General Wesley Clark on NPR Yesterday. Full text of Clark's remarks.

[Clarkie1]

Diane Rehm: General Clark, what did the President hear yesterday from the Joint Chiefs of Staff?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he heard their concerns that this is not simply a military problem, that it is at heart a political problem. It can be lost militarily. It can't be won militarily. There are not enough forces to try to go in there and post a platoon at every street corner in Baghdad, and if you could, it wouldn't solve the problem anyway. And I hope he heard the cry from the military to put the whole weight of all the power of the United States - our diplomatic power, international law, our alliances, our economic strength, everything behind this, the, the mission to create a strategy within which our troops are expected to perform.

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GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But Iraq is a political problem. It's being wrestled by military means through the militias. The idea that no one can stop the militias is simply wrong. Those militias take orders. They work for people. They're advancing political agendas, and we need a full court press to work the political agendas. So, when people say, 'The focus has to be on security,' I guess that means there's only one focus. If there's only one focus and it's on security, then we're going to fail, because the fundamental problem is that the security is a dependent variable. It depend on people's comfort with the overall political direction. They're using the militias to compete politically, because the mechanism doesn't resolve the depth of the, of the animosities between the factors.

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GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think he's waiting for the political tempest over the elections and the Iraqi Study Group to clear away. I think he's giving it some time for the military to work through the problems. He's-

Diane Rehm: Is that going to happen? Is the tempest going to clear away. I'm looking at poll numbers.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's a function of casualty rates on the ground in Iraq. It's also a function of the output of new ideas and initiatives from the various parties. I think the President's calculations would be that over the Christmas holidays, provided there's no disaster on the ground in Iraq, he's got a breathing spell, and he can put some of the animus behind him. And so, he'll hold and he'll try to recapture the initiative. Rather than appearing defensive by, by offering a policy now, he wants to wait, let the dust settle and then appear to take charge again by announcing a new policy.

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Diane Rehm: How would you react to that, General Clark, increasing troops now?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think, I think first of all, it's a temporary measure. Secondly, I think you'll probably get some results on the ground.

Diane Rehm: What would it accomplish?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you'll get more patrols on the streets of Baghdad. I think you'll get more snipers on rooftops. I think you'll get more roadblocks. I think it'll be more difficult for militias to move. I think you'll be able to occupy certain areas for longer without having to pull the troops back. In other words, I think you'll get some marginal military advantages. If the major problem is political not military, the question is: What is the President going to do to gain the political initiative? He's met with Maliki. He's met with Hakim. He's now meeting with the Sunni leader. What's going to emerge from that? Is there going to be a political strategic consensus? That's what's going to determine our success or failure in Iraq.

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GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Certainly, and Generals can usually need- use more troops, and you know, this mission in Iraq has been woefully short from the beginning, not to take out Saddam's military, but to do the follow-on job of taking care of the country and establishing authority and preventing civil disturbances and other things. From the beginning we've been short troops. I've, I, I've, I like Jack Keane. He's a great guy. I welcome his proposal. I, I can't, I want, I want to see it, but all that said and done, we must not forget we're dealing with opposing forces. It's not that the United States is modeling clay, and somebody says, 'Well, let's just put a little more, one more pound of clay, and I, I'm sure we can build this statue the right height.' There are other people out there who don't want us to build that statue. When we add clay, they take away clay. When we form it one way, they pull it out another way. I'm talking about Iran and Syria and other forces. We're operating against resistance. That resistance takes many forms. It takes the forms of blackmail, threat, intimidation, education, money, weapons, technology, and if you stand back and look at the mission thus far, what's, what stands out is a persistent underestimation of the opposition - their resourcefulness, their dedication, their ability to mobilize and embed in the population. And so, what my concern is not the troop level, but what is the program-

Diane Rehm: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the administration's going to undertake-

Diane Rehm: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -to bring this to a successful conclusion.

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Diane Rehm: Do you agree with that, General Clark, breaking up the Maliki government?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, there's, there, there's been talk about that, but, Diane, we, we've got to talk about the bigger regional picture. We've got to talk about Iran and Syria and the neighbors, and what the President is doing by focusing on the troops strength is he's putting his head down and not seeing the big picture here. There are reasons for that. This is a very painful set of discussions, and what we're doing is we're moving more and more sharply into opposition to Iran. Iran is the neighbor. Iran has 70, 75 million people. They're strong, and they've got a grip on our interests in places like Lebanon and on the borders with Israel. So, this is going to come out in many other ways. You cannot answer a strategic political problem simply by a temporary increase of troops on the ground in Iraq.

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Diane Rehm: But it sounds, General Clark, as though Robert Kagan is talking about a huge surge of military. Where does that huge surge of military personnel come from?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, that's, that's-

Robert Kagan: Can I just jump in before we talk about-

Diane Rehm: Sure.

Robert Kagan: -those numbers that I'm talking about-

Diane Rehm: Sure.

Robert Kagan: -because we're talking about numbers in the range of 20 to 30 and possibly 40 thousand, and just, just, I know General Clark knows this stuff very well, better than I do, but in the short term at least those, those numbers can be achieved by stretching out rotations, which is very, which is a real hardship for the soldiers-

Diane Rehm: Sure is.

Robert Kagan: -which is one reason why we have to move very quickly to expand the overall size of the Army and Marines.

Diane Rehm: And before you respond, General Clark, let me just remind our listeners at :27 before the hour, you're listening to the Diane Rehm Show. Go right ahead.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know, I think it's possibly on a short-term basis to surge 20 or 30 thousand. It's a question of the level of pain you're willing to inflict on the rest of force, the people who are back here preparing, the people who are in the Guard and Reserve. That can be done. That, that's mechanically possible. The question is: What do you gain from it? As Robert said, we don't have any leverage against Iran. So, we're going to put these troops in there to try to stabilize the situation. Are we likely to succeed by increasing 20 or 30 thousand troops. Temporarily, I think you'll probably suppress some of the violence. They'll have more difficulty moving and so forth, but within six weeks, eight weeks, six months, if Iran wants to crank up the heat on the United States forces, they'll find a way to do this. So, how are we going to come back and deal with Iran? That's the question.

Diane Rehm: Hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We're moving into tighter and tighter confrontation with them. Just as Yochi said, there were many people who said, 'Ah, Iraq, then Syria, then Lebanon, then Iran. We'll clean up the whole mess over there.' These countries are reacting against that. They want to make sure we don't succeed, and one of the things the administration hasn't done is come to grips with the implications of its overall policy. If we favor regime change in Iran, then they're not likely to want to assist us.

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Steve: Good morning. I'm really upset about the delay that President Bush is putting on putting out policy, a change in policy. He's had several months that he's announced that policy was changing, and I believe that this is because of one of the features that's not getting enough coverage from the Iraqi Study Group. They've discussed how this administration has not been honest about funding. We are not telling the American people how much this war is costing us at the present level, and if they want to talk about going for a strategy for victory, they need to start talking about how much it's going to cost to increase troop levels. We need to start talking about repairs to the equipment. We have an Army and Marine Corps that are badly depleted.

Diane Rehm: General Clark.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely right. We've got to put the full resources in. You, you need to understand the full cost of this. It's a lot more than the 300 billion dollars that, the figure that's sited.

Diane Rehm: How would you estimate? How much more?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: Maybe, long-term costs laid out over 30, 40 years of the United States budget, maybe a trillion dollars in terms of veterans expenses, healthcare, recovery for the Armed Forces and the tail-off. Even if you started to withdraw, as the Democrats have wanted to do this year, you'll have forces in there for a long time. So, this is a very, very expensive commitment, but fundamentally, it's not about money. It's about the safety of the American people. It's about our national security, our purpose in the world. We're involved in something here that's, that's very, very central to who we are as Americans.

Diane Rehm: So, as I understand it, you're saying that we need to stay there until the job gets done, but I still don't understand what getting the job done means.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we've put ourselves in a position where if you pull the plug- We took out the stopper in the bottle at the top of the Persian Gulf when we got rid of Saddam Hussein. We're now the stopper in the bottle. All of our friends in the region say, 'Don't leave.' We don't have a political answer. So, we're now talking about military answers, but they're insufficient.

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Diane Rehm: Here's an e-mail from a Marine whose name is James. He says, "I've served two tours in Iraq, have seen nothing that would make me believe there is not an underlying hatred between Shia and Sunni. It may be different in other Arab countries, but with such resentment at street level, I foresee a civil war on a level much greater than we are seeing now. Having sparked this conflict, I don't see how we can get out." General Clark.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, he puts it very well. I mean, I think there are a lot of problems there. I don't know that there's an intense Sunni-Shia conflict everywhere in Iraq. I mean, there are, there were some tribes in Iraq that were mixed Sunni and Shia, and people got along just fine, and it can happen again. In some places, the hatred's been fanned. Obviously that was Al Qaeda's strategy, but James is right that I think for us to just pull the plug, pull our forces out of there and let it rip, I think we'd be, I think it'd be a disaster for the United States and our friends and our posture in the world.

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Diane Rehm: And here's an e-mail from Helsinki, Finland from K.P., who says, "Would it not be polite if your panelists had at least a word for all the people who are going to be slaughtered over the holidays while the President, quote, 'thinks it over'." General Clark.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well yes, it's an unfolding tragedy, and every single day over there more and more people die. We know that. This is a problem that has seized the United States of America. It was the dominant issue in the election. The question is, now that the Democrats have at least one House of Congress, maybe two, what actually dif- what difference will it make, because the reality of the situation is, as Yochi just described, our friends in the region believe that we do have an obligation to be there. They don't know what the answers are. I just came back from the Arab Strategy Forum in Dubai. I, I couldn't believe how many people came to me and said, 'You've got to put more troops in.' I said, 'What is it you want these troops to do?' They said, 'We don't know, but you just got to put those troops in there,' because they don't have a political answer. They don't have a diplomatic or strategic answer, and troops are like, they're like black magic in the civilian world. People don't quite understand what they do, but they must be part of the solution. So, let's have more of them.

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Diane Rehm: General Clark, here's an e-mail from Dallas, Texas. Theeshall says, "Could it be possible that President Bush's decision to speak about Iraq after the holidays is because he intends to reinstitute the draft?" That question becomes particularly relevant when we think about sustainability. If you're talking about staying in Iraq, perhaps ten, 15, 20 years.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that, I think that's a, certainly a consideration. I think there's no doubt about it, that if you want to increase the size of the Armed Forces substantially during an unpopular war, it's very difficult to do it in a volunteer force. That's what we found out, and we do need more troops in our, especially in the Army and Marine Corps. I'd be very surprised if President Bush ever institutes the draft. That truly would provoke a political outcry in this country, which would certainly make whatever strategy he picks unsustainable. I think instead I think this idea of the 20, 30 thousand, 40 thousand bump-up, if you could get some temporary relief from the casualties, if you can show a strategy, this President's looking at two years left in office. There are no more elections. I can't help but, but suspect that there are those in the White House who have worked this problem politically-

Diane Rehm: Hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -all along and that that factors into their solution.

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GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think one of the major efforts that the opponents of the Iraq Study Group have, have worked on is to discredit the idea of dialog in the region. I think this is really unfortunate. It's the United States strategy posture before we went in there that created a lot of resistance on the ground to us in Iraq, and whether we agree with the Iranians or the Syrians or not, we ought to be talking to them, and we ought to be talking to them without preconditions. We may not be asking them for help, and I wouldn't ask them for help, and they're not going to offer help, but what I do think is important is to set Iraq inside the regional context. There's no advantage to anybody in moving toward a war with Iran. We're not going to occupy Iran. It's too large. We're not going to change its culture. It's too diverse. We're not going to democratize it. It is not going to be, after a war, converted to a Western-style Democracy. So, therefore why are we moving in this direction? We need a dialog first, and bring all of the other instruments of U.S. power to bear though that dialog.

Diane Rehm: So, you would take Iran's proposed or purported development of nuclear weapons off the table?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Oh, I'd say that's one of the things we're going to talk about directly.

Diane Rehm: But would you talk about that first?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK:: No, I'd talk first about-

Diane Rehm: Would that be a precondition?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I'd go in with a set of principles that we agree, in the region, that we want for the region that borders should be respected, security needs should be respected, that the Iraqi people should have a right to determine their own future, and have that dialog with Iraqi and Syrian and Turkish leaders - all the people who are effected by it-

Diane Rehm: Gen-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and see what comes from it.

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