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.

General Wesley Clark on Bloomberg TV's "Money and Politics"

January 2, 2007
Transcript by RegNYC

Peter Cook: This weekend saw two major milestones in Iraq: first the former dictator Saddam Hussein executed in Baghdad, and then it was confirmed the Iraq war has now claimed the lives of 3,000 US service members. The news, of course, comes as President Bush prepares to address the nation, possibly within days, on his new strategy for winning the war in Iraq. Retired General Wesley Clark was one of the war's earliest critics. The former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, of course, ran for President himself as a Democrat in 2004. He's also contemplating a second run for the top job. General Clark joins me now from Little Rock, Arkansas to discuss the situation in Iraq and the way forward. General Clark, thank you for the time.


GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good to be with you, Peter.

Peter Cook: Let me ask you, first of all, your reaction to what transpired over the weekend with regard to Saddam Hussein - his execution, and the fact that a video tape of that execution has now been out on the internet, and at least the latest word from Iraq, causing more unrest in that country. Your reaction?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think his execution was inevitable, but I think the manner in which it was done - the haste, the lack of control of the execution site, the taunting and so forth - were provocative. I think they were designed to be provocative, that they were designed to, by, by the people who did it, to, to demonstrate their power. They knew it would provoke a Sunni reaction, and the way it works in societies is one form of extremism promotes the extremism of the other side. And there are those who are profiting from the division of Iraq, and they want to see it continue.