Wesley Clark: Dishonest To The Core, and Probably Nuts

“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan… I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned.” – Wesley Clark, page 130, Winning Modern Wars.

Clark’s version of the truth is that he didn’t want to know the truth. “I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear,” he claims to recall. “And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either.”

In fact, the Bush men spent much of the summer of 2002 bragging about their plans to first, smash Saddam Hussein, then gloriously march on Damascus and Tehran – dreams they still cherish. Clark now tells us that he knew then that the Bush men’s threats were understated; that guys like him were actively preparing a five-year military campaign to subdue great swaths of Africa and the Middle East.

Clark appears in his book as a Walter Mitty-like character: all of the drama, the angst, the torment, his anxieties for the future of his country, occurs in his head. In the almost two years separating the Pentagon revelation and publication of his book, Clark exhibited no outward signs of inner conflict. But he was troubled, very troubled. As proof, Clark offers a narrative of his unchallengeable thoughts:

“I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned. I hoped the officer was wrong, or that whoever was pushing this [five-year war plan] would amend his approach.

“That did not happen. After the president delivered his 2002 State of the Union address, the policy was locked in concrete.”

Clark’s lips stayed locked shut, for at least a year. Finally, in 2003 Clark got his national podium as a military analyst for CNN. He had the microphone and the cameras, direct access to a swollen, global TV audience anticipating the onset of war. The Big One was about to begin, the rolling conflict that would consume parts of two continents in flame for the next five years. What would the hero of Kosovo do at such a moment?

Clark chose to cheer the war on like the rest of the media’s retired military consultants, occasionally seasoning his commentary with the barest hints of misgivings – nothing substantive enough to rate front page quotation.

When he had the opportunity and it might have made a difference, Clark failed to sound an alarm about an invasion he now claims to have known to be a prelude to even wider wars. As documented by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), September 16:

Clark explained on CNN (1/21/03) that if he had been in charge, “I probably wouldn’t have made the moves that got us to this point. But just assuming that we’re here at this point, then I think that the president is going to have to move ahead, despite the fact that the allies have reservations.” As he later elaborated (CNN, 2/5/03): “The credibility of the United States is on the line, and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we’re going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world’s got to get with us…. The U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with.”

Clark failed to oppose administration policy until long after the fact and in his own mind – skull-bound sound and fury, ultimately signifying nothing. We are expected to accept his published testimony to the inner turmoil he experienced, in direct contradiction to his actual words and actions at the critical junctures in the timeline of war.