Meeting Wes Clark

I didn’t exactly meet him, just attended the Wes Clark event here at Tech today. There were about 200 people there (I am not a crowd-counter; so I might be wildly off). Wes Clark gave a 20 minute speech which covered Iraq and foreign policy in general. He didn’t say anything about domestic issues. However, he was pretty good. He definitely has a firm grasp of the foreign policy and military aspects.

He started out with a story about him going to see the family of a soldier who died in Iraq (I think) and talked about the sacrifices of soldiers and the good job they were doing in Iraq. One line Clark had about the Bush policy was that the best thing you can say about it is that it relies not on realism but on hope.

Clark agreed that Saddam was a bad guy and would have acquired weapons of mass destruction if he could. But the war wasn’t necessary as Iraq was not an imminent threat. He also talked about the Bush administration thinking of the Iraq war immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to Clark, it was a “bait and switch” from the war on terror to the Iraq war.

However, now that we are in Iraq, we can’t just pull out. Clark did propose a few policy changes for Iraq:

• Replace the US Coalition Provisional Authority with an international body with decision-making also shared. He compared that to the Balkans.
• Make some non-American in charge.
• Give as much control back to the Iraqis as soon as possible.
• Develop new Iraqi governing/constitutional bodies as the Iraqi Governing Council is discredited because of the large number of exiles.
• Elect local/regional bodies in Iraq which can then elect a central interim council.

Wes Clark pledged not to get the country into such a mess again if he is elected President. He talked about working with allies and trying diplomatic solutions to international problems. He also talked about his plans for a new government agency for nation building. The way he sees it that agency will do research on economic and political development as well as help poor countries implement such policies.

After the speech, Clark asked the audience for questions. My roommate John asked him about our aims and objectives in the war on terror and the conditions for an end to that war. Clark talked in some detail about a multipronged strategy against terrorism. It would include going after the major Al-Qaeda terrorists; putting pressure on Saudi Arabia to secularize somewhat without losing control of the country to fanatics; getting Pakistan’s eduation system on track as an alternative to the madrassas; work towards removing the conditions of frustration and humiliation in the Middle East which in his opinion are more important than poverty among the causes of terrorism. He mentioned the Middle East conflict (I think he meant the Israel-Palestine issue) as one of the things that need to be resolved. On the domestic front, he talked about reducing the vulnerability of high-visibility targets and suspending PATRIOT Act provisions to analyze their benefits or otherwise.

There were only two questions. The second one was about education. General Clark’s reply was a bit wishy washy. He criticized the the No Child Left Behind Act, but talked mostly in vague generalities. You could say he was rescued by his staff saying that the time was up.

Overall, my impression is that Clark knows and can fluently speak about the military and foreign policy. However, he does need to work on articulating domestic policy positions in a better manner.

POSTSCRIPT: All of this post is from the few notes I took and from memory. So there might be errors.

UPDATE: Here are a couple of news reports about the event.

UPDATE II: A report on Clark’s visit in our college paper.