General Wesley Clark on Fox News Live

January 22, 2006
Transcript by Melange

Host: The war on terror is focusing on new, taped threats from public enemy number one. Osama bin Laden issuing new warnings of attacks on the United States, in the U.S. The warnings coming as Pakistan tells the U.S. not to repeat last week's air strike. Still there is word that Pakistan's military is having trouble targeting terrorists in the troubled border region. Joining us now is General Wesley Clark, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and a Fox News Analyst. Thanks for being with us, General.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good to be with you.

Host: There are new reports now that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi may be hiding out near Baghdad. Of course, he is al Qaeda's leader in Iraq. These reports are actually coming from Iraqi military officials so what does that say about Iraq's ability to hunt down the terrorists in its own country?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it says that as we had hoped for a long time that Iraqi intelligence will produce some leads but let's not get too upbeat on the possibility of finding Zarqawi - he may be there, he may not be there. He's probably got lots of hiding places and if we get him, remember, this is an insurgency that's going on in Iraq that's driven by the political factors in the country, first, with a small outside terrorist organization. So, in order to really pull Iraq together, what has to happen is the Sunni and Shi'a leaders have to come together and there has to be some compromise on the Shi'as part to take the steam out of the insurgency.

Host: Meanwhile as we mentioned, audiotapes came out this week from both Osama bin Laden and his number two, Ayman al-Zawahri. What do you make of the timing of these tapes and their content?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well the Zawahri tape, apparently…there's no reference in it to the strike in Pakistan so it may be an old tape and we don't know anything about Zawahri. But, occasionally these people are going to give tapes out and they're going to bluster and they're going to try to raise their recruiting base. I've had reservations for many years that the administration's strategy of focusing on Iraq was the wrong strategy because it wasn't the Iraqis that attacked us - it was Osama bin Laden.

We haven't really put a full-court press on the war on terror. We've done it with some covert operations. We've had an economy of force mission in Afghanistan and what we see right now is evidence that the base area in Pakistan is taking form. We're up against some very patient adversaries and we've got to work very closely with the government of Pakistan and occasionally sometimes do things on our own and go after that base area.

That really is target number one in the war on terror.

Host: Pakistan, ah, obviously there's an interesting relationship there. The New York Times has this article saying that it's actually losing control, ah Pakistan is, of that border area and of course Musharraf is getting a lot of criticism for its support for the United States - many Pakistanis kind of on the other side. First of all, the losing control of the border - do you believe that to be the case?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I do. I don't think Pakistan ever really had a good grip on the border but what we've done is we've leaned on Musharraf. He did put his army in there. The army lacked the tools. It lacked the local connectivity. It lacked the resources to fully do the job. The border area is huge, it's enormously difficult. It soaks up tens of thousands of troops and then they still don't have the local connectivity to be able to deal with the situation so yes, I think it's a very plausible article and I think it's an indicator that what we need to be doing is renewing our focus on the war on terror and really working against that base area in, ah, next to the Afghanistan border in Pakistan.

Host: Alright, turning to politics, General. You've been involved in politics.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I have.

Host: Karl Rove, ah, Bush advisor, came out with his comments saying that Democrats are still living with a pre-9/11 mentality and that they need to get into the post-9/11 mindset. What about that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well I don't think that's true. I do think that there's a legitimate issue between the parties on how to proceed post-9/11.

I think that the Democrats that I know and certainly in my view - we need a strong homeland security. This administration hasn't been effective in building an effective…a strong homeland security department that actually disburses money and puts the resources and improves the communications where the threat is most likely. We need to be making friends and working diplomatically and legally abroad, using force as a last resort. Instead we did go in and wage a war in Iraq. I hope we're successful because we're there and we all love our troops, but we've made a lot of enemies and we're left now with the real problem of Iran which is emerging. It's emerged on this administration's watch.

This administration has not dealt effectively with it and now that bill's coming due so I think that Karl Rove, he has a legitimate point in the sense that we're going to be talking about national security but let me assure you there's two views out there and he's got a lot to defend in that White House approach.

Host: Alright, General Wesley Clark, thank you so much for joining us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.