General Wesley Clark on The Diane Rehm Show

March 14, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC

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Diane Rehm: Joining me now in the studio to talk about the situation in Iraq General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander; Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute; and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post. Do join us 800-433-8850. Send your e-mail to drshow@wamu.org. Good morning gentlemen, thanks for joining us.

Everyone: Good morning.

Diane Rehm: General Clark, before we look at the situation in Iraq, yesterday you wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal, an opinion piece that was published regarding Slobodan Milosevic's death. You called it a 'tragedy for the international community'. Explain why.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Milosevic was undergoing a long trial for war crimes, and the evidence was laid out against him, but the conviction hadn't come in. He was in the process of preparing a multi-year defense of, of his actions. I think the trial was going to last as long as the conflict in the Balkans did, frankly. But we needed a conviction, because that conviction would've sent a strong message to the people of the region. Those who'd been aggrieved and had lost loved ones and lost their homes and livelihoods because of Milosevic would have seen that justice was served and the Serbs would have had to face the truth. Now, Milosevic will be elevated into the Pantheon of radical, failing, tragic Serb heroes, no doubt.

Diane Rehm: What about this letter he wrote alleging that he was being poisoned. What do you make of that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's highly unlikely that Milosevic was poisoned by anybody other then himself. I never saw any suicidal tendencies , and I would be surprised-

Diane Rehm: Thought there was suicide in his family.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There was, but I never saw it. I saw a man who loved himself, and he's the last person I would've thought that would've ever committed suicide.

Diane Rehm: And yet there has been criticism that he asked to go to Russia to be treated, because he felt that his heart condition was worsening, somehow that perhaps he was not getting the appropriate medication.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he would have had to explain what it is the Russians can do for heart disease that the Dutch can't do, and nobody seemed to understand that. The, the court didn't let him go, and he'd been under medication. They'd postponed trials. They had only had him coming three days a week, and so forth. He got a lot of breaks because of his heart condition. I, I- There'll be an investigation. We'll find out what happened, but I'd be astonished if it was suicide, and I wouldn't think that anybody poisoned him, unless he, himself somehow sabotaged his own medication, maybe.

Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark, he's former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, that was during the 1999 Kosovo campaign. He was also a Democratic candidate for the Presidential nomination in 2004. Turning now to Iraq, what is your assessment of the situation there now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we're at an absolutely critical point. The Sunnis have to be brought into the government, and the constitution simply has to be changed. Can't have Iraq in which the southern provinces control their own oil and can form a mini-state and exclude the Sunnis from participation in the oil revenues of the country. It, it won't be a country. It'll be- It'll degenerate into deeper fighting. We're at a decisive point, because this is the moment that all the leverage has to be brought to bear on the Shi'ite politicians. And of course, for them this is a matter of life and death also. They remember who these Sunnis were and what they did to their families and so forth. So, this is not a matter of easy politics. This is life and death for all parties.

Diane Rehm: And what kinds of concessions would you see the Shi'ites having to make?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think they will have to agree that the oil revenues would be controlled by the federal government rather than by the provinces. And I think they'll have to agree that the group of eighteen provinces in the South, that's been talked about forming it's own state, won't do that, won't have a mini-state, won't have the ability to- Provinces don't have the right to have foreign relations, to deal separately with sovereign nations like Iran.

Diane Rehm: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, How do you see it? Is it a critical turing point?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Oh, most certainly. I agree with what General Clark said. I mean, I think we're not just on the cusp of a civil war. We're embroiled in a low-grade civil war right now. When you hear the reports that have just come in overnight that some 80 Iraqis have wound up dead, killed almost all it seems execution-style, largely Sunnis, but some Shi'ites as well. You've got all the reports that we, we hear here in Washington, all the communications I have with Iraqis there on an almost daily basis are, paint a picture of, of a country that is, that is gripped by a, a degree of civil strife that I don't think often comes through back here in the United States. Even though it's not sort of a classic civil war where you've got armies marching in, in, in certain areas, or, or whole towns being partitioned, you have many a neighborhood in Baghdad where you have many mixed neighborhoods between Sunnis and Shi'ites where homeowners are staying up all night with their AK-47s guarding it, because they're not sure whether their neighbors are friend or foe anymore. They're having to take in relatives from, from other cities. You know Iraq, particularly Baghdad and the communities around Baghdad, have been very religiously mixed, and we're starting to see movements of populations away from those rural villages into the cities to join members of their communities. It's very, very worrisome. And just real quickly further on what General Clark was saying about a political solution to all of this, I agree. That's the most important thing here, but I'm very, very skeptical. I don't see the Shi'ite leadership giving in and making the necessary concessions for a number of reasons, but you know largely they, they've got their deal with this constitution. We allowed them to go forward with it, and they're, they're going to be loath to open it up and give away crucial gains in, in terms of federalism, And our Kurdish allies, who are a key component of, of this deal are not going to want to see major concessions in the world of federalism. It's very important to them.

Diane Rehm:: Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post. Tom Donnelly, how do you see it? Are we at a critical point? Are we in the midst of, as Rejiv put it, low-grade civil wars even as we speak?

Tom Donnelly: Oh, defining the line between civil conflict, civil war, high-grade, low-grade I, I'm not sure is, is really all that helpful, but for- rather then fuss about it, I'm, I'm, I'm willing to agree to it. I do think we're at a point yet again where we could, where we could lose or we could essentially stay in the game. The, the game for Iraq, the struggle for iraq is just inevitably, inherently a long-term one. And I think we're now at another one of those points where we see very clearly the correlation between the American presence, the American commitment and the possibility of improvement in Iraq. Rajiv is quite right that the level of fear amongst Iraqis is at a peak, and, and the only thing that makes that go down is a re-commitment on the part of the United States not to leave. The Iraqis know fully well, all the factions, that if it's going to work it's got to be with American help.

Diane Rehm: I'm really interested in that you say you agree with Rajiv that the fear, the sense of being attacked is very much on the minds of Iraqis. The administration has said up to now that the newspapers, that the media has actually exaggerated what's happening there and the devastation that's going on there. And yet, you seem to agree with Rajiv.

Tom Donnelly: Yeah. Again, I don't think that the, the media-bashing is any more of use than, than trying to see a civil war or quantify how large it is, where there isn't one. Most of the reports, though, I get out of Iraq are with people who are imbedded with or travel with American military units, and what you get at that very low level, that neighborhood block level of engagement is a sense of not, you know, fear of, like, people at the door with guns, but just a complete absence of trust and uncertainty about where this process is going. So, Americans find themselves, much as in the balkans, as the outsider for sure but still the only trustworthy interlocutor amongst, amongst the- a very delicate position for our soldiers to be in.

Diane Rehm: Trustworthy, General Clark?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that what's happening is the American forces are going to have to apply leverage against the Shi'ite politicians. Now, we did go against Muqtada Al Sadr when his army took Najaf, and when we go against Hakim, that's a different matter. And there were already been a lot of threats exchanged back and forth. There's a lot of concern. You can see a lot of the charges leaking out in the press now that the Americans are biased and representing the Sunnis. We're at the decisive point. We've got to get these changes in the constitution locked in, and if they don't get locked in, we're going to slide into a situation where the civil conflict deepens. I'm not an optimist that these changes can be done.

Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark. He was a Democratic candidate for the Presidential nomination in 2004. He's the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.

(Station break)

Diane Rehm: We're talking about the current situation in Iraq with General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander; Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute; and Rajiv Chandrasekaran of the Washington Post. We'll open the phones in just a few moments. 800-433-8850 Send us your e-mail to the drshow@wamu.org. You know, I think it's hard to understand right now what the role of the US ambassador to Iraq actually is and Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad seems to be in a particularly difficult spot as you General Clark talk about putting pressure on the Shi'ites. How do you see it Rajiv.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Well, I think the ambassador there, Ambassador Khalilzad, is doing an excellent job, and he's trying to, to exercise as much leverage as he possibly can.

Diane Rehm: He's in a very tough spot.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Indeed, and the fact of the matter is is that he doesn't have a whole lot of leverage to, to use here. Iraq is a sovereign nation. They've had elections which we have hailed here as, as Democratic, as a step in the right direction, and the, the, the reality is is that the Shi'ites and the Shi'ite religious party, Shiite Islamist, have, have won, you know, a commanding lead. They, they, they have at least a plurality of, of the seats in Parliament, and, and that makes it now very, very difficult. They have put forward now a candidate for Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jafari, who's been the Prime Minister thus far. The, the Sunni Arabs and the Sunni Kurds don't like that, and the Shi'ites are showing very little sign of a desire to compromise. Instead, they're closing their ranks. They're saying, 'Don't tell us who we should nominate to be Prime Minister.' Interestingly enough, a potential wild card in all of this is that rebellious cleric, Muqtada Sadr, whose militia has caused immense trouble for US forces there in the three years or so that we've been in Iraq. Sadr is, is, is not a fan of a system of regional autonomy. He doesn't want there to be a, a, a nine province Southern Shi'ite Zone, and so he may well be the best hope at exercising some leverage on the Shi'ites to move away from that.

Diane Rehm: Hm. Interesting. At the same time, Tom Donnelly, yesterday President Bush seemed to try to reassure the American people that the situation in Iraq is not as bad as it seems. Now, how would you describe the gist of his speech in comparison or contrast to what we're hearing this morning.

Thomas Donnelly: I wouldn't contrast it so much. Look, the President has a very delicate tightrope to walk. He has to both reassure Americans, to reinforce our willingness to suffer the sacrifices in blood and treasure that, that, that we have to pay. At the same time he has to simply tell the truth about the nature of the war and it's long duration and the fact that there, there are hard times to come, and I think it's wise to downplay the expectations of a strong, you know, moderate government coming out of this. It, it will either be strong or it will be immoderate.

Diane Rehm: But at the same time, General Clark, the polls apparently indicate that the American public does not think that this war is going well. How much of what President Bush is attempting to do is of a political nature and how much is it to reassure the American people on a national security basis?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's President Bush's job to lead on a political level. The real question is do the politics interfere with the strategy on the ground. And here the answer is almost certainly yes. We've known for over a year that the administration felt that it had to pull troops back before the 2006 elections. It's election-driven troop withdrawals. If you talk to the people on the ground there, they're not so sure. I, I don't know what General Casey and General Abizaid said, but I talked to people from all different ranks, and, and they're not sure about the training. They're not sure that they're making the kinds of success that warrant this, but they know there's tremendous pressure coming form the political level to get these troop withdrawals underway.

Diane Rehm: What about a timetable for that kind of withdrawal?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'm certainly not in favor of it. I think that what we've got to do is give the ambassador there all the leverage we can possibly give him to try to broker the political arrangements that will let Iraq remain a coherent integral state, and putting a fixed schedule on for withdrawal means that the troops there, the commanders, the leaders, the people in Iraq, they're all focusing on the withdrawal. Let's get them focused on what they need to focus on which is holing Iraq together.

Diane Rehm: But suppose they can't do that, Rajiv.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Well you know, the presence of American forces there is perhaps one of the strongest elements keeping the, the Sunnis and the Shi'ites apart at this point. If, if US forces were not in that country or in a vastly diminished number, I think we'd be seeing even greater civil strife. But when you go back and look at the President's speech yesterday, one important point to consider, when he talks about handing more, more of Iraq over to Iraqi forces, we have to drill down into the specifics here. Most of Iraq is really under the control of Iraqi forces. American troops are in Baghdad. They're out in the West near Fallujah and Rhamadi. They're up North, to were Takrit and Mosul and up to the Northwest. But all of the Kurdish areas up in the far North, and pretty much from 50 miles south of Baghdad down is largely in the hands of Iraqi forces. And so, if we keep saying, 'Oh, we're giving another section of this country over,' we really don't have meaningful numbers of troops there. One thing we have to be very careful of is we have thus far backed away from any efforts to try to de-mobilize militias. The Kurdish Peshmurga are still active in the North. The Shi'ite militias, the Badr Corps and other units that are riddled with, with Iranian agents and getting support from Iran.

Diane Rehm: Why have we backed away from that effort.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Because in a time of civil strife, you can't go and tell the Kurds or the Shi'ites 'disband your militias.' They're fearful of attacks from the Shi'ites. One important thing, just getting back to Ambassador Khalilzad, I don't think it's going to be feasible for him to get the Shi'ites to back away from autonomy. The most important thing he can do now is to insure that in the formation of this new government, The Interior Ministry is not in the hands-

Diane Rehm: Hm mm.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: -of a Shi'ite Islamist and is in the hands of somebody who is not a sectarian, a more secular figure, and getting party militias out from, from the, the umbrella of the, of the domestic security forces. That's been the biggest, one of the biggest problems we had thus far, these Interior Ministry commandos going out and, and abducting people and executing them. That has to stop if we want to control this issue.

Diane Rehm: General Clark.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think it's going to be very difficult to, to de-sectarianize these Ministries. I think that even if you changed the people at the top, there's an agenda that's at work here, and the United States doesn't have the grip. It doesn't have the presence. It doesn't have the legal authority. It doesn't have the personnel that can speak the languages. It doesn't have the control in the provinces to really be able to grip this issue. This issue is an issue that's sliding the wrong way, and it, it, it's just something that- it's going to take a colossal effort right now to set it right.

Diane Rehm: What kind of effort? You know-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Here's what I would recommend.

Diane Rehm: Good.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Number one is I would, I would say that we need to set aside some of the US brigades right now and explain to Hakim that we're going to help him. We're going to prepare some of our troops in case the militias don't want to disband. We're going to give our special- our troops special equipment and training to be able to work in urban areas. And this is a threat, and it's the kind of-

Diane Rehm: What would that actually mean?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What that would mean to Hakim is, it would mean that our troops would be reoriented away from the Sunnis to being able to focus on the Shia militia. He wouldn't like it. It'll be viewed as challenging and even provocative, but it's the kind of leverage, without ever redeploying a force, without ever raising your arms against the Shias. It's the kind of leverage that sends a strong signal. I'd still- I'd put more troops on the border with Iran. That is an indicator to the Shias and to the Iranians that we're as worried about that border as we are the border with Syria, where the insurgents are coming in. And I would make it- I would be redeploying forces to be able to convey a message through the military deployments, because that's most of the leverage. If you slow down the delivery of supplies to the Army and the Interior Ministry, maybe some radios get held up in customs in Miami or something like that, that also sends a message.

Diane Rehm: Tom Donnelly.

Thomas Donnelly: (Coughs) Pardon me. I would, I would agree with particularly the general thrust of what the General just, just said. We're now really on our second large attempt to create a viable national Iraqi Army, and once again we've done a tactically better job but I think a strategically just as poor job as we did the first time. All the indicators- all the, all the markers of success that we understood from Afghanistan - trying to create a multiethnic force, trying to ween people off of their attachment to their, to all their localities towards loyalty to the central government - we've pretty much failed to do in Iraq, in fact we don't even keep track of statistics of what, you know, tribes and what people are in what unit. So, the result is we've brought all these militias whole-hog into and given them national uniforms and national support. We've made the situation worse rather than better.

Diane Rehm: Hm. Alright. One last question before we open the phones. Review for us briefly Rajiv, the timetable that Iraq has established in terms of the political process.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Well, on Thursday the new Parliament will convene, and this has been weeks in the waiting.

Diane Rehm: And postponed several times.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Indeed, and now they're going to have to set about the process of forming that government. There's been lots of back room discussions, none of which have really made much progress, and now it's time for, for them- They're under a deadline here. They've got to, now within a few weeks, come up with a, with a Prime Minister and a cabinet.

Diane Rehm: And what are the prospects of meeting those deadlines?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Well, you know, things get delayed all the time in Iraq, but Iraqis also have this remarkable ability when they're up against the wall to pull something out of the hat. The question is will we get the, you know, a government that will be a national unity government, that will try to get some of the religious figures and the militia-type-linked figures out of Ministries and, and be a government that both Sunni Arabs and Kurds can look at and see themselves represented in. That's the really big challenge here. That's what Khalilzad is trying to bring about. Let's not make a mistake about it, Abu Musab Zarqawi, the number one terrorist in Iraq, wants a civil war. He's pushing all the groups toward this, and you know, coming back to what General Clark was saying, the US military there and the embassy needs to be focused on keeping the Shi'ites in their corner, in addition to fighting the Sunni insurgents.

Diane Rehm: At 27 before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm Show, and it's time to open the phones 800-433-8850. Let's go first to Oklahoma. Good morning, Bob. You're on the air.

Bob: Yes, it's, it's, it's clear as mud what's going on there in Iraq.

(Chuckle)

Bob: My comment is this: I'm gonna try to keep it simple. You know, when it's obvious to a lot of us that things are not being exaggerated over there as much as downplayed. And so that, that's basically my comment is that when the President accuses the media of, of exaggerating the situation, the negative things that are going on over there, it's quite clear to most people who are digging around to get the story that that's, that's not the case.

Diane Rehm: General Clark, as the non-media person here this morning, what's your own assessment of how the media has dealt with events in Iraq.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, the media's tried to show the score card as the administration has portrayed it. The administration talks about violence, the media reports on the violence. The media's also covered some of the efforts at reconstruction, but they haven't been very successful. And a lot of the violence and disorder in Iraq isn't even covered by the media, because it's not picked up in the American military reporting - people who are kidnapped, murdered and, and, and cars stolen and so forth. It's terribly violent over there. So, I agree with Bob. I think Bob's got it right. I think it's very dangerous when an American President loses credibility as President Bush has on this issue.

Diane Rehm: Alright. Let's go East Hampton, Long Island and to good morning Neil. You're on the air.

Neil: Yeah, hi. You know, I think that the problem here is that the context for the discussion, including the three of you, is completely delusional in that it's very similar to the lead-up to the war and the foreign intelligence, when in fact, after having reviewed all the foreign intelligence, there wasn't a single item that- a single person who said that there were actually saw or could ascertain there were any weapons of mass destruction. And so in Iraq, they're talking about building a state when the real issue is not the Shi'ites and the Sunnis. The issue is the kurds, and anyone who's dealt with the Kurds understands that Kurds' interest is in creating their own state. The Kurds do not want to be a part of Iraq, and that's an underlying factor, and whether it happens now or it happens in five years, they're gonna push to get out of out Iraq, and this whole thing is gonna collapse anyway.

Diane Rehm: Thanks for calling, Neil. Tom Donnelly.

Thomas Donnelly: The, the Kurds' desires and the Kurds' actions are, are two very different things. Kurds are not stupid. They, their view of Kurdistan includes territories that are in Turkey, that are in Iran and, and unless the Kurds and their leaders, their actual political leaders go entirely off the rails, worrying about an independent Kurdistan is, is probably the least of our worries on Iraq.

Diane Rehm: Rajiv.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Thus far, the Kurdish leaders have to be praised for their responsibility and their measured approach to the situation. There have been reports and, and they're concerning that the Shi'ite leadership is trying to strike some deals with the Kurdish leadership in the formation of this government, and perhaps in exchange for allowing the Kurds a bit of a leg-up in controlling and deciding who gets control of the oil-rich disputed Northern city of Kirkuk. You could see how the Shi'ites might offer the Kurds a sweet deal to help support their candidate and their efforts in the formation of this new government.

Diane Rehm: Any comment from you, General Clark?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I, I think Neil, he's right. The Kurds do want their independence, but right now they want what's best for them, and what's best for them is to follow the lead of the United States, to play along with the federal, federated Iraq, and maybe it'll work out for them.

Diane Rehm: What is the possibility that in the end, you're going to have three separate states?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: 50-50.

Diane Rehm: 50-50.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: 50-50. That's what I'd call it.

Diane Rehm: Rajiv? Rajiv?

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: I, I think the chances are less than that. I think what you will, will likely get, though, is a, a confederation. Where you'll have a, a very autonomous Shi'ite region, a very autonomous, a very autonomous Northern Kurdish region, and a autonomous sort of Sunni-stan, and then a, a Baghdad under sort of a mixed administrative control.

Diane Rehm: Then why does the fighting have to continue if we are ultimately going to be left with that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because if you can fix the constitution now, you can dampen the source of conflict and save a lot of lives.

Diane Rehm: General Wesley Clark, thanks for joining us.