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Clark testified for the war

30 comments on Clark testified for the war

Clark testified for the war
: Drudge dredges up Wesley Clark’s testimony before Congress in favor of the war in Iraq:

Less than 18 months ago, Wesley Clark offered his testimony before the Committee On Armed Services at the U.S. House Of Representatives.

“There’s no requirement to have any doctrine here. I mean this is simply a longstanding right of the United States and other nations to take the actions they deem necessary in their self defense,” Clark told Congress on September 26, 2002.

“Every president has deployed forces as necessary to take action. He’s done so without multilateral support if necessary. He’s done so in advance of conflict if necessary. In my experience, I was the commander of the European forces in NATO. When we took action in Kosovo, we did not have United Nations approval to do this and we did so in a way that was designed to preempt Serb ethnic cleansing and regional destabilization there. There were some people who didn’ t agree with that decision. The United Nations was not able to agree to support it with a resolution.”

Clark continued: “There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is a threat… Yes, he has chemical and biological weapons. He’s had those for a long time. But the United States right now is on a very much different defensive posture than we were before September 11th of 2001… He is, as far as we know, actively pursuing nuclear capabilities, though he doesn’t have nuclear warheads yet. If he were to acquire nuclear weapons, I think our friends in the region would face greatly increased risks as would we.”

More Clark: “And, I want to underscore that I think the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that’s longstanding. It’s been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this.”

I don’t disagree with his stance then. Too bad he does.

: Update: Josh Marshall smells something fishy.

30 responses to “Clark testified for the war”

  1. Jason Puckett Avatar
    Jason Puckett

    If you read the entire transcript of what Clark said, he maintains his criticism of actions that alienate our allies or that are not properly planned, which is still his position now. Drudge is misrepresenting a speech that lays out Clark’s objections to the war.
    The entire transcript is here:
    http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/us/hearingspreparedstatements/hasc-092602.htm#WC
    Sincerely, Jason Puckett

  2. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Clark was taking a tack common at the time, giving Bush the benefit of the doubt about the WMD claims (mistake, as it turned out) and supporting UN actions as a face-saving way out for the Admin. From the link Jason provided above, here are some of the thoughts about the war that appear in the speech:
    But the problem of Iraq is only one element of the broader security challenges facing our country. We have an unfinished worldwide war against Al Qaida, a war that has to be won in conjunction with friends and allies and that ultimately will be won as much by persuasion as by the use of force. We’ve got to turn off the Al Qaida recruiting machine. Now some 3,000 deaths on September 11th testify to the real danger from Al Qaida, and I think everyone acknowledges that Al Qaida has not yet been defeated.
    As far as I know, I haven’t seen any substantial evidence linking Saddam’s regime to the Al Qaida network, though such evidence may emerge. But nevertheless, winning the war against Al Qaida and taking actions against the weapons programs in Iraq, that’s two different problems that may require two different sets of solutions. In other words, to put it back into military parlance, Iraq they’re an operational level problem. We’ve got other operational level problems in the Middle East, like the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Al Qaida and the foundation of radical extremist fundamentalist Islam, that’s the strategic problem.
    How about that? Some people see that it’s not as simple as “war=good.” ;-)

  3. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Oops, formatting mistake. Third para in the above post is a continuation of the Clark quote.

  4. JD Avatar
    JD

    The posters above are right, and so is Clark. He just held a long press conference trying to explain to the GOP, Drudge and their friends that supporting containment against Saddam and labeling him a threat does not equate to invading a country that posed no imminent threat to the United States or to the region. Clark, like the rest of us, was deliberately mislead about Saddam’s capabilities by this administration. What has changed is not Clark’s position but that the truth has come out.

  5. Jason Puckett Avatar
    Jason Puckett

    And the fact that the truth has come out now has not changed another important point: Drudge gets away with this word-twisting stuff on a daily basis. Why is this guy so popular again?

  6. stubby Avatar
    stubby

    I think this might be a case of “as you sow, so shall ye reap.” I haven’t read the full transcript – cos frankly, Clark’s positions on anything don’t really interest me, I think he’s kinda kooky – but I believe Jason and the doctor when they say Drudge is twisting and misinterpreting Clark’s position. And that’s wrong. And yeah so? How grotesquely have Bush’s remarks about Iraq and imminent threats and Niger etc etc been twisted? I’m not even a big Bush lover – I’m not I’m not I’m not – and I resent like hell how the Democrats and their batshit tinfoil hatefilled fringe have pushed me into defending a guy I couldn’t stand when John McCain was running for the Republican nomination. But, like Jeff, I supported the Iraq war, I don’t give a damn about WMDs (although, like Clinton, I think they were there), I think we are engaged in a war, and I believe Bush is the only Presidential candidate (aside from Lieberman, bless his heart) who takes the defense of this country seriously.
    All of which is a longwinded way of saying, Clark’s being misrepresented, boo frickety hoo. And Dean doesn’t deserve to be sleazed by ABC just because someone on his staff was a wifebeater. Boo double frickety hoo.

  7. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Once again the troika of Tottencrats link to the same bogus story, with dubious sourcing and echo each other. Though reputable, award winning, ph.d’d journalists, researchers, bloggers, and others point to the original source and describe the many fallacies of drudge and the story, the troika repeats the meme. Reading the source clearly shows Drudge is being purposefully misleading, smearing Clark for the headlines. Though the story has been debunked for most of the day, Jeff takes his turn at the keyboard. A mini-wurlitzer in action.
    Simon, Totten, Jarvis. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
    Intriguingly, today Glenn Reynolds say this story is less than it seems, and Tom Maguire implies that Simon, Totten, and Jarvis are foolish tools of Drudge.
    “Help, Help” the wurlitzer plays, “we are being repressed!”

  8. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    Oh, please.
    Who’re you gonna’ believe? The above posters, or your lying eyes?

  9. stubby Avatar
    stubby

    Anne, the story that Glenn says he thinks is “less than it seems” is the early retirement/relieved of command story. He told Chris Matthews he wasn’t relieved of command; rather, he was asked to retire early. Blah blah blah etc. So far, Glenn has posted about the Congressional testimony story.

  10. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Hi Stubby, I was referring to this article:

    UPDATE: It’s hardly in the same league, but the Wesley Clark testimony excerpted on Drudge isn’t quite the same when you read the whole thing, according to Tom Maguire.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Joshua Micah Marshall takes down Jeff: (that’s a real b*tch sl*p isn’t Jeff? So much for gratitude.)

  12. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Hmm, cutting and pasting from TPM into Moveable Type seems to have wreaked some amount of havoc for Mozilla based browsers.
    Anyway that last post, thin at one end, thick in the middle, and thin at the other end was posted by me, Anne Elk, and it is mine. Ahem. I approved this message.

  13. Mike Avatar
    Mike

    CJR KILLS this story — and you should too, Jeff. Post an update so quick-readers won’t be misinformed by this hack-job:
    Drudge is using the ellipse as a weapon, with malice aforethought.
    Clark’s statement that “Saddam Hussein is a threat” came from his opening remarks to the committee. An ellipse then carries the reader more than 11,500 words later into the transcript to a second quotation. Finally, Drudge uses the next ellipse to jump way back to the beginning of Clark’s testimony. The effect is to make Clark’s testimony sound more frantic than it really is and to incorrectly suggest that Clark had endorsed the war.
    The deceptive reporting continues with two final excerpts. The first is drawn from a section in which Clark states that the use of force must remain on the table as a threat, but that all diplomatic measures must be taken before military action proceeds. Drudge’s selective excerpt ends with Clark suggesting that the situation with Iraq has “been a decade in the making. It needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this.”
    Drudge would like you to think that Clark’s thoughts on the subject end there. In fact, only moments later, Clark clearly stated, “but time is on our side in the near term and we should use it.”
    Then Drudge leads into the final excerpt with the words, “Clark explained,” implying that Clark’s statements in the final excerpt modified his statements in the previous excerpt. Once again, however, Drudge is cavalierly skipping through Clark’s testimony: There are 3,798 words in-between these two statements — enough to fill four pages of Time magazine.
    http://www.cjr.org/blog/

  14. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Agreed with Mike. Jeff has a recent post featuring someone gracefully apologizing for a mistake. Maybe that will jog his conscience.
    Who’re you gonna’ believe? The above posters, or your lying eyes?
    *must… resist… mocking…*

  15. Kurt Avatar
    Kurt

    Yeah, I was really surprised to see these references to Drudge, who doesn’t exactly have a reputation for reliability – caught you on that one, Jeff. Drudge certainly distorted what Clark said, but after reading the full transcript, it’s hard to tell what Clark had in mind one way or the other. Most people are interpreting it in a way that fits their preconceptions. At what point would he have decided that diplomatic options had been exhausted? He doesn’t say. My guess (and only a guess) is that before he suddenly became a Democrat, he might have been more in agreement with Bush, who apparently felt that 12 years and umpteen unenforced U.N. resolutions were pretty much the limit. The only reason I think this might be true is that after his experience in the former Yugoslavia, one would think he might have some doubts about drawing out the diplomacy too much or relying too much on the U.N. After all, there was no threat there AT ALL to the U.S., imminent or otherwise. We went there basically for humanitarian reasons. If we had moved sooner with less diplomacy, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. Better late than never, but…if there was any justification for NATO to intervene, we should have done it sooner instead of allowing ethnic cleansing to proceed.
    What Clark does make clear is that, like Bill Clinton, he agreed that Saddam was trying to develop nukes and had other WMD (in other words, he was “lying” just like Bush). He agreed that the U.S. has the right to act militarily without the U.N.’s approval, just as Clinton did. There were in fact so many points of agreement with Bush, it’s a mystery to me why anybody would need to make bogus accusations.
    I wonder why some left-wing Democrats like Clark so much. Nobody can credibly argue that he isn’t a brilliant guy, but let’s face it, he’s a Republican who will now say anything to get elected as a Democrat. I guess all you have to do is say “Bush is bad”, and the lemmings will jump.

  16. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    Yeah, Doc, you must resist. You’ll just end up making yourself look foolish again.
    Kurt, that is an excellent and, I think, even-handed discussion. The problem the defenders are having here is that this is not an isolated instance of Clark trying to have things both ways. Remember this bit that the Washington Post mentions?
    “We disagree with Mr. Clark’s opposition to the war in Iraq, and he can be faulted for taking shifting and conflicting positions on the wisdom of the enterprise; his self-described “bobbling” of a question about whether he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing the war — “I don’t know if I would have or not. I’ve said it both ways” — is emblematic. ”

  17. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    Reid,
    Wesley Clark could be applauded for his candor.
    “I don’t know if I would have or not. I’ve said it both ways”, is his acknowledgment that this is a difficult question, that reasonable people can disagree, that reasonable people can change their minds, and that the American people are adults and should not be purposefully misled.

  18. stubby Avatar
    stubby

    Anne: Oh. Never mind. (I used to just say “emily latella,” but no one ever got it).

  19. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Drudge certainly distorted what Clark said, but after reading the full transcript, it’s hard to tell what Clark had in mind one way or the other.
    It doesn’t seem that unclear to me. He acknowledges that war might at some point be necessary, but that the first priority now should be al-Qaida and not Iraq. Which in fact was a common “anti-war” position. What’s so hard about that?
    What Clark does make clear is that, like Bill Clinton (yadda yadda)
    I wonder why some right-wing Republicans suddenly like Clinton so much. Nobody can credibly argue that he isn’t a brilliant guy, but let’s face it, he’s an ex-President who will now say anything to get a headline. Why the sudden promotion from Honorary Antichrist to Presidential Human Shield?
    Yes, a bunch of people gave Bush the benefit of the doubt on WMD’s. Turns out they were had, that the people who were suspicious were correct, and that the White House was passing off speculation as fact. So hiding behind these people now is not going to win you any great amount of respect.
    Yeah, Doc, you must resist. You’ll just end up making yourself look foolish again.
    Have it your way… why don’t you post the definition of “foolish” for us, S-factor? You can look it up on dictionary.com. Just don’t try to edit it this time. ;-)

  20. Andrew | BYTE BACK Avatar
    Andrew | BYTE BACK

    >> Nobody can credibly argue that he [CLARK] isn’t a brilliant guy, but let’s face it, he’s a Republican who will now say anything to get elected as a Democrat.
    Um why would that happen?

  21. Reid Avatar
    Reid

    Doc – see what I mean? Shoulda’ listened to your own advice.

  22. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Wow, you’re right! I totally wasn’t ready for that brilliant “I know you are but what am I” defense. You win, little buddy!

  23. rivlax Avatar
    rivlax

    Transcript or no, the audio I heard on Limbaugh yesterday was pretty unequivocal. What’s all the confusion about. In fact, I like THAT Wesley Clark much better than the equivocating mushmouth we have today. And where were all of you people anquishing over Drudge’s use of ellipses when Maureen Dowd made it a fine art a few months ago?

  24. HH Avatar
    HH

    “He acknowledges that war might at some point be necessary”
    Uh, no he doesn’t. He says that war is a card to be laid on the table, and must be waved around. He says war is a “last resort”… kinda like guys named George and Colin did. All this would be okay if he claimed to have a nuanced position. Instead he claims to have been consistently against the very SUGGESTION of a war since September of 2001. This is misleading. Drudge misleads, Clark misleads. One of these people wants to run the country. But Drudge gets all the criticism.

  25. anne.elk Avatar
    anne.elk

    After hearing Clark testify that day, here’s how Richard Perle, that same day, in front of the same panel described Wesley Clark’s position:
    (Thanks once again to Jefty picked blogger of the year Marshall)
    http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_11.html#002424
    Josh Marshall: Toward the end of the session Perle himself characterized Clark’s position …
    (Perle’s run-down is more than a little disingenuous and he apparently felt the need to wait until Clark had left the hearing room for the day. But let’s forgive him this once.)
    ” Schrock: Sure, I would love to know Mr. Perle’s, you know, the general said time is on our side. My guess is you do not believe that.
    Perle: No, I don’t believe it and frankly I don’t think [Clark] made a very convincing case in support of that cliche but it was one of many cliches. At the end of the day when you sought to elicit from him a reconciliation of the view that time is on our side with what he acknowledged to be our ignorance of how far along Saddam Hussein is, he had no explanation.
    He seems to be preoccupied, and I’m quoting now, with building legitimacy, with exhausting all diplomatic remedies as though we hadn’t been through diplomacy for the last decade, and relegating the use of force to a last resort, to building the broadest possible coalition, in short a variety of very amorphous, ephemeral concerns alongside which there’s a stark reality and that is that every day that goes by, Saddam Hussein is busy perfecting those weapons of mass destruction that he already has, improving their capabilities, improving the means with which to deliver them and readying himself for a future conflict.
    So I don’t believe that time is on our side and I don’t believe that this fuzzy notion that the most important thing is building legitimacy, as if we lack legitimacy now, after all the U.N. resolutions that he’s in blatant violation of, I don’t believe that that should be the decisive consideration. So I think General Clark simply doesn’t want to see us use military force and he has thrown out as many reasons as he can develop to that but the bottom line is he just doesn’t want to take action. He wants to wait.”
    Josh Marshall:
    Did the Journal guys run their piece by Richard? Seems he disagrees. And what about those shows on the cable nets that got taken in? No research departments?
    anne.elk: seems that Perle thought Clark was pretty unambiguously opposed, regardless of how Jef and the minions want to spin it.

  26. JorgXMcKie Avatar
    JorgXMcKie

    Clark is following a very old political rule: “Some of my friends are in favor of [insert issue] and some of my friends are against [insert same issue]. You know me. I always side with my friends.”

  27. Kurt Avatar
    Kurt

    Dr. Slack-
    Your argument with my earlier post doesn’t even address the issue I raised. You are talking about the arguable assertion that it’s Iraq vs. Afghanistan/Al Quaeda (is the Iraq war part of the War on Terror or an isolated event?). I was talking about Clark’s statements to the effect that military action in Iraq was justified only after all diplomatic options were exhausted. He didn’t define what this meant, and therefore you and others are free to interpret this in any way that fits your preconceptions. What was he really thinking at the time? I don’t know, and neither do you.
    Regarding your illogical reference to Clinton, please note that Clinton, Clark and just about everybody else was saying that Iraq had WMDs WHILE CLINTON WAS STILL PRESIDENT. I don’t recall saying that he was the Anti-Christ. I mean, I voted for the guy. You’re the one who’s now discounting everything he says (at least when it doesn’t fit your preconceptions).
    Before you get nasty about what it takes to get “respect”, try to keep your arguments straight, OK? Thanks.

  28. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    I was talking about Clark’s statements to the effect that military action in Iraq was justified only after all diplomatic options were exhausted.
    Actually they’re part of the same argument. Diplomatic options were preferable in Iraq, for Clark, at least partly because al-Qaida was a higher priority.
    He didn’t define what this meant
    In context it was quite clearly a criticism of the Bush team’s timetable and eagerness. As Perle obviously noticed. Feel free to parse it to within an inch of its life now to make it more amenable to you, but frankly I don’t think the likes of Drudge are worth your time and effort.
    please note that Clinton, Clark and just about everybody else was saying that Iraq [had WMDs during the Clinton administration]
    There’s a pretty clear qualitative difference between stating that Saddam’s possible activities were cause for concern and trumping up those speculations into claims that he was months away from being able to sponsor attacks on the US. The Bush Administration was engaged in passing off speculation about this second possibility as fact, not speculation. There’s a long list of quotes in the public domain to that effect.
    Folks like Clinton and Clark tried, during the crisis itself, to be conciliatory with the Bush team and concede that they might have a point. Frankly, if there was gamesmanship going on, this is probably where it was (at least from Clinton). And I understand and even respect it. Politics is often, as I’m sure you know, largely about face; when you’re dealing with the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, and disagreeing with him, it’s always a good idea to suggest an alternative road that lets him claim a win.
    That approach didn’t work, of course, but I don’t blame the people who tried it. Nor do I have much time for people now pretending that all this somehow exonerates the faith-based intelligence approach of the Bush team. These are serious times requiring serious leadership, and stuff like this just isn’t good enough.

  29. Kurt Avatar
    Kurt

    Dr. Slack-
    You’re still dancing around the issues I raised. You are taking two completely different points and confusing them. Al Quaeda/Afghanistan vs. Iraq is one of many arguments put forth against the war. I was talking about the point at which all diplomatic efforts would have been exhausted (therefore justifying military action)according to Clark. If you can’t address the actual issue mentioned in the original post, why bother?
    It is also clear that the Clinton administration went far beyond simply “stating that Saddam’s possible activities were cause for concern”. They unambiguously stated that he had the weapons on numerous occasions (are you seriously saying that we had draconian sanctions on Iraq only because there was “cause for concern”?). Of course this doesn’t fit your agenda. Understood.

  30. Doctor Slack Avatar
    Doctor Slack

    Al Quaeda/Afghanistan vs. Iraq is one of many arguments put forth against the war. I was talking about the point at which all diplomatic efforts would have been exhausted (therefore justifying military action)according to Clark.
    Clark clearly links the two issues. If you missed this in the linked transcript, here’s the quote:
    “We’ve got to make sure that in addressing the operational problem we’re effective in going after the larger strategic problem. And so, the critical issue facing the United States right now is how to force action against Saddam Hussein and his weapons programs without detracting from our focus on Al Qaida or our efforts to deal with other immediate mid and long-term security problems.
    His comments on diplomacy are clearly in that context. Perhaps you’re not “dancing” and you really just didn’t notice this; I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on that. But sloppiness doesn’t help your credibility on the subject.
    What’s also clear in that passage is that, to Clark, “weapons programs” and “weapons” are separate things; they’re not the interchangeable excuses that Bush later tried to make them. He states a belief that Saddam Hussein retained unspecified chemical and biological “capabilities” (and here I think he’s deliberately vague in order not to seem to be slamming Bush) and specific programs and objectives, and was quite clear that there were options other than force available to deal with those things. That was clearly what pissed Perle off. That was not the Bush Administration script.
    It is also clear that the Clinton administration went far beyond simply “stating that Saddam’s possible activities were cause for concern”.
    Put it this way, the Clintonistas never went beyond where Clark himself goes in the speech that’s the subject of this thread. But that doesn’t fit your agenda. Understood.
    In any case, Clinton’s claims are no more to be taken at face value than Bush’s. The Clintonistas are IMO being held up as a duckblind for the War Party on a mistaken assumption that “the left” hero-worships Clinton in the same way that many wingers hero-worship Bush.