Andrea Mitchell: Today, Hillary Clinton is campaigning in Pennsylvania. This afternoon, just about an hour, she will be meeting with families at Haverford College on the mainline. Last night she was debating Barack Obama, and she promised as President she would bring the U.S. troops home from Iraq no matter what her Generals said.
(on tape)
Hillary Clinton: I have been convinced and very clear that I will begin to withdraw troops within 60 days. And we've had other instances in our history where some military commanders have been very publicly opposed to what a President was proposing to do. But I think it's important that this decision be made and I intend to make it.
Charlie Gibson: But Senator Clinton, aren't you saying, I mean, General Petraeus was in Washington - you both were there when he testified - saying that the gains in Iraq are fragile and are reversible. Are you essentially saying, 'I know better than the military commanders' here?
Hillary Clinton: No, what I'm saying Charlie is that no one can predict what will happen. There are many different scenarios.
(end tape)
Andrea Mitchell: Retired Four-Star Army General Wesley Clark is an MSNBC military analyst. He is supporting Hillary Clinton for President. Good to see you, General.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you, Andrea.
Andrea Mitchell: Okay so, go back to when you were NATO Commander and you were in charge of the war in Kosovo, how would you feel if the Commander in Chief said, 'No, General, we're withdrawing. We're pulling our forces out,' even if you said, 'It's fragile. It's going to reverse. It's not secure'?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, he's the boss. I mean, (chuckles) the-
Andrea Mitchell: He or she.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: He or she. And the military understand very well what they're working for. Here's the issue that hasn't been clearly explained: President Bush has basically used the surge as political cover to avoid having to face the realities of the political fragmentation in Iraq. And in a sense there are members of the Republican Party, the Neocons, maybe even the Presidency itself is hiding behind General Petraeus. It's like, 'Well, let's give General Petraeus what he wants.' Well, General Petraeus wants to succeed in the mission he's given, which is inside Iraq. But the United States has worldwide interests. We have concerns about Iran. We have other friends in the region. It's the President's job to give the military the right mission, not to hide behind the military, who's simply trying to do their job. And Petreaus is an outstanding officer. I like him, and I have had a lot of admiration for what he's done. But he's- hasn't been given the right set of tools to work with, and he doesn't have the perspective for what's in the U.S. national interests in the region. That's the President's job.
Andrea Mitchell: And one of the other things that she said last night, that Hillary Clinton said last night was that she would extend the deterrence, the American umbrella to Saudi Arabia, to Kuwait, to the U.A.E. if, let's say, Iran were to attack, of they would forgo nuclear weapons. Isn't that extending American commitments in that region in ways that perhaps we shouldn't (inaudible).
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think what Senator Clinton has done here is introduce a visionary idea that's going to be critical in terms of changing the alignments in the Middle East and the dynamics on the ground.
Andrea Mitchell: Aren't we overextended and overcommitted as it is?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: What we need is a strategic dialog with all the countries in the region, including Iran and Syria, that we won't talk with now. And what they're looking for is they're looking- everybody's looking for security. We need to set up some basic principles, and then we need to underwrite those principles. Those principles would be things like the sanctity of borders, peaceful resolution of disputes, a standing consultative committees to resolve these issues. We know the models. We worked them with the Soviets in the Cold War. But you have to undergird them with economics and a security guarantee. What Senator Clinton is doing is broaching the idea of the security guarantee. I think it's tantalizing. I think it's very interesting, and I think it will form an important component of the eventual diplomatic work that goes on surrounding a U.S. redeployment.
Andrea Mitchell: Now you not only were in charge of the war in, in Kosny- in Kosovo, you were deeply involved in Bosnia, and you understand what being under sniper attack is like. Let me play for you what Hillary Clinton said last night when the issue again came up about her misstatements:
Hillary Clinton (on tape): I will tell everyone who listens that I'm ready to be the Commander in Chief. I've 35 Generals and Admirals including two former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Wesley Clark and others who believe that I am the person to lead us out of Iraq to take on Al Qaeda, to rebuild our military.
(cut)
I can tell you that I may be a lot of things, but I'm not dumb. And I wrote about going to Bosnia in my book in 2004. I laid it all out there, and you're right, on a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that weren't in keeping with what I knew to be the case and what I'd written about in my book. And, you know, I'm embarrassed by it. I have apologized for it. I've said it was a mistake, and it is, I hope, something that you can look over.
Andrea Mitchell: What did you think when she first started describing the sniper attack and the cancelled arrival ceremony and-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, first of all, the context has never been really conveyed to the American people. I was in and out of Bosnia during the time. Let me explain the context. First, she wasn't shot at, so far as we know, by a sniper. But she was certainly briefed that there could be snipers there, and there was an expectation that there was a threat in the area. Why? Well, because when we'd gone across the Sava River to occupy Bosnia at Christmastime, New Years of 1995-96, we went in full battle gear. We did an assault river crossing with the United States Army's First Armored Division. Hadn't done it since World War II.
Andrea Mitchell: By the Spring on '96, it was a lot calmer-
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It wasn't.
Andrea Mitchell: -than it'd been in '95.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It wasn't. We were still in the process of redeploying forces. We were still sorting out who the bad guys were. We had just seized a, a- There was a camp of Mujahideen who were in Bosnia. They were bad guys. They'd come out of Afghanistan.
Andrea Mitchell: I was on that flight with her.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And-
Andrea Mitchell: I remember the Apaches. We did have escorts.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: But I'm- The context was the Mujahideen were there. We did a Special Ops. We pulled a bunch of Mujahideen. AND at the same time the Serbs were ordered, you remember the Serb suburb of Grbavica?
Andrea Mitchell: (inaudible)
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: And they, they had to give it up, and they burned it, and everybody was criticizing Admiral Smith. But he had French and Italian troops, and they wouldn't take action. And NATO looked feckless and powerless. And then she was briefed that there could be sniper fire, and there were armored vehicles there. Well, it turned out they didn't shoot at her, but they were right to be concerned. This was still a very uncertain situation, and there were war criminals in the area. And the United States and NATO were feeling their way. So, she misspoke that she was under sniper fire. If she'd said, 'There was a possibility of sniper fire,' or, 'I'd been briefed about possible sniper fire,' she would've been 100 percent accurate. You know, our troops were getting combat pay. They were (chuckles) getting the Combat Zone Tax Exclusion for serving there, and at the time if you went on the Hill, the Republicans would say, 'You've put our troops in harm's way. You're gonna- You have no exit strategy.' All of this was the accompaniment of her trip. And so, she was explaining the context. She misstated the actual fact on the ground.
Andrea Mitchell: Let me quickly ask you just one other thing: New embassy, room for 1200 people in Baghdad, more than 700 million dollars - is this worth it, this new encampment that we are about to open in Baghdad, the new American embassy, the largest in the world?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, it's kind of late to ask that question. What it does is it reflects the American mindset and strategy, which is if you're going to put forces in, you got to protect them. And you need a larger diplomatic structure, because the work you're doing's not all military. A lot of it's economic and political development.
Andrea Mitchell: Is it worth the money?
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we need to find a way out of Iraq. A way that- and we need to change the metrics of Iraq. It's not about the violence in Iraq. Is it really about violence. Isn't it about political development and helping the Iraqis accommodate to their own problems, and when we measure violence, we're not measuring the accommodation. So, I think it's, it's fair to focus on the embassy and say it represents a, what has become a flawed and failed strategy.
Andrea Mitchell: Thank you very much. Always good to see you.
GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.
Andrea Mitchell: General.