AMY GOODMAN: Do you see a replay in what happened in the lead-up to the war with Iraq — the allegations of the weapons of mass destruction, the media leaping onto the bandwagon?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, in a way. But, you know, history doesn’t repeat itself exactly twice. What I did warn about when I testified in front of Congress in 2002, I said if you want to worry about a state, it shouldn’t be Iraq, it should be Iran. But this government, our administration, wanted to worry about Iraq, not Iran.
I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About 10 days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon, and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.” I said, “Well, you’re too busy.” He said, “No, no.” He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.” This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, “We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?” He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “I guess they don’t know what else to do.” So I said, “Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?” He said, “No, no.” He says, “There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.” He said, “I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military, and we can take down governments.” And he said, “I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
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, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” I said, “Is it classified?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, don’t show it to me.” And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, “You remember that?” He said, “Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!”
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How does Marine boot camp deal with recruits who act like Borat?
Dealing with non conformity is a favorite Drill Instructor pastime. When expert marksmanship badges were handed out, I wasn’t paying attention and thanked the Platoon Commander rather than just acknowledging him with a “Yes Sir”.
Later the Drill Instructor’s brim of his Smokey Bear beat my forehead underneath the brim of my cover. “Seems like someone here still wants to be an individual!” This is usually followed by a sprinting of side straddle hops, hello dollys, push ups and leg lifts on the Quarter Deck.
Believe me….there are worse things than conformity. In California where I went to school, students that fell asleep in the classroom were required to pick up and hold the tailhook of an F-4 Phantom in the back of the class. That alone convinced me that if I had to stand to stay awake then I needed to stand.
People that chewed tobacco during formation were addressed by the Plt Sgt long enough until it was necessary to swallow it while answering his questions. Oh yes, there are things that are worse than conformity.
How US Aircraft Carriers Defend Themselves When Surrounded
Did being in the military change your perspective of America?
Being in the Army changed my perspective of America in several ways. Perhaps the most significant of these was the realization of the power of the press in the United States.
It is vital for operational security that the public not be made aware of everything going on in a war, but it goes way beyond that.
In coordination with the armed forces and the federal government, the press tightly controls what information is released to the populace.
One example of this is the ban on the media taking images of flag-draped coffins being returned to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan. These aren’t coffins per se, but instead, they are known as “transfer cases” used to transport the body back to their loved ones.
Other examples were how the war was spun from the perspective of indigenous people of a nation and misleading the country as to how long we were planning on keeping troops in the country.
It was like parents keeping delicate information from a small child. The attitude was, “They don’t need to know.” I don’t see it as a cover-up, but rather a careful picking and choosing information. Those choices occurred way above my pay grade.
** “You have arrived at your destination.”
I remember calling home and having my family say things like, “Sounds like you guys should be home in a few weeks.” All I could say to them at the time was something like, “That’s not going to happen.”
At the time, we had plans for extended deployments and troop rotations lasting years into the future.
I didn’t think I was naive, but one day the obviousness of it all smacked me upside the head, and I realized, “They (the American people) only know what they (the government and press) want them to know.”