General Wesley Clark on Hannity and Colmes

January 31, 2006
Transcript by Melange

Alan Colmes: Welcome back to a special State of the Union edition of Hannity & Colmes. I'm Alan Colmes. We're joined now by former NATO Supreme Commander and Fox News Contributor, General Wesley Clark. One of our guests tonight seemed to have had presidential ambitions, maybe you too again, right?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: <laughter> Well, you're nice to say that. I'm in business now.

Alan Colmes: Let's talk about…He said, the president, tonight, um “abroad our nation is committed to historic long-term goal, we seek the end of tyranny in the world.”

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that's rhetoric. I…<crosstalk>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You know, I think it's a noble goal. I don't see it reflected in the actions and policies of the administration. What I do see is an effort to go against terrorists that's dominated our agenda to such an extent that in many respects we've sacrificed our principles. We dealt with dictators. We still haven't really held Putin accountable. We've lost this historic opportunity in Russia that Putin and the authoritarian regime is taking away the freedoms there.

Alan Colmes: Well we focused on Iraq when at Tora Bora we missed an opportunity to get bin Laden. I just wonder, when he says that, is he hinting that he might use the military in Iran, that he may use…these other axis of evil he mentioned a few State of the Union addresses ago?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it goes…I think it's just one of the sort of phrases…It's, it's right but it's platitudinous and unless it's anchored into concrete policies, it's just a slogan.

Alan Colmes: What, concretely, do we need to do in Iraq and in terms of these Axis of Evil in the world? What, specifically, could he have said tonight?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know what I've said about Iraq and the Axis of Evil. First of all, I didn't like the label. Secondly, we went after the least consequential of the three when we invaded Iraq. And now we have our greatest commitment of resources against the least consequential problem and it's impeding us in our effort to get to number two <crosstalk>

Alan Colmes: We're there, we have to deal with is so what do we do?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You've got to use the military commitment in Iraq as leverage to force the Shia to let the Sunnis into the government and to change the constitution. There's a very limited opening to doing this. It's not simply a race to get the Iraqi armed forces trained so we can leave because the Iraqi armed forces and the military intelligence people there in Iraq are sectarian. They will lead that country to civil war if we don't break down that sectarianism. We've got to do it now.

Alan Colmes: One of the things he said, tonight he said “we're on the offensive in Iraq with a clear plan for victory” but I didn't hear…again, I didn't hear what the plan was.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, it's not. When you use phrases like offensive. You know, we're not going to go down, I hope we've gotten over the sort of kicking in the doors and roughing up the women that some people said that we did some of over there…

<Unidentified>: You think we did that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I have heard some soldiers say that some of that was done and I think that's really disturbing.

Hannity: If you heard that and you don't have any evidence, should you be repeating something like that, General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I have heard our soldiers say that so I've been told that by our soldiers.

Hannity: Without any proof, though, do you think you should be repeating that about our soldiers?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: When a guy tells me something like that…I didn't say that was our policies, but I know that some of that did happen. So, what I'm telling you is <crosstalk>

Hannity: It seems irresponsible, General.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's not irresponsible. What's irresponsible is to use big broad phrases like “offensive” when, in fact, what we need to be doing in Iraq is getting a political solution. All of our generals will tell you that and so will the politicians.

Hannity: We, we are. Nobody thought that we'd go from a dictatorship to, ah, the sovereignty that's emerging or to the constitution or to the elections with all those purple fingers or the masses of people that went out to vote the way that they did. Nobody thought that was possible but we're not going to win on Iraq.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What I want to say one thing. You know, I love the men and women in uniform. I honor what they're doing in Iraq. But, it's not going to be won militarily…no matter what we do. It could be lost militarily.

Hannity: So we can't win this war? So you're like Howard Dean. You don't think we're going to win the war?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We have to win it politically. <crosstalk>

Hannity: I think we win it both ways.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We have to talk the military power and use it to get political advantage in Iraq.

Hannity: So those elections didn't impress you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, the elections gave us an opening but now what the elections showed is that the people who were Shia voted for the extremists and the people who are Sunnis voted for the Sunnis and…<crosstalk>

Hannity: General, I hear a lot of Howard Dean and John Kerry in you. Howard Dean said we can't win the war, in a lot of ways…<crosstalk>

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Let me just ask you this. Let me just ask you this. <crosstalk>

Hannity: No, no, let me just finish my question. You can't win it. And you're saying you have to win it politically, ah, John Kerry said that, you know, our troops were terrorizing women and children in the dark of night, now you're repeating that. <crosstalk> I'm surprised, I really am.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sean, you know, first of all listen. I don't take guidance from…this is not political for me. I spent my lifetime in uniform. <crosstalk>

Hannity: I appreciate it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I've studied these situations. I've talked to people all the time. I very carefully follow these events, so this is my judgment as a strategist. It has nothing to do with politics. <crosstalk>

Hannity: I would

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's not about ambition and it's not about partisanship.

Hannity: I understand that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I'll tell you this. This country has to understand and respect others. <crosstalk> It cannot just go in and bulldoze countries. <crosstalk>

Hannity: If anybody would have told you that Saddam would be out of power, his sons would be dead, we would have had multiple elections, a constitution would be written, you have the Kurds and the Sunnis and the Shia all seemingly beginning to come together in a way here and as Joe Lieberman pointed out it's really just a small fraction opposing this, I don't think anybody would have predicted it and you seem to take no good out of this at all and I'm shocked.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, actually you know, I predicted the invasion would be over in three weeks. I said we didn't have enough forces to really do the job afterwards. If you read my book I said I thought we'd handle this and we'd be out of here by now so I'm surprised at how poorly it's gone considering the overwhelming American preponderance of power but I think that our troops shouldn't be blamed for that. I think that our troops have done a great job. I think it comes to faulty policies.

Alan Colmes: We appreciate you being on the show tonight. Thank you sir.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Alan.

Alan Colmes: Good to see you once again. Thank you very much.