U.S. troop presence is helping in Iraq today.

[Clarkie1]

And that is not a "pro-war" position.

There are pros and cons to everything in life. It is true that we never should have gone into Iraq. It is also true that at this time our troop presence is exacerbating the situation, but at the same time at least giving a CHANCE that Iraq will someday be ruled by law and not whatever militia has the most guns. This is why there should be no timeline for withdrawl. Our presence on the ground should be dictated by whether or not in the overall equation, our presence is most likely to benefit or be detriment to the best possible outcome of a bad situation. When the Iraq governent asks us to leave, we must leave. They have not asked us to leave, and to abandon Iraq at this time would be the height of irresponsibility.

There may come a day soon when the best we withdraw from Iraq completely, but that time is not now. There is still a chance our presence today can lead to a better outcome tomorrow.


March 27, 2006

Bridgett Quinn: Alright, let's talk a little about what we were slated to talk about and that being Iraq. Some trouble this weekend - a confrontation in the vicinity of or, by some accounts inside, a mosque and the US ambassador made a remark over the weekend, General - I wanted to get your thoughts on this - Iraqis are dying from the militia violence more now than from the terrorists. Do you agree with that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I do. And I think that this strike against these militias in the vicinity of the mosque is a very hopeful sign because it indicates that our commanders on the ground are collecting intelligence on these militias and are going to go after them and that's the path to be able to break the logjam politically.

We have to use military force and military forces to get the leverage we need to get the Sunnis back into the government and then modify the constitution and it's not too late to do this now but we've got to act now. So I'm very encouraged by the action that the military took to go after the Shi'ite terrorists that were in the vicinity of the mosque. I think it's exactly the right course of action.

Bridgett Quinn: Now, what about Muqtada al-Sadr, somebody that people blame for a lot of the violence that we're seeing right now, the Shi'ite cleric, I guess some of the Iraqis that have been killed recently worked for him. Is he personally responsible for a lot of the Shi'ite on Sunni violence, in your mind?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it would seem to be that he's responsible for some of it but probably not all of it. He's playing a cagey game - he's in politics, he's got 30 representatives of his party in the Iraqi parliament but he's also got the militia and what we've got to do, what the Iraqis have to do, what the ambassador…our ambassador there has to do is cut out this militia structure. You can't have a political government that works and still have the people there represented by militias who go in and intimidate people on the side. So, that has to be changed and this action is the exact right action to do it.

Bridgett Quinn: Right, is there anything more we can do, the United States can do, to stop Muqtada al-Sadr from making trouble?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yes, I think that you'll see a series of actions like this action against the mosque. You'll see some discussions along the side. You're going to see more US forces oriented toward being able to take on the militia if necessary and you're going to see us pushing the Iraqi forces to do that.

Bridgett Quinn: And General, I wonder ultimately what all this recent violence means for the formation of a government there, you know you have the Prime Minister al-Jaafari, it would seem of course you want him to rein in any of the militia members who might be creating some of the violence. At the same time, he needs their political support, right?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's right. This is all part and parcel of the way this works in this country. It's fight, talk, talk, fight and the United States is there to try to carve away the militias so that it's all about talking rather than about fighting and that's why our troop presence there is so important right now.

http://securingamerica.com/node/806

[MichiganVote]

1. Really? Tell that to the people who have lost their son's and daughter's

Where was their choice?