General Wesley Clark on The O"Reilly Factor
July 5, 2006
transcript by Melange

John Kasich: In the impact segment tonight: as the North Koreans thumb their nose at the world, what military options are on the table? Joining us now from Little Rock, Arkansas, Fox News analyst, General Wesley Clark. General, you know yesterday when I heard about this, I just shook my head. I worry about my kids. Ballistic missiles, intercontinental ballistic missiles, combined with perhaps a nuclear program, I mean I can't think of a scarier scenario particularly when those… when those items are in the hands of somebody like this man that's running North Korea. Your take on it.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well the world's a dangerous place and North Korea's one of the most dangerous countries in the world. They do have an enormous military potential, a million-man army. They've got chemical weapons, biological weapons we believe and nuclear weapons now; and a means to deliver. So this is a place where war could occur. It would be a really ugly, nasty place and war might occur by accident or miscalculation. So we have to understand we are in a dangerous situation. Now, my take on it would be that the leader over there wants…Kim Jong Il, he wants recognition from the United States. He wants exactly what the president said today which is to join the world community. But, the key to that, to join the world community, is that the United States has got to welcome him in. So we've got to talk to him <crosstalk>

John Kasich: But General, here's the only problem with that. In '94 we sat down and talked to him and we made a deal and then we found out they cheated from the…you know…the agreement wasn't even dry yet and we knew they were cheating on it. <crosstalk> So what are we going to talk to them about?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, not exactly from the beginning of the agreement, but you're right, John. This is a regime that is struggling for survival and they're going to cheat if they can get away with it, but that doesn't mean that you can't talk. So my prescription on this would be that we do direct dealing with the North Koreans. That we talk to them directly, that we bring to them quietly under the table a package of incentives and a package of threats. The package of incentives includes…they've already said what they want. They want a nuclear reactor. Fine, put in the demilitarized zone where we can watch over it and they can have the power from it and then couple it with verification of no other nuclear activities. Get some inspection teams into the country. It's tit for tat. They're very tough bargainers.

John Kasich: But General, what bothers me about this, and I'd love to think that this is the way out of this mess…and you know, maybe we're going to find it is…I'm always believing in talking before we don't, but in '94 that's precisely what was agreed to. We give them these non…you know, nuclear capable reactors, and we make a deal with them, we bring them into the community and then they go out and cheat and now William Perry, your old boss, the former Secretary of Defense under Bill Clinton said 'we ought to blow this rocket off the launching pad'. I mean, he's advocating a military effort here. How long are we going to talk before this guy keeps advancing his program?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, we've got to both talk and act and constrain. There is no single solution that we're going to ever like with North Korea. Look, if this government imploded, we'd be left with 23 million mostly starving and angry, armed North Koreans. <crosstalk>

John Kasich: Better than a guy with a missile.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Nobody wants that.

John Kasich: Better than a guy with a missile, an intercontinental missile with a nuclear warhead. Why don't we put the heat on the Chinese and get serious with the Chinese? They're the enforcers, aren't they?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because John, these really aren't the enforcers. To be honest with you, we're the ones that have the power over North Korea because they believe that we do. We have our army still stationed in South Korea. We're the backbone of deterrence in the northeast Asian area. We have our ships there, we have our aircraft there in Japan. We hold the trump cards and we're the preeminent power in a very dangerous world. We need to be leading. So, we talk, we threaten, we offer blandishments, we watch for the cheating and we control it. But remember this John, we were moving in the right direction in 1998, 1999 and even 2000. There was dialogue. It was only after 2000…2001 and the election in which it was the United States which cut off the dialogue with North Korea. <crosstalk>

John Kasich: General, there was talk all along by defense experts who said that they had been cheating all along. And the problem is, how do you inspect when they're the most secret country in the world?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You've got to put the leverage on, John.

John Kasich: Leverage, what kind of leverage?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They will always…they will always try to get an advantage. That's the North Korean way. <crosstalk>

John Kasich: Alright so where's the leverage we have on them?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But just a second, I want to make…this is a very important point. In 1994, we were at the brink of going to war with North Korea. Instead, we had an agreement that forestalled that crisis. It forestalled it for years. Now, we're going to move toward the brink. We named them a member of the Axis of Evil, they're ratcheting up the pressure. We can respond by ratcheting up the pressure in turn, and we can move to the brink of war. What I submit to you is that we need to be, at the same time we're strong, we need to find a way out of it. <crosstalk>

John Kasich: Yeah, we could talk to them. I agree talk, you know, maybe Reagan's right - you know, trust but verify. You can't trust them, but verify should be a key to this. Thanks for being with us, General.