General Wesley Clark on the Charlie Rose Show

Charlie Rose: General Wesley Clark is here. He was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO during the conflicts in Bosnia and Kosovo. In 2004, he ran for President as a Democrat. He is now a military analyst for MSNBC and hosts a popular blog and weekly podcast called ClarkCast. He remains active in politics and speaks often about America's role in the Middle East. Two weeks ago he testified before a House Committee on alternatives for Iraq. Later this fall, he will release his memoirs. They are entitled A Time To Lead. I am pleased to have General Clark back at this table.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you very much, Charlie.

Charlie Rose: You have not ruled out a candidacy this year.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I haven't. No, I haven't. I think about it every day. I'd love to be able to run.

Charlie Rose: Why can't you?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's- There are several preconditions that have to be met, and they haven't been met. And, and I've worked with them, and I've tried to work around them, and I haven't been able to. It was a great, it was a tremendous honor and a great experience to run the first time. If you run the second time, you, you want to really have a shot at winning, and that means you've got to have the money and the organization behind you. And I've worked to, on this from several different angles and until and unless I believe that there's a genuine candidacy out there, I can't do this. I, it, it's not enough to just go out there and say, 'I'm running, because I believe in it.' There's a lot of people who want me to run, but I haven't met the preconditions I've set for myself.

Charlie Rose: Tell me, without doing all the sort of dancing that I might do, say, you know, 'If you were President what would you do?' Just tell me what we ought to do.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Got to have a new strategy. The President said he had a new strategy, but he didn't. He had a new approach militarily on the ground in Iraq. The Iraq problem is part of the regional problem, and you can't solve Iraq just with military force or just by dealing inside Iraq. Iran's got a major role and a major voice in the region and inside Iraq. And so, you have to deal with the problem in a coherent way. That means diplomacy, politics and the military. We need to be talking to Iran and Syria and the rest of it, the neighbors of Iraq. We've needed, and I've been pretty consistent on this for the last three or four years, a regional security forum, a continuing dialog-

Charlie Rose: Okay.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -the ability to harmonize interests.

Charlie Rose: But, but they, they had a Foreign Ministers' conference.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Nah, but that's not a dialog.

Charlie Rose: Okay, that's my point of my question. What is it that, that's needed in turn? Do you think the President should say, 'I'm going to go to Cairo, and we'll bring all of the regional powers there'?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't think the President can do this. This is not for the President. This is for somebody who represents the President. But look, the strategy's wrong.

Charlie Rose: But, but would the Secretary of State or someone else, somebody he brings in from the outside, a-?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: This administration had, went into Iraq with the idea that Iraq would be the first of a number of let's call them dominoes-

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -which it could tumble over in the Middle East - Syria, Lebanon and ultimately Iran. We've gone for 75 million dollars in funding to promote regime change in Iran. The Iranians are under no illusion about the United States. So, having a dialog between Foreign Ministers to talk about Iraq, it, it doesn't change the nature of the cold war.

Charlie Rose: What changes the nature of the war?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: A change in U.S. strategy in the region. W-What we should've learned out of Iraq is that we're not for the imposition of our form of democracy at any price. We're just not for it. What we would do if we could do I think and do it over, is we would work for the sort of gradual change in Iraq that might lead to a fundamental reform without all the destructive anarchy that's accompanied the U.S. invasion there.

Charlie Rose: Let me just review-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So-

Charlie Rose: Before you go with that, let me just ask one question. Was it the right thing to do-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No, I don't think it was the right thing to do.

Charlie Rose: -to go in in the first place?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No. I was against it at the time.

Charlie Rose: So, therefore all questions about whether it was badly executed or not are moot for you. You shouldn't have done it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it was badly executed to boot.

Charlie Rose: Alright.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was an unnecessary war. You don't go into war if you don't have to, if there's any other way to deal with the problem.

Charlie Rose: And Saddam wasn't a threat in your judgement?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I-I-It- sure he was a threat.

Charlie Rose: What kind of threat was he?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But he wasn't an immediate threat. He wasn't an urgent threat. And we wasn't-

Charlie Rose: A containable threat?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Certainly. He was containable and being contained, and he could have been further contained, and we could've taken any number of measures against Saddam that would've further constricted him. The administration simply chose not to do so. And so, it starts with that, but it was part of a larger pattern that the administration is still clinging to for promoting regime change in the region. So, when I say a new strategy - diplomatic, politics - it's not about a couple of Foreign Minister meetings. It's about recognizing that the United States of America is a power that works with other nations. We talk to other nations. We may not agree with them, but we do talk to other nations.

Charlie Rose: But we're doing that now. Are we not.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, you see, I think the administration's sort of had to, they've had their approach more or less upside down.

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They want to fight unilaterally, but not talk. They want others to do the talking for them. You know, if you had common sense about this, you'd want to talk directly to avoid fighting. And then fight, if you must fight, fight multilaterally if you can and unilaterally only if you must. So, this administration stood the Clinton administration policies, in that respect, upside down.

Charlie Rose: Mm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The Clinton administration, diplomats like Richard Holbrooke and others, they weren't afraid to talk directly to people that we disagreed with. We even talked, we're not proud of it, but did talk to indicted war criminals in settling the Bosnia peace talk. This administration doesn't want to talk. It wants to fight, but not talk.

Charlie Rose: But even now, though, when things have gone so badly, you don't think they want to talk?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I keep hearing from Washington the administration doesn't have enough leverage to talk to Iran. Now, think about this for a minute, Charlie. We're the most powerful nation in the world. All of the international institutions - The World Trade Organization, the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the Group of 8, all those - we either dominate or heavily influence, and that's what Iran really wants is legitimation. We don't have enough leverage to talk to Iran, as though if we could just capture five more Iranians in Iraq, that would give us more leverage?

Charlie Rose: Okay, but you're say, you're saying basically that if they want legitimization by talking to us, that's fine with me, because maybe that would help somehow bring about results that were in the interest to both countries.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'm saying they don't-

Charlie Rose: If they want legitimization-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They don't get the legitimation by talking with us.

Charlie Rose: Okay.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They get it by performing, but we don't levy the conditions against them for the performance without a dialog.

Charlie Rose: Okay, should we say to Iran- Y-you say stop this talk about changing regimes. You've said that everywhere.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's what I say. Yeah, yeah.

Charlie Rose: You say that here with me.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah.

Charlie Rose: So, you say to the-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You don't have to worry about regime change.

Charlie Rose: The President makes a speech and he says, 'Listen,' to all, to the Iranian government, you know, in all of its manifestations, 'We have no interest in changing your regime. That's not what we want to do. We want to see understanding between the two of us, and we understand what your mission is and what our mission is and how we deal together with big issues that threaten all of us.'

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that's a pretty constructive way to start. I think that's not enough, but that's a constructive way to start.

Charlie Rose: So, you are- Are you-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It doesn't have to be the President who announces it.

Charlie Rose: Fair enough.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But it needs a full change in U.S. strategy.

Charlie Rose: Okay. Are you then, and you know this is the terminology they all use as you know: 'We're going to-' You know, they all say, everybody says, 'We're never going to take the use of force off the table.' Are you taking it off the table.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: No. No, of course not. You don't have to take it off the table, but you have to talk to people.

Charlie Rose: So, you say then, if necessary we'll use force, but hope we can avoid that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, what you say to them is, 'Let's sit down and talk about all the issues,' and you send a team over like we did in the Balkans that represents the President and the Pentagon and the National Security Council staff and the State Department, and you really talk about the issues - all the issues in the region. And you don't just talk to the Iranians, but the team goes to the other capitols in the region and talks to other leaders. One of the problems with Iran, of course, is we don't know exactly who to talk to, because there's a government and then there's a shadow government.

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And so it's never clear exactly on any specific issue who's speaking with authority.

Charlie Rose: Well, based on your military experience and studying the issue, how we ought to go about this, both in terms of analyzing it and achieving a result?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah. Well, I think that one of the great problems we've had, Charlie, is the administration has kept the debate about troops and tactics. So, if you're on the other side from the administration, it's easy for them to say, 'Ah, you don't support the troops. There's General Petraeus. He's asking for these troops. You're not supporting General Petraeus.' Notice how this is all General Petraeus' plan.

Charlie Rose: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But General Petraeus would be the first to tell you that you can't win with military force alone. So, it has to be more than the military.

Charlie Rose: Everybody says that now.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, you've got to have politics-

Charlie Rose: So it's almost- there's, there's a conventional wisdom. It is-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Hey.

Charlie Rose: -military alone cannot do it. You need a political solution.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Right.

Charlie Rose: And there's no advancement on the political solution, because the Iranians are, I mean the Iraqis aren't doing it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And the Iranians.

Charlie Rose: And the Iranians are in it.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The Iranians still have got that border. They've got, this is their home court advantage that we're playing on. They can infiltrate. There's no telling how many Iranian agents are inside Iraq. They probably come in all different flavors.

Charlie Rose: What do you think their goal is?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: There's this-

Charlie Rose: What do you think the Iranian goal-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They want to be sure that Iraq is, for them, a supportive and friendly country, and then they may want more than that. But if the United States had been invaded by Canada, and then there was regime change in Canada, we'd be pretty interested in figuring out what was going on in Canada and trying to influence it.

Charlie Rose: So, therefore the Iranians have a, have a legitimate interest in what's going on.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They're a, they're a state in the region just like Israel has a legitimate interest in what's going on. So does Syria. So does Saudi Arabia. So, you can't deny Iran's interest in the region, but what you can do is you can make it come out from being covert to being overt.

Charlie Rose: Okay, you're saying-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Get it out in the open and talk about it.

Charlie Rose: Yeah. Tell me what policy will prevent the Iranians from an involvement in, on the ground, supplying weapons to whoever they're going to.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You must take away their interest in doing that.

Charlie Rose: How do you do that?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: You must give them a voice in what happens in the region. You must end the policy of isolation that's been put in place against Iran, and until that's done-

Charlie Rose: Ambassador Crocker says-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -it won't be, it won't be effective.

Charlie Rose: Ambassador Crocker says they've shown no real interest and initiative in those discussions. That's what he said.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, they wouldn't. They're not interested in the tactical discussions until it reaches the strategic level. They've told us this. I was-

Charlie Rose: When does it reach the strategic level?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: When you talk about whether the U.S is after regime change in Iran or not. Now look, the Iranian population's the most pro-American population in the region. 61%, according to the latest opinion polls in Iran, 61% of the Iranians don't support their own government.

Charlie Rose: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: So, it's not like this is a great government. It's just like, don't give the government the opportunity to make the United States the enemy.

Charlie Rose: You admire General Petraeus or not?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he's a fine officer. He worked for me at one point.

Charlie Rose: Okay, can you tell me more than that, "I think he's a fine officer."

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he's, I think that the troops are doing a great job.

Charlie Rose: I-i-is General Petraeus a great General?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I, you know-

Charlie Rose: Is he a smart General? Is he, is he as good a-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: He's very intelligent. He's very capable.

Charlie Rose: Is he as good as we've got?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah, I think he is.

Charlie Rose: Okay, there. He's as good as we've got.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think he is.

Charlie Rose: And he's over there, and he says, it is reported, you know, that we, it'll take until nine- 2009 to get this thing done. So what do we do?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think you've got to walk back from what he says to look at what the problem is. He's giving you the military answer from the ground.

Charlie Rose: We'll, he'd take- You-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: He may be trying to fold in some of the politics, but he's not working the region. Charlie, you've got to work the region.

Charlie: He cl- This is a guy who they say now is the smartest counterinter- insurrectionist guy we've got. The counter-, you know, he understands-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah

Charlie Rose: -insurgents and knows how to combat them and all. He clearly must understand the political dimension. You're not suggesting he doesn't?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, let's talk about counterinsurgency a second.

Charlie Rose: Okay.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Okay? Go back to the Vietnam experience. You know, when we went into Vietnam. We did a little bombing in North Vietnam, and we picked it interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But we didn't take seriously the support that was coming from the North into the South. We just didn't do it. We thought we could sort of halfway isolate, There was McNamara's Wall. You remember that.

Charlie Rose: Right. Yeah, I do.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were going to put electronic sensors and then bomb whenever the sensors... Well, it, it didn't work, and the end result was that after eight years of frustration, we'd failed. Maybe of we'd been more realistic about the influence that South Vietnam's neighbors had, that we could've had a better strategy. In this case, we're still not serious about the influence that Iraq's neighbors have on this conflict. So, I'm all in favor of General Petraeus, but I think that he doesn't hold the key to the solution. The key to the solution's in the White House. It's the strategy of the President of the United States to isolate Iran and try to punish them, rather than to try to build complementary interests between Iran and others in the region and try to work for a different vision-

Charlie Rose: Okay.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -of the future.

Charlie Rose. Isolate them from other countries in the region by showing that they are not on the same page as other countries who want-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, Iran-

Charlie Rose: -something different than they do. Is that what you mean?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Iran's a challenge in the region. Iran floats trial balloons. Iran stimulates problems in Lebanon. Iran-

Charlie Rose: Iran supports Hezbullah-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely.

Charlie Rose: Hamas and everybody else.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's- Iran is a definite problem in the region. So, you got to, you got to work against that problem, but one of the ways you work against it is by talking with it and working with it openly.

Charlie Rose: So, if you talk to them, maybe you can ameliorate the-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well if you talk to them-

Charlie Rose: -seriousness of the situation.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -maybe you'll find a way that they'll see a different vision for their own country to exist in the region.

Charlie Rose: We're going to convince them to see another vision for their own country.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We might very well do that. You know, one of the things that was very clear when we were dealing with diplomacy in the Balkans was that you're dealing with people's future. When you're talking to the United States of America and you're a country elsewhere, you're dealing with the major power on this planet. You're dealing with a country that people believe rightly or wrongly can make just about anything happen. The sky's the limit. When you're dealing with America, American can do, you believe, miracles.

Charlie Rose: Would we've been better if, if NATO had done, done this Iraqi thing?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we'd have been better if we had (pause) not done it at all.

Charlie Rose: Right, of course.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But then, exhausted all other alternatives to avoid it. So, we-

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -let the UN go through a second resolution,-

Charlie Rose: But if it finally came to military?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -finished everything. Finally, go in with NATO. Absolutely.

Charlie Rose: Why?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Because the broader the coalition, the greater the staying power and the greater the ability to muster the kind of diplomatic and economic support to go along with the military.

Charlie Rose: In the balkans, you get credit, Richard Holbrooke gets credit, and lots of other people get credit, but principally the two of you. Was there coordination at all. I mean, was there, you know... I mean, what's to be learned from the Balkans.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well look, first of all, it was President Clinton's policy.

Charlie Rose: Right. Fair enough.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And everybody in that administration - Secretary Perry in '95, Secretary Cohen in '97-'98-

Charlie Rose: Right, right, right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -Secretary Albright - everybody had, had a chop on it and a role in it in pushing it and supporting it - Sandy Berger-

Charlie Rose: In, in the second administration.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -Tony Lake, everybody.

Charlie Rose: In the second term.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it started in '95, really.

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And so, it was an expression of the administration's approach. We believed significant U.S. interests were at stake. We felt that we had to have a combination of force and diplomacy to resolve it. We felt that we should use force only as a last resort, and when we used it, we used it as a last resort. And ultimately, you know, we moved the ball a long way down the field. We still have to resolve Kosova's final status.

Charlie Rose: And what do you think is going to happen there?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think the United States, if we're, we stand firm, we're going to work our way through this, and Kosova needs to be independent. There, there's really no alternative.

Charlie Rose: What damage, if any, has Iraq done to the Am-, American's military strength?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think you've got, on the one hand, a wonderful training opportunity for America's military. So, we've come out of it with all kinds of leadership lessons, officer and noncommissioned officer skills and professionalism. We're out there executing operations every day, operations that if we weren't at war, we would never have gained the experience of. So, there's a plus side in terms of the development of professionalism in the Armed Forces.

Charlie Rose: But-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That having been said,-

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -we're really drawing down our, our physical and, and, and, and, and quality capital in this conflict. People who would've stayed with us have left. We've had casualties and losses.

Charlie Rose: You mean good Generals and and good Colonels and good-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Good, good Captains-

Charlie Rose: -Captains-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -and Lieutenants-

Charlie Rose: -Lieutenants.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -good future-

Charlie Rose: Right.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -Generals. Most of the Generals have stayed. A few have left, but it's the deeper impact. There's no lateral entry in the Armed Forces. The Captains and Majors who have gotten discouraged or given up on the policy, they're not coming back in, they're not going to be Generals. They're, they're out of it, and you don't recruit them back as, and say, 'Come back in, you'll be a Colonel.' So, they're gone, and we've made a mess of our equipment. We've got - you name it - is it a 70 billion dollar, 100 billion dollar backlog of repair - tanks and Bradleys and Humvees and so forth. And I guess beyond all of that, it's just the wear and tear on the families, and we're a married Armed Forces, 60%, 65% married. Divorces are way up. Suicides have been way up. Unhappiness is way up.

Charlie Rose: How do you explain the fact that somehow we haven't taken care of those people who've come back?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's been a real tragedy, but you know, we knew the VA system didn't work that well. It's been historically underfunded, and we should have put the resources into this up front. We should have worked the hand-off between the active component military and the Veterans Administration. We should've worked the hand-off between the active component and the Reserve component. We should have really put the emphasis into places like Walter Reed. The military just didn't do it.

Charlie Rose: Mm hm. If you were going to talk about America's role in the world today, if you could get past Iraq, what do we say to the world in terms of where we are and what our intent is and what our mission is and how we are prepared to carry out.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: America does have a role in the world. It's not only just the welfare of the American people. We're the preeminent power in the world, and we can't protect the welfare of the American people if we don't support those who share our values, reinforce our friends abroad and work for the gradual transformation of international institutions. We're in the middle of a sea-change in international economic strength, and, you know. America's greatest power, in addition to our values, it's always been our economy. We've been the engine driving the world economy for 100 years. The largest steel producer today is China. The greatest growth in demand, automobiles-

Charlie Rose: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -is China. So, as China becomes more important, the question is: How do, how does that Chinese economic strength Impact us? What we should be doing right now is helping shape the international institutions, so that as China and India and other powers grow, they express themselves and, and relate to us through these institutions in a way that-

Charlie Rose: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -reinforces our values. We don't want to return to 19th Century balance of power diplomacy where we have to gang up with other blocks to contain China.

Charlie Rose: What's the defining struggle of our time?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I, I think the defining struggle in America right now, in America, is the question of the distribution of income and whether we're going to keep the doors of opportunity open for all Americans regardless of what their family income status is, whether there's still a chance for ordinary Americans to make it to the top, or whether the screening process starts early with admission to preschool and, you know, and which elementary school you've gone to to determine-

Charlie Rose: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -whether you're going to make the scores to get to Harvard, to get to Harvard Business School to end up at some elite financial institution or whatever.

Charlie Rose: The kind you consult with.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: The, the kind that I'm very familiar with.

Charlie Rose: (laughs)

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And, you know, right now those institutions are filled with a bunch of really ordinary Americans, people who come from all across, with all kinds of family backgrounds. America is a wide open society. I hope it'll continue to be that in the future.

Charlie Rose: Mm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I think that's the immediate issue really facing this country.

Charlie Rose: Your intelligence and your service has given you a unique opportunity. You've had the benefit of the best education anyone could have. If you had to do it over, have you come to some understanding about political, politics that you might have not gone, you know, might have resigned from the Army to go into politics early or might have done something like that.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I, you know, that's a question I've never asked myself. I loved being in the Army. I, it was-

Charlie Rose: I'm not criticizing being in the Army.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It was everything I ever wanted to do.

Charlie Rose: I'm criticizing whether you learned about something so that you might have done it early, you understood that politics in the end is where the power is, and therefore that's where you can exercise the most good.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's a reasonable question to ask, but I never thought that there was a real opportunity for that for me. I think, you know, I left home at 17. I went to West Point. I served in Vietnam. I just, I didn't see it. I wasn't connected that way. Later I was fortunate enough to have to opportunity to run, and I loved it. And I don't think I'd change anything about what I did in the first place. I think, you know, I think it's a wonderful thing for every American to aspire to be the President, but I had a wonderful career in the United States Army. I helped a lot of people. We helped a lot of families. We made-

Charlie Rose: You had Dwight Eisenhower's chair-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But-

Charlie Rose: -literally and...

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It wasn't just that, Charlie. It was being a Battalion Commander and working with soldiers. It was being the Commanding General at the National Training Center and fighting for housing. it was worrying about schools at Fort Hood. It was making sure that school boards in Europe were right and changing the curriculum. Those were opportunities, they were gifts really, that were given to my family and me that we could work on, and I'm really grateful for them. It's, yeah, it's too bad I didn't get into politics early and become a Senator or become governor, but I'm really happy with what I was able to do. And-

Charlie Rose: Mm hm.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -hopefully I'm not finished.

Charlie Rose: Well, and it can also be said, I mean, you had experiences that many people in politics wish they had had, or at least, I mean the opportunity to lead men and women, you know, in the defense of freedom-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Absolutely right.

Charlie Rose: -and all those kinds of things and all of the things that, you know, is unique among-

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah.

Charlie Rose: The Armed Services of our country.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Yeah, that's right.

Charlie Rose: -in terms of- and you see that. I mean, that's the thing that you see coming back from people that you talk to, and it breaks your heart those faces of so many young people, but it is to see their fierceness of their feeling for the people who serve with them.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's one of the great things that the Army learned coming out of Vietnam is- I mean, we really went to school in the United States Army. We fixed a lot of the problems we saw. We developed new training and leadership doctrine and other things. And you can see the payoff of that. This is an incredible Armed Forces that we have right now. It's hung together so well, and you know, I feel badly that in, the inequity of the burden that's hit these volunteers who are serving in uniform. It's just, it, it's wrong, morally wrong what the country's asked of them in comparison to the 98% of Americans who don't have any connection with it. But having said that, they're magnificent, and what they've done and the feeling they have and the passion they convey for the people they serve with. It's, it's a wonderful, it's a wonderful institution that we built an American democracy.

Charlie Rose: Thank you for coming.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Charlie.

Charlie Rose: Great to see you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Great to be with you.