General Wesley Clark on Fox News Live
February 24, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC

Gregg Jarrett: Right now we're joined by former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and Fox News analyist, General Wesley Clark. General, always great to see you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good to see you too. Thank you.

Gregg Jarrett: Given the terrible bloodshed of the last couple of days in Iraq, would you expect the President to talk about that here?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think he's going to repeat his call for calm and to stop the violence in Iraq. But I think the truth is that this represents some of the exposure of these deep sectarian divides that are present in Iraq, and they've been deepened by American actions since coming in.

Saddam had, for whatever reasons, rightly or wrongly, he has done everything he could to crush sectarianism, and we had to use the cleric leaders. At least we Americans felt that we had to communicate with these leaders to get things rolling. So we deepened the sectarian split in Iraq. That's the feeling of most of the analysts.

Gregg Jarrett: How worried are you? Just on the right-hand side of our screen, General and to our viewers obviously, the President of the United States at the American Legion Convention in Washington, DC. There will likely be some introductory remarks which we will not take. As soon as the President does speak, we'll take that live. Back to General Wesley Clark. General, I posed this question to Major Bob Bevelacqua a moment ago. I want to pose the same one to you. How close do you think we are to seeing civil war, a sectarian civil war in, in Iraq?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, this is not- There is civil conflict, and it is sectarian, but it's not unrestrained civil war. I don't think we're that close to unrestrained civil war, but I think what we are is we're standing on the lip of looking down into a chasm of increasing violence. That's what awaits us, because the sectarian groups have got their grip on the institutions of the state. The Shi'ites control the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defense. The Sunnis are on the outside, and they used to control these institutions, and there's going to be a lot of, a lot of friction and, and distrust.

Gregg Jarrett: Yeah. We're sort of darned if we do and darned if we don't, because the US has been criticized for standing by idly and doing nothing to stop it the last couple of days. If we had, we would have been criticizing for interfering, I suppose. Again, as soon as the President begins in ernest with his remarks - he's just saying the thank yous now - we'll go live to it. Do you expect him also, General, to talk about what, in the minds of many, is an even deeper concern, a nuclear Iran?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think there's no doubt about it, and this has to be a principal focus of US policy. Unfortunately, you know, we've let a long time go past, and we've been deeply engaged in Iraq when we should have been working Iran, and now they're in a position, Iran is in a position of being on the verge of moving into this nuclear fuel cycle. So, it's a very dangerous time.