(CBS) In his first primetime network interview, retired Gen. Wesley Clark talks to Correspondent Dan Rather about his presidential campaign and the war in Iraq. Read a complete transcript of the interview, which will be broadcast on 60 Minutes II, tonight at 8 p.m. ET/PT...
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<<...GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I don't think the United States armed forces belong to, should belong to either political party and they shouldn't be used for partisan purposes, and they shouldn't be sent to war except as a last resort. Somehow this feels all wrong in Iraq and the American people are just beginning to wake up to see this. 9/11 was a tremendous shock, and I went through the Pentagon right after 9/11, and a guy told me, this was a couple of weeks later, he said, “Have you heard the joke?”
I'd been on CNN every day, and you know, I was still just a little over a year out of the military, and even though it was a different administration. Of course, I'd known Donald Rumsfeld from when I was a White House Fellow, and I still would comment and I'd look down at my sleeves and they were -- it was a business suit. They weren't green with that big broad general officers’ black stripe. You know, but I still felt incredibly emotionally bonded, so I went through the Pentagon and just wanted to sort of make sure I was saying things that made sense, and you know, if anybody had any issue about what I was saying, they would tell me.
An officer called me in, and he said, “Sir, you heard the joke?” And it wasn't a joke. It was this typical Pentagon sophisticated hallway humor. I said, “No, I haven't” and he said, “If Saddam Hussein didn't do 9/11, too bad -- we're gonna get 'em anyway.”
DAN RATHER: Do you think that was the attitude then?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: There had been a decision made that we were going to get Saddam Hussein, and this was apparently made at least, not a final decision, but a decision to move very forcefully in that direction. Of course, the final decision's not made until the president signs an executive order, but the planning was getting ready to start. As we were going after Osama bin Laden.
I remember seeing the president go to Fort Campbell, Ky., to talk to the 101st. Maybe in November of 2001, and he told them, “Get ready. We're gonna need you,” and it was a pep talk for the troops, but when I put it together with what had been said, I thought, “I can't believe we're really gonna do this because Iraq. I mean, it's a threat, it's a problem, it's a challenge.”
But I was one of the people responsible for the bombing. I did the northern Iraq campaign. Tony Ditty (sic) Tony Zinni did what was in the south and I didn't see the imminent threat. I saw a threat. I mean, I saw a potential threat. You couldn't be sure that at some point Saddam wouldn't suddenly fire any of these weapons and even though it was suicidal on his death bed say, “Allah has appointed me to wipe out the State of Israel” or something like this. You couldn't be sure he wouldn't do that, but there was no imminence to this threat that I could see.
DAN RATHER: General, if I may, let me try to give voice to what I hear from a lot of people who are unsettled about the war, don't like the war, but it goes along these lines. George W. Bush, whether you like him or not, is our commander in chief. We're in a war. We're in an over-arching war against terrorism, and whether I like it or not, we went into Iraq and we're there and that it's back to the commander in chief.
You can only have one commander in chief at a time, and this is not the time to change commander in chiefs because if we do, the Osama bin Ladens, Saddam Husseins of the world, all the people who are out there who wanna kill us, our children and our grandchildren, will take great solace in that.
So give me your argument, as one who has spent your life in the U.S. military, of why we shouldn't be backing the commander in chief, and why we shouldn't stick with the commander in chief.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think you're asking two different questions, Dan. I back the men and women in uniform, and I back the chain-of-command, and I think our men and women in uniform have done brilliant work. I think they've been asked to do the wrong thing. This administration has the wrong strategy for making America safe.
It's believed and acted on the principle that you could knock off states, starting with Iraq, rather than focusing on terrorists, and I can't explain why they did this. There are a variety of motives and even Paul Wolfowitz has admitted this. That the weapons of mass destruction were sort of the lowest common denominator that everybody could agree on and synchronize their story, but they weren't the reason the administration went into Iraq and it's never been adequately explained.
Worse than that, that's bad enough -- to take the country to war without a reason. An adequate reason and an imminent threat and before you've exhausted all possibilities, but worse than that, they didn't have a strategy for what to do after they knocked over the statute of Saddam Hussein. No strategy for success. Now, any serious student of warfare who has read Clausewitz or Sun Tzu understands that warfare is about -- not about the clash of armies, it's about the resulting political changes.
You have to understand what the in-state is that you're after and you have to work backwards from that in-state with the plan to get it. We went to war without adequate forces. We went without an adequate strategy for success. This administration still doesn't have an adequate strategy for success. In a democracy, leaders are held accountable.
The last time I checked, the Constitution didn't say that we should spend our democracy for war. Now in Rome they did that. In ancient Rome, they appointed a dictator and they suspended democracy when the Roman Republic was in danger. And they eventually ended up with a permanent dictator through that process.
We're in a democracy, we hold our president accountable. He's held accountable throughout his term and the people vote on it. And part of that accountability is, for his actions and his leadership. Nothing personal. He seems to be a fine fellow. I don't know 'em personally. But the foreign policy of the United States, and particularly the war in Iraq, has been a big mistake.
It's costing hundreds of billions of dollars, hundreds of lives. American lives. It's wrecked our previous alliance system in foreign policy and we've got another problem at home. We've lost over 3 million jobs, and when you lose jobs, you lose families. You lose -- these are not statistics, these are human beings who have lost their means of livelihood. These are men and women who've lost their self-respect, who've lost a piece of their identity. This is a man who is an executive responsible for the activities of a large firm who, three weeks later, is trying to sell Toyotas.
DAN RATHER: We'll come back to jobs and the economy, which I know you feel strongly about.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: So, but-- but--
DAN RATHER: Go ahead.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: But Dan, what I have to say is that I agree that national security is very important, but this administration got us into a mess in Iraq. I'll get us out of that mess so we can focus on our domestic needs...>> |
