General Wesley Clark on MSNBC's Morning Joe

March 17. 2008
Transcript by RegNYC

Joe Scarborough: Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. Great to have you with us. A beautiful shot-

Mika Brzezinski: Mmm.

Joe Scarborough: -of the Rockefeller Plaza. Right now though, let's bring in General Wesley Clark. He's an MSNBC analyst and also author of A Time To Lead: For Duty, Honor, and Country. General Wesley Clark, thank you for being with us.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Joe.

Joe Scarborough: Yesterday, General, of course The New York Times 'Week in Review' talking about the five-year anniversary. Five years is upon us. Tell us, General, five years later. W-what position has the war in Iraq put America in?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Iran is the big winner. The United States military's done very well. We've taken a heavy beating over there, and the military's awfully tired. L-lot of the expected benefits of the invasion didn't come through. We didn't spark democratic change throughout the region, and Al Qaeda used us in Iraq as a recruiting tool. And in fact, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. So, it's been a really tough five years, and now we're faced with the prospect of what to do. John McCain was over talking about if we make a pullout, maybe the Al Qaeda will take credit for it and say they ran us out of Iraq. But that's not an adequate reason to stay there indefinitely. The Armed Forces can't do that, and really it, we've given the Iraqis an opportunity. They've got to take it.

The Next War

It's always looming. But has our military learned the right lessons from this one to fight it and win?

By Wesley K. Clark

Washington Post | Sunday, September 16, 2007; B01

Testifying before Congress last week, Gen. David H. Petraeus appeared commanding, smart and alive to the challenges that his soldiers face in Iraq. But he also embodied what the Iraq conflict has come to represent: an embattled, able, courageous military at war, struggling to maintain its authority and credibility after 4 1/2 years of a "cakewalk" gone wrong.

Petraeus will not be the last general to find himself explaining how a military intervention has misfired and urging skeptical lawmakers to believe that the mission can still be accomplished. For the next war is always looming, and so is the urgent question of whether the U.S. military can adapt in time to win it.

Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran, a radical state that America has tried to isolate for almost 30 years and that now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East through its expansionist aims, backing of terrorist proxies such as the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and far-reaching support for radical Shiite militias in Iraq. As Iran seems to draw closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, almost every U.S. leader -- and would-be president -- has said that it simply won't be permitted to reach that goal.

Think another war can't happen? Think again. Unchastened by the Iraq fiasco, hawks in Vice President Cheney's office have been pushing the use of force. It isn't hard to foresee the range of military options that policymakers face.

General Wesley Clark on Hardball with Chris Matthews

September 19, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC

Chris Matthews: Welcome back to Hardball. Well, the Democrats have found a way to shift war policy in Iraq. Their strategy is an amendment by Democratic Senator Jim Webb that would require troops returning from combat in Iraq to get the same amount of rest time at home before they're redeployed to the battlefield. The Senate's debating the bill right now, but the Bush administration says the measure is unconstitutional and would amount to a backdoor troops withdrawal. Would the Webb Amendment protect our troops or cause even greater harm to them on the ground in Iraq and should the bill be passed? General Wesley Clark is the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander. He's also author of a great new book, A Time To Lead. And Pete Hegseth is a Iraq war veteran and Executive Director of Vets For Freedom. General Clark, make the case for the Webb Amendment.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The case is very simple. We have for over four years kept our troops deployed or redeploying back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of troops is finite. They're limited. These are the same troops that have been there two, sometimes three times previously. The families are getting tired. They need recovery time if we're going to sustain this into the future. I think the Webb Amendment is a prudent way of getting that recovery time. It's no more than what the Army committed to several years ago in saying that the troops would have at least a year at home after they'd been gone for a year, and we found we were unable to do it. So, this is Congress' responsibility. It's responsible for raising and maintaining an army. It's in the Constitution, and Congress is asserting its authority. I think it's time to do it.

General Wesley Clark on Countdown with Keith Olbermann

July 11, 2007
transcript by Melange

Amy Robach: Turning now to the upcoming NIE, the National Intelligence Estimate. Newsweek today reporting that it will include al Qaeda has “reconstituted its core structure and become stronger.” The Associated Press today also quoting unnamed intelligence sources saying al Qaeda’s resurrection has been so successful that America’s number one threat is now operating at a level last seen six years ago in the summer of 2001, just prior to the attacks of September 11th. This coming as a top CIA official testified before Congress today that al Qaeda is not, as Mr. Bush has claimed, on the run but has settled back in on the Pakistan border with more money, training and communications. All of this in the 24 hours after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff sparked a wave of ridicule when he explained to the Chicago Tribune how he has analyzed past al Qaeda patterns and recent al Qaeda communications.

[Video clip]

Michael Chertoff: All these things give me a…kind of a gut feeling that we’re in a period of…not that I have a specific threat, you know…that, uh I have in mind right now, but that we are entering a period of increased vulnerability.

[end Video clip]

Amy Robach: Meanwhile Newsweek reports that other US officials are offering concrete reasons for al Qaeda’s resurgence, specifically a truce that Pakistan struck with extremists on the border, allowing them to operate unfettered and give al Qaeda what the CIA official described as a safe haven. We turn now to retired 4-star General Wesley Clark, MSNBC Analyst and former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, as well as a one-time Democratic presidential candidate. General, thanks for your time tonight.

General Wesley Clark on MSNBC News Live

June 25, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC

Contessa Brewer: Hamid Karzai is warning U.S. and NATO forces that Afghan life is not cheap. Allied forces are taking on Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, but they're increasingly killing innocent civilians. And that's the finding from an Associated Press report. Of course, the fallout is raising the level of anger at the U.S. and NATO from Afghans. MSNBC analyst and former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark joins me now. General, great to see you today.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Nice to be with you Contessa.

Contessa Brewer: So, according to the Associated Press, while Taliban militants killed 178 Afghan civilians this year, Western forces killed 203. In your opinion, is Karzai right? Are Western forces being careful enough not to target civilians?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Karzai's reflecting opinion in Afghanistan, as he must. And I think this is a very important public warning to the NATO Commanders that they must change the rules that they're following in bringing in close air support. Of course we want to do everything to protect our troops there, but to win this war you can't alienate the people of Afghanistan. I think Karzai and NATO are certainly on the same side in this. Obviously, our Commanders don't want to kill innocent people. It does happen, and it's a matter of tightening up on the rules to reduce its occurrence.

May 16, 2007 We encourage you to listen to the speech.

General Wesley Clark - Legitimacy: First Task for American Security

Hosted by: Center for Politics and Foreign Relations, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University

May 16, 2007
transcript by Reg NYC and Melange

(Introduction by Robert Guttman, Director of the Center for Politics and Foreign Relations (JHU- SAIS)

Thank you. Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here. Bob, thanks for the kind introduction. As I look around, I see a lot of friends and a lot of people who were with me at various times in my military activities, people I- whose paths I've crossed in business life and people that- who- that I've worked with in politics. I'm very proud of the fact that the 70,000 people on the internet convinced me and my family that I should run for President in 2003, and I'm very glad that I did that. It was a great experience, and, and I meant every word of the speeches I gave on the campaign. And as Bob said, I still have a political action committee. I have a website, and you can come and see those positions if you go to my website. It's called securingamerica.com .

But today I'm not here for that purpose. Today I'm here on a very serious and sober topic. I want to talk about restoring legitimacy as the first order of business for a new American strategy.

I was in Europe when, a few days ago, Vice President Cheney visited the Gulf. He traveled around. He reminded Iran and others in the Gulf that we have two aircraft carrier battle groups out there. Two! It was a stark reminder of military power. There's no other nation that has two aircraft carrier battle groups. It's about sea control - more than a hundred strike aircraft, dozens and dozens of cruise missiles, hundreds of precision GPS-guided bombs, 500,000 2000 pounds, coupled with overhead imagery and stealth land-based aircraft and conventionally armed ballistic missiles perhaps launched from the United States itself. I hope the leaders in Iran understood that their air defenses, their military, their military supporting infrastructure, their civilian infrastructure that supports the military, their scientific military related activities - all of that is at risk.

This is serious military power potential. I know about it because I've used it. As NATO Commander, we used every one of those assets, except for the US-based missiles, against Serbia in 1999, and I'm well aware of what they can do. But I'm also aware of their limitations, as is the rest of the world today.