Clark: It's Time to Find Bin Laden
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
BOSTON — Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark (search) said Tuesday that it is time to end the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and use the intelligence agents and U.S. troops there to find Usama bin Laden (search) instead.
President Bush cited Saddam Hussein's (search) alleged weapons stockpile as a reason for going to war in Iraq, but none have been found.
Clark, a retired Army general who led the NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo, has argued that bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, posed a bigger threat to the United States than the former Iraqi leader.
Clark said Tuesday that he welcomed the recent capture of Saddam, but reiterated his view that the administration's focus should be on bin Laden.
"We didn't have to take the detour in Iraq," Clark said at Logan International Airport, where he arrived after two days of closed testimony in the Netherlands at the war crimes trial of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
"There's no evidence to indicate there was an imminent threat there to the United States. But having gone in there, we had to succeed," he said.
Clark said the Iraq war "wasn't the smart move to make at the time" because it did not address the problem of Sept. 11.
"It's time to pull the intelligence folks and the special forces that are looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq off that mission to go after the remaining insurgents in Iraq and Usama bin Laden," he said. |
