Gen. Wesley Clark interview (Rolling Stone)
Rolling Stone: Why have you criticized the president for the war in Iraq?
Clark: It was a tough decision to become involved in partisan politics. I went to West Point when I was seventeen years old. I believed in this country. I served in the White House under Gerald Ford. To come out and oppose the commander in chief has been enormously painful. But after September 11th, I watched as the administration's policy diverged step by step from where it should have been. I went to the Pentagon nine days after the attacks and called on a man with three stars who used to work for me. He said, "Sir, I have to ask you, have you heard the joke going through the halls?" I said, "No, what is it?" He said, "It goes like this: If Saddam Hussein didn't do 9/11, too bad. He should have, 'cause we're going to get him anyway." He looked at me, and I looked at him, and we both knew that it would be a classic mistake if we did that.
I was relieved when we attacked Afghanistan, but I went back to the Pentagon as that war was going on, and this same guy said to me, "Oh, yes, sir, not only is it Afghanistan. There's a list of countries. We're not that good at fighting terrorists, so we're going after states: Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Iran. There's a five-year plan." From that moment on, I couldn't believe anymore that I was just a retired general of the United States Army. I saw something wrong, but I couldn't get anyone to listen, so I started to speak out last September in a vocal way.
Rolling Stone: Why was going into Iraq a mistake?
We made a historic strategic blunder. We attacked a state rather than going after a terrorist. Iraq had no connection to the war on terror. Of all the states in the Middle East to give chemical, biological or nuclear weapons to terrorists, least likely was Iraq. Saddam's a control artist. He wouldn't have given bioweapons to Osama bin Laden unless Osama's mother, four wives and fifteen children were in one of his prisons so he could rip their hearts out if Osama screwed up. But we didn't want to face the tough task of going after bin Laden, so we did a bait-and-switch and went after Saddam instead. And now, look at the headline on today's New York Times: bin Laden seen with aide on tape. We're less secure now than we were before. Spending $80 billion and putting half the U.S. Army in Iraq has provided a supercharger to Al Qaeda recruiters.
We helped bin Laden. The only thing we could have done that would have helped him more is if we had invaded Saudi Arabia and captured Mecca. We've also squandered the support that brought 200,000 Germans out after 9/11 two years ago. They're not coming back out again -- not for this administration. You won't get any support out of the Germans and the French until you get a regime change in Washington.
Rolling Stone: You call the war in Iraq unjustified. So why was the campaign you led in Kosovo justified?
Clark: Kosovo was OK because Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic was engaged in ethnic cleansing that was destabilizing the entire region. By intervening, NATO could stop the killing. We tried every means to resolve it, and we ended up using force only as a last resort. But there was no imminent threat in Iraq. If Saddam Hussein did all these bad things, we should have indicted him for war crimes, held an international tribunal and ordered him to surrender. That's what we did with Milosevic. In Iraq, we just invaded a country ten years after the crimes happened, in violation of international law, without charging him with anything. It just doesn't work that way.
Rolling Stone: What would you do in Iraq now that we're there?
Clark: What we're going to have to do is change the regional dynamic. I know this is hard for some people to understand, but if you threaten people, you make them mad. And if you make them mad, then they want to fight you. That's the way the world works. If what we want is to persuade countries in that region that the democratization of Iraq is not a threat, we should not be out there saying, "Your day will come!" What do you expect them to do?
I found out in the military that we weren't the only ones who had robust men with too much testosterone. We weren't the only ones who had smart guys. We weren't the only army who could speak of duty, sacrifice and courage. I also found out that if you want a fight, you're gonna fight -- in a bar in Colorado, or in the Middle East. Of course, that makes some people in the administration happy.
http://www.rollingstone.com/features/featuregen.asp?pid=1970
