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Military Analysis With General Wesley Clark
Aired April 15, 2003 - 12:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get further analysis now on what's going on. Let's bring in the retired U.S. Army general, General Wesley Clark, our military analyst, the former NATO supreme allied commander. General Clark, there's still an awful lot of work to be done, that meeting earlier today in Nasiriya, in the southern part of Iraq, trying to bring together various factions, Shia, Sunni, all the other groups in Iraq. It didn't work out necessarily as planned. What does that say to you?
RET. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it just shows there's a lot of work left to be done, Wolf.
A meeting like this is never going to be smooth. You've got to get positions out on the table. People have got to feel out Jay Garner. He's a very fair -- he's a reasonable guy and he doesn't have an agenda at all over there and they will eventually see that. But they're going to have to interact with him before they can see that. So we're probably looking at another meeting 10 days from now and maybe after that before we see any real concrete progress.
BLITZER: Well, I have heard several military officials here at Doha, Qatar, the home of the Central Command during the war, suggest, you know, at least they're bickering, at least they're shouting at each other. They're screaming. This is politics as we know it in the West, politics that would have been considered unheard of during the iron clad, totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein. That's a positive step, isn't it?
CLARK: It's a very positive step.
Now, the issue is, what happens now before the next meeting? And what you won't see are all the backroom deals. And so what will make this politics or something worse than politics is how much pressure is applied and how much influence and intimidation there is from outside actors such as potentially groups in Iran or elsewhere in the region. And that's an unknowable and Jay will be -- Jay garner will be out working and doing everything he can do also to bring people together to insure them of this good intentions and to try to identify and insulate the process from these outside influences.
BLITZER: General Clark, let me pick up on what Barbara Starr was reporting for us at the pentagon. You're interested in this subject. The cooperation between the various military branches during this war and the role of the CIA in providing some critical intelligence that helped in the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch. You've been at -- in command when the cooperation was not necessarily all that strong. It seems to have gone rather smoothly this time around. Is that your impression?
CLARK: It is my impression. And I think it's a function of two or three different elements, Wolf.
In the first place, this is a trained and experienced team of top leaders. So, the operation in Iraq wasn't the first operation. In actuality, they've been in continuous operations since September 11 of 2001. So they know each other, they trust each other. They know mechanisms and how to operate.
Secondly, you have a very strong leadership team in this government and particularly in the Department of Defense and Donald Rumsfeld. And he simply doesn't permit the kind of subordinate issues to take hold that could have occurred in other times. And so I think a lot of the credit goes to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
And third, I think that -- everybody there is galvanized by the mission. And so when you give people a concrete task to work on, I think it's easy for them to come together.
All of the debate was over. It was a matter of really putting their shoulder to the wheel and pushing together and that's what they did.
BLITZER: General Wesley Clark, as usual, thanks for helping us better appreciate, understand what's going on. General Wesley Clark, our CNN military analyst, the former NATO commander.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired April 15, 2003 - 12:35 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get further analysis now on what's going on. Let's bring in the retired U.S. Army general, General Wesley Clark, our military analyst, the former NATO supreme allied commander. General Clark, there's still an awful lot of work to be done, that meeting earlier today in Nasiriya, in the southern part of Iraq, trying to bring together various factions, Shia, Sunni, all the other groups in Iraq. It didn't work out necessarily as planned. What does that say to you?
RET. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, it just shows there's a lot of work left to be done, Wolf.
A meeting like this is never going to be smooth. You've got to get positions out on the table. People have got to feel out Jay Garner. He's a very fair -- he's a reasonable guy and he doesn't have an agenda at all over there and they will eventually see that. But they're going to have to interact with him before they can see that. So we're probably looking at another meeting 10 days from now and maybe after that before we see any real concrete progress.
BLITZER: Well, I have heard several military officials here at Doha, Qatar, the home of the Central Command during the war, suggest, you know, at least they're bickering, at least they're shouting at each other. They're screaming. This is politics as we know it in the West, politics that would have been considered unheard of during the iron clad, totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein. That's a positive step, isn't it?
CLARK: It's a very positive step.
Now, the issue is, what happens now before the next meeting? And what you won't see are all the backroom deals. And so what will make this politics or something worse than politics is how much pressure is applied and how much influence and intimidation there is from outside actors such as potentially groups in Iran or elsewhere in the region. And that's an unknowable and Jay will be -- Jay garner will be out working and doing everything he can do also to bring people together to insure them of this good intentions and to try to identify and insulate the process from these outside influences.
BLITZER: General Clark, let me pick up on what Barbara Starr was reporting for us at the pentagon. You're interested in this subject. The cooperation between the various military branches during this war and the role of the CIA in providing some critical intelligence that helped in the rescue of Private First Class Jessica Lynch. You've been at -- in command when the cooperation was not necessarily all that strong. It seems to have gone rather smoothly this time around. Is that your impression?
CLARK: It is my impression. And I think it's a function of two or three different elements, Wolf.
In the first place, this is a trained and experienced team of top leaders. So, the operation in Iraq wasn't the first operation. In actuality, they've been in continuous operations since September 11 of 2001. So they know each other, they trust each other. They know mechanisms and how to operate.
Secondly, you have a very strong leadership team in this government and particularly in the Department of Defense and Donald Rumsfeld. And he simply doesn't permit the kind of subordinate issues to take hold that could have occurred in other times. And so I think a lot of the credit goes to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
And third, I think that -- everybody there is galvanized by the mission. And so when you give people a concrete task to work on, I think it's easy for them to come together.
All of the debate was over. It was a matter of really putting their shoulder to the wheel and pushing together and that's what they did.
BLITZER: General Wesley Clark, as usual, thanks for helping us better appreciate, understand what's going on. General Wesley Clark, our CNN military analyst, the former NATO commander.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
