hass: Right.
Joe Scarborough: The British believe that we're going to start another global depression if we move forward with this provision.
Richard Haass: Just as the descendants of Mr. Smoot and Mr. Hawley deepened The Great Depression. What- the added irony of this is a lot of the people voting for this said the problem with George W. Bush is he was a unilateralist. 'We need to become more multilateralist.'
Mika Brzezinski: Hm.
Richard Haass: Here's one of their first chances, and what are they doing?
Mike Brzezinski: (laughs) Right.
Richard Haass: They're unilateralists in the-
Joe Scarborough: Yeah.
Richard Haass: -trade war. It's a tremendous mistake. It's short-sighted. And by the- also who will suffer from this are poor people all around the world. They're no longer getting investment flows. They're no longer getting aid flows. They need to trade and, and to export.
Joe Scarborough: There-
Richard Haass: We're going to basically make a bad situation worse in the United States and around the world if the stimulus package passes in the current form.
Joe Scarborough: There was some commentaries in the European papers about 'The Chosen One' actually being more unilateralist in this issue than George Bush.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I do want to say there's also some good things in that stimulus bill- a lot of good things.
Joe Scarborough: And I want to hear about them right now, General.
Mika Brzezinski: I want to know which ones. Yes. Ge- give us-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Green energy.
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah.
Joe Scarborough: That's good!
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There's a lot of good stuff-
Joe Scarborough: Not enough.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -in there for wind-
Joe Scarborough: Not enough.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and solar. Not-
Mika Brzezinski: Okay.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Not enough. The House bill's better than the Senate bill, but I can tell you those industries are out there poised and ready to take off if they get just a little bit of boost from the government there.
Joe Scarborough: General, why don't we give them more of a boost? My, my complaint is not even the cost of this bill. It's that it's not big enough. It doesn't think in broad enough measures. We could transform- I mean, I mean, this is one example where it's like, bring Al Gore in. Let Al Gore tell you about this new energy grid that we need to put from coast to coast. Talk about what we can do with, with alternative energy sources. But it seems like this bill - a, a little bit of welfare here, a little bit of Earned Income Tax Credit there, a little bit of education here. I say a little bit - 100 billion dollars here.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's a compromise first because the two parties have basically different positions. The Republican Party's more in favor of cutting taxes and giving the money back to the consumers to use it as they need.
Joe Scarborough: Right, the Democrats this bill.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I think on the specific issue you're raising, I think if you look at the grid it's part of a, of a bigger picture. There is going to be an energy bill, I'm told. It's going to really go into depth on the grid and how to do it. The grid's more than just throwing money at it. It's going to take a lot of money, but it's a lot about authority and regulation and how it effects utilities.
Joe Scarborough: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I-i-i-t's a different package.
Mika Brzezinski: Would that be-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But we can, we can move on-
Richard Haass: We can get there.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -with solar in this bill.
Mika Brzezinski: But hearing what you have to say, hearing what you have to say, hearing what we've been questioning on television and on the radio about this bill, I just wonder what the rush is then. What is the rush? If there's such severe impact in terms of the global economic climate and, and to our place in it, why are we rushing?
Joe Scarborough: Let's define 'rush'. Do we have to do this by next Friday?
Mika Brzezinski: Do we have to?
Richard Haass: No. Markets are obviously been poised to take that as a signal, but better to get it right than get it soon.
Mika Brzezinski: I think so.
Richard Haass: Aaaand I think what you were talking about before had a lot of wisdom in it. Strip it out, the stuff that does not have to be done immediately. Do normal legislation through the normal legislative process. Really figure out what will send a powerful market signal, what will be targeted, get people back to work early. But deal with fundamental questions of energy policy and fundamental energy legislation.
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah.
Richard Haass: There's got to be some kind of division of labor here. But we can't be in so much of a hurry that we make a bad situation worse, because we've done that already.
Joe Scarborough: It, it, it's the-
Mika Brzezinski: We did that - Wall Street.
Joe Scarborough: It's the Alice- It's the Alice Rivlin approach and the approach Larry Summers talked about before he got into office.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you got to have a balance, Joe, between a good package now, because with each week the spiral deepens. And so, pulling demand up soon is important in itself. You got to get the balance between getting it right and the best you can get it and getting it through.
Joe Scarborough: How about a 300 billion dollar plan now and all these other things that you can pay for later in the legislative process, do that? That's what Rivlin was saying.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's too little. I think if you look at where we are, falling off from the potential of where we could be as an economy, we're way down there, and that's why people are pressing for a stimulus package that's approaching the one trillion mark.
Joe Scarborough: Well, and, and of course these numbers are disputable, Richard Haass-
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah.
Joe Scarborough: -but the Wall Street Journal calculated only 12 cents out of every dollar goes directly to stimulus. Better to have 300 billion dollars going directly to stimulus of you're just throwing away 650 billion dollars that is going-
Mika Brzezinski: O-kay.
Joe Scarborough: -to be spent over the next five or six years.
Richard Haass: Exactly right. What we ought to basically make sure is that a high percentage of what is passed now actually stimulates-
Joe Scarborough: Right.
Richard Haass: -and the stuff that's going to have a delayed kick-in, we have more time then to get that right.
Mika Brzezinski: Okay, I want to read from Politico. I think this just crossed.
Joe Scarborough: John Harris, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei-
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah, Cheney warns-
Joe Scarborough: -the triumvirate at politico.
Mika Brzezinski: Oh, here we go. Cheney warns of new attacks. I'm going to read, I'm going to read word for word. "Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned there is a 'high probability' that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration's policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed. Interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration's support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects."
Joe Scarborough: General Clark, Barack Obama is rating fairly high in the polls. One area where he is not aligned with the American people is the closing of Guantanamo Bay. Does he carry with him a risk that if there is a terrorist attack in the future that Americans might blame him for shutting down Guantanamo Bay?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think every American President is going to have to look from now on out at the risk that his actions will somehow in the light of a terrorist event be interpreted as having contributed to it. But I think the positive effect that we'll get in winning the war on terrorism by the shutdown of Gitmo is enormous. This was a black eye for America across the world, and the first way you have to beat Islamic terrorism is winning the ideological struggle. That is living up to your own values.
Joe Scarborough: Perception is-
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And Guantanamo-
Joe Scarborough: Perception is reality. But the question is-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We weren't doing it at Guantanamo.
Joe Scarborough: Where are we, where are we going put-
Richard Haass: Right.
Joe Scarborough: You know, there are probably-
Mika Brzezinski: Exactly.
Joe Scarborough: -20 to 25 really bad actors-
Richard Haas: Sure.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There are.
Joe Scarborough: -in there right now. Where to we take them, Richard Haass?
Richard Haass: Well, I think- Well, that's the real question.
Joe Scarborough: We're not going to release them.
Richard Haass: Well, the only place we really probably could release them is back into the custody of the governments that they come from without-
Joe Scarborough: (laughs) Which will be much worse than Guantanamo.
Richard Haass: Exactly. Guantanamo's going to look like Club Med.
Joe Scarborough: (laughs) It will. I mean, compared to how-
Richard Haass: No.
Joe Scarborough: -they'll be treated in Egypt or-
Richard Haass: Sure.
Joe Scarborough: -Saudi Arabia, and so on and so on.
Richard Haass: And we, we require assurances, but I'm not quite sure what, how valuable those assurances are. But this is- What Wes said is exactly right. Closing Guantanamo helps you interrupt the recruiting chain.
Joe Scarborough: Right.
Richard Haass: It's a really powerful message, but it does have the implementation problem, which is: What do you do with these hardcore guys-
Mika Brzezinski: Yes.
Richard Haass: -who you can't really bring to trial, because you can't present the evidence or some of it was gotten through some for- version of torture? If you send them back to their home country, they're probably going to be worsely, w-worse treated there-
Joe Scarborough: Right.
Richard Haass: -then they ever were at Guantanamo.
Joe Scarborough: Yeah. I-I don't-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think there's another alternative-
Richard Haass: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And I-I-I'm personally in favor of German prisons. They're really tough. They're really serious. And I'd like to see some international trials of these people, because-
Mika Brzezinski: (inaudible crosstalk)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -I think that if you could put them on international trial, get that evidence out there-
Joe Scarborough: Are the Ger- are the Germans going to take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed knowing that if they take Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 22, 23 other bad actors, suddenly they become the target of terrorists?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you have to have an international-
Joe Scarborough: They say, 'Release our people or we're going to blow up Berlin.'
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you have to have an international understanding on this, and this is where America and its allies really have to work together.
Joe Scarborough: I have a good idea.
Mika Brzezinski: Wow, uh, hm.
Joe Scarborough: Why don't we get our allies in Eastern Europe to quietly take them. Oh wait, Dana Priest already outed them. We couldn't do that.
Mika Brzezinski: Cheney said the ultimate threat to the country is a 9/11-type event where the terrorists are armed with something much more dangerous than an airline ticket and a box cutter. A nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind, quote, "that is deployed in the middle of an American city" that's, quote, "That's the one that would involve the deaths of perhaps hundreds of thousands of people." Good morning.
Joe Scarborough: I-I mean, I mean, that's possible.
(inaudible crosstalk)
Mika Brzezinski: Thank you.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But there's nothing new with this.
Mika Brzezinski: There's nothing new, but it's-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We've been saying this for 20 years.
Mika Brzezinski: Yeah.
Joe Scarborough: But, you know, I talk to - i-it, it, this is all very possible, and I actually want to compliment Dick Cheney. He and the President were extraordinarily aggressive in the war on terror, a lot of people said too aggressive. But you talk to people in the intelligence community, and they wonder whether Al Qaeda - and I'm talking hardcore people that agreed with Cheney - they wonder if Al Qaeda even has the, the capability of pulling something off anymore, because they have been beaten up-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They have.
Joe Scarborough: -and abused over the past eight years.
(inaudible crosstalk)
Richard Haass: You have to assume they can one day. It's a little bit like disease. You can't eliminate it. It's not part of the infrastructure-
Mika Brzezinski: Keep it at bay.
Richard Haass: -of modern life. And what we can try to do is defeat it, stop it. We can protect ourselves, and worst comes to worst, we can try to improve our ability to recover from it. But like disease, this is now part of living in (inaudible).
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Got to have Homeland Security.
Joe Scarborough: Yeah.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, it's not just about going to where people of Muslim faith live-
Joe Scarborough: Mm hm.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and trying to eradicate this. You've got to have homeland security.
Joe Scarborough: We, we've got to get, we've got to go now. We want to thank both of you for being here. But in five seconds, how do we win, how do we win in Afghanistan, General.
Mika Brzezinski: (laughs) Five seconds.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Got to change it from a military struggle to something broader.
Joe Scarborough: (laughing) He actually took that question seriously. I love him!
Richard Haass: He took the bait.
Mika Brzezinski: He's a TV guy.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Change it to something broader. You've got to promote economic development.
Mika Brzezinski: Richard.
Joe Scarborough: Right.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You've got to decentralize the government, and you've got to work Pakistan, because the key's in Pakistan.
Richard Haass: Got to work Pakistan. (inaudible). You can't win Afghanistan. The goal ought to be not to lose Afghanistan. Let's set the bar on a modest level-
Mika Brzezinski: Uh-huh.
Richard Haass: Even modest goals are ambitious in Afghanistan.
Joe Scarborough: Alright.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We both took the bait.
Joe Scarborough: I love it.
Mika Brzezinski: I like that. (inaudible)
Joe Scarborough: You both took the challenge. Alright, thank you guy so much.
(laughter all around)
Richard Haass: We got the memo about the tie.
Joe Scarborough: You got the memo also about the blue ties. The age of Obama's upon us.
Mika Brzezinski: Good looking pair. Mm, handsome.
Joe Scarborough: Alright. Thanks so much.
