(2007-03-15) Clark On Bush War Plans

Wesley Clark says the George W Bush administration started planning on attacking lots of countries within a month of the World Trade Center. So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" - meaning the Secretary Of Defense's office - "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Leba Non, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."

He's not ready to quickly end the War On Iraq. What we do have to do is have a strategy that uses all the elements of America's power: diplomatic, economic, legal and military. I would send a high-level diplomatic team into the region right now. I'd have no-holds-barred and no-preconditioned discussion with Iran and Syria. And I would let it be known that I've got in my bag all the tricks, including putting another 50,000 troops in Iraq and pulling all 150,000 troops out. And we're going to reach an agreement on a statement of principles that brings stability and peace and order to the region. So let's just sit down and start doing it. Now, that could be done with the right administrative leadership. It just hasn't been done. I have no idea what that means.