The Exchange; Interview with Wesley Clark

From New Hampshire Public Radio I'm Laura Hanoi and this is the exchange. This is an election that's going to be about national security. It's going to be about facing down George Bush and his failure to perform his duties satisfactorily as commander in chief. I'm the only candidate on the stage. Who can take the fight to George W. Bush and I intend to do it. It's been 50 years since a general has been our commander in chief and now retired four star General Wesley Clark hopes to be the next. But Clark is not your typical career military man turned politician. He's a Democrat. He's for ideas like having gays serve openly in the military. And he's critical of our current president's actions in war. Clarke is a decorated Vietnam vet. He gained national attention in the 1990s when he was NATO commander leading the campaign in Kosovo. Clark is hoping this military experience will make him the most democratic most attractive Democratic candidate at a time when Americans are worried about national security. But he's trying to

cover all the bases. For example Clark's new tax plan would mean no income taxes for a family of four making less than 50000. And he's got a $100 million jobs plan that he says would revitalize manufacturing and other sectors where jobs are going overseas. Today an exchange it's our second interview with General Clark. We'll cover a broad range of issues and we want to hear from you. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 892 and HPR. And today in exchange we welcome C-SPAN viewers to call in as well. Again the number for every 1 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. General Clark welcome back to the Exchange. Good to have you. Thank you very much. Good to be here with you. When we talked last fall you'd been in the race just a couple of months and you said that campaigning was fun and I'm quoting Is there anything since then that has not been fun. No. I've enjoyed every day of it. It is so wonderful to go out and see people and especially in the wintertime in New Hampshire when the snow comes down and it's beautiful up here we've

driven all over the state and you know I grew up in Arkansas and whenever it snowed in Arkansas it was holiday time and I lived in Colorado a lot and we would go to the mountains and ski there. And to me this is this is just the greatest thing. It's one of the greatest experiences of my life. My wife feels the same way we just loved meeting people up here. We've gone out we've we've talked to people we've gone to their homes. People have been incredibly nice and gracious to us and it's a real thrill to be able to talk about the country's future and. And then there's joy in thinking about the potential of America and what we could do and what we could become. And we'll talk about that in just a minute. You told me last time your wife at first was sort of. No not really sure if I want you to run. Yes. How are you feeling now. Well it's what we always said the sort of bloom where you're playing and she loves it. She's a real fighter and she likes meeting people. Some of the stuff that you might consider less fun is recent attacks as you

move up in the poll. Other campaigns more mostly the Dean and Kerry campaigns have said Wes Clark isn't a real Democrat. You know he voted for some Republicans in the past. How does how does that feel to have your democratically elected politicians do. Well you know I'm an American I'm never going to put party interests over the interests of this country. And I think that Democratic voters understand that and appreciate it. I'm somebody who spent his life in public service. I try to do my duty as an American and vote. I voted for people who were strong for national security. I voted for what I thought was in the best interests of America as a whole. And I've never run for elective office before never owed anything to any special interest. Won't be a captive of special interests. Let's talk into the issues of General Clark and then we'll take some calls and again the number 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. And first General Clark Iraq. I was interested in your proposal to get rid of the Coalition Provisional Authority that is

controlling things in Iraq now replace it with a new international structure as you said similar to the one in Bosnia. What would that new structure look like. You'd have a high representative probably a non-American. You have a council of nations who would review the progress in Iraq and so forth you'd have to lay out a real timetable. You didn't have to make it public on what you were doing in Iraq. You know like what we're going to do with your oil revenues and what's going to happen with construction and when schools are going to be open. What about the museum and how are people going to get to the hospital and what about public transportation and the railroads and all of those issues that nobody seems to be able follow they'd all be public and probably other nations would even like to see a matrix lay out set for this thing we're going to do this in three months that in six months or even be accountable goals of what was trying to be accomplished. You got to build a police force you're going to create a judiciary you're going to do a b and c.. The Iraqis themselves would have to be in charge and we should start with some kind of an interim government that is

built on indirect representation because there have been local town council elections and they can represent things and representatives to a central government. You'd start that way you'd eventually they'd prepare a constitution they'd move forward with the Constitution. There'd be a plebiscite. People would be involved I think it's the logical way to begin. The United States doesn't want to occupy the country. You know there was a when we went into this administration had no real plan for what to do afterwards. And people in this administration have constantly looked backwards at the past they never look forward. They kept going back to kept wanting to recreate World War II. You remember the stuff Saddam Hussein is the worst guys like Hitler you know except that Hitler was leading the largest industrial power in Europe. And Saddam Hussein was a despot a wickedest bought and a broken down country in the Middle East and then it was like we're going to get rid of the Baathist Party. OK. They got rid of the Baathist Party they get rid of the military they throw 400000 people out on the street who then had no jobs

and then they were calling them to pay them a living stipend and they were still doing nothing. And they were rioting. It's it's we this administration hasn't had a strategy for success. So this would be a clear IS A is A is easy. Lay it out move through it put the Iraqis in charge and work with them and help them grow and take over their country. Now you said this new structure would be led by and probably by a non-American. How would you respond to the thought that Americans mostly have paid the price for this war in terms of dollars and blood. So why should we post-war turn it over to somebody else. Well what is it we want. Are we looking for credit blame or success if we want success internationalize the effort. We don't want to occupy Iraq if I don't think we're looking for headlines and a history book 50 years from now that say only due to American efforts despite the international community America persevered

and America alone was able to. Surely that's not what we're looking for. Aren't we looking for what's best for the Iraqi people and for the American people and for the world. And if that's the case we're going to be so much better to do this in a way that brings people together to work on this task together. That's the real art of leadership it's to bring people together to get the job done as a team. And what I learned in the military I think it's still true. It's amazing what you can get done if you don't care who gets the credit. You and other Democrats have continually talked about the need to internationalize the Iraq effort. And yet there are other countries participating now. But they don't have any say. That's the problem. They're participating because in one case or another they've been arm twisted to do so. And and they are participating because the United States has asked them to in very strong terms but they don't have any real say they don't have any influence in what this administration seems to not understand is that if you use established

mechanisms like NATO where there is agreement by consensus which you commanded for years I commanded the military forces and later we had a civilian Spanish secretary general and a British secretary general civilians. But if you use a mechanism like NATO then what happens is that people our governments have to agree and then they have to defend the policy to their own electorates and you build consensus. You build international support. What's happening this way is not building international support. The issue is not just about the number of troops on the ground in Iraq. There's a couple of thousand Polish troops there. There's five or six hundred Bulgarian troops and so forth. It's about the future of the United States the Middle East and our alliance structure around the world and everything goes into the pot. And it's how you shape it. We want a world in which America is respected and

admired in which Americans are safe in which democratic governments prosper and which nations work together to help each other in which force is used as seldom as possible as reluctantly as possible. We want a world in which we see crises coming and work together to help nations deal with emergent crises rather than having to respond afterwards by sending troops in. All of that can be shaped as part of the consequence of Iraq. We want a world that works the rule of law not the rule of force. I want to ask you one more quick question and then go to our callers and are C-SPAN callers and again the number 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7. There was some question at the beginning of the campaign as to what you would have done if you were commander in chief at the time when the threat from Iraq seemed to be building. Would you have started that war or not. General Clark No no no no no. I bobbled a question. I mean that's all it was my

record is very clear on this. I would not have gone to that war. First of all I would have focused on al-Qaeda going to worry about Saddam Hussein was a strategic distraction for the United States. But if you were going to do something about Saddam Hussein you would have done it through the United Nations. You would not have used force until all diplomatic options were exhausted. You would not have used force and you had your allies on board unless there was an imminent threat to the United States. You would not have used force unless you had thought through the consequences and had the forces on hand and you wouldn't have done any of that if there wasn't an imminent threat or an imminent problem that required the use of force. There was never an imminent threat. We didn't have our allies on board. Didn't have a plan for what happened next did not have enough forces. We went in there with the greatest armed forces in the world we cut Saddam's legions apart and now we're there 470 Americans dead. Twenty five hundred wounded 180 billion dollars on the line. It's still not assured that we've got a success and it's it's been a

mess and it was an elective war. Osama bin Laden still in northwest Pakistan and we're still at alert state orange 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number. Let's go to Nashua. Brandon joins us. Hello. Brandon you're on the air. Hi there. Hi. After voting for Nixon to get this in Vietnam and facing President Bush at a fundraiser last year. How can we trust you will improve our situation in Iraq. This again gets back and look at my record Lukken First of all I'm on of course you know I know this but I voted for people who were strong on national security as far as we're praising Bush. I do praise President Bush for taking us after the Taliban regime. But you've got to go look at exactly what I said. I believe that it's important that the United States take action against people who attack this country in fact I believe it's important that we should have taken action against Osama bin Laden before he ever did 9/11. Trouble is we had a president who didn't do his

duty before 9/11 to do everything he could have done to have prevented 9/11 and after 9/11 although I support what he did in Afghanistan he didn't go far enough. He didn't have a plan or strategy for success. At the very moment when we had Osama bin Laden cornered our U.S. military forces who were commanding that operation weren't even they weren't focused on that apparently they were I guess they were dusting off the plans to go after Saddam Hussein. They were planning to attack Iraq because this administration had already decided to do a bait and switch with the American people after the president had said Osama bin Laden dead or alive I guess people came to him and told hey Mr. President you know this might be really hard and you better get somebody you know you know where Saddam Hussein is why don't you go get Saddam Hussein. And they decided to get Saddam Hussein. And they built the case up the intelligence and took us in there. So that's what those are my views. You'll have to make your own decisions on whether you believe what I'm saying or not. That's what elections are about.

Speaking of President Bush said the president just this week announced a major change in immigration policy to ease up on Mexican workers to give guest worker status three year guest worker status to Mexican immigrants. Some people said it's surprising because this comes at a time when the U.S. is concerned about immigration. What do you think of President Bush's new approach to his Mexican guest workers. Well we don't really know what the new approach is. It's just been sort of laid out conceptually sounds like an election year gimmick to me. I'll tell you what my approach is. We've got eight nine 10 Some people say as high as 14 million people in this country who don't have documentation for the most part the ninety nine point nine percent of these people are integrated into the U.S. economy. They have jobs. They're going to school. They're paying Social Security. They're part of this economic system. They just don't have the documentation. We need to give those people a right to earn their citizenship over a period of years by recognizing them on some kind of a

temporary work permit. That goes to a green car that eventually gives them an opportunity to apply for citizenship or will escort them out. We need to control our borders and we need to assure that we're treating every person that comes in here as a temporary worker in a formal guest worker program where they come in they're given work that Americans don't want or jobs that Americans can't fill. For some reason they're not exploited. They're paid the reasonable wages so they're not undercutting American jobs. And then they're given safe passage home and we can do this. It sounds sort of we need a reason to be opposing the differences that this has been our proposal. What he's got is a sort of generalized concept that he's rolled out as an election year initiative. This is a he talked about trying to do something on immigration when he was first elected. Remember he was going to make you know make nice with Vicente Fox down in Mexico.

Instead when Mexico didn't want to support the U.S. actions in the United Nations concerning Iraq the president essentially threatened Hispanic Americans said well you know you might be treated poorly here because you saw what happened to the French. It made huge headlines across Mexico people were very upset down there at the way this administration has treated them and without any details what the president's rolled out sure looks and sounds like an election year gimmick. If you're trying to reach the Hispanic community you got to talk about a lot more than immigration. You've got to talk about jobs and health care and education and bringing people together and the environment. All of those issues are important. And I definitely want to cover some of those with you today. We'll get to all of them but hopefully jobs health care and the environment. Let's go back to the phones 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange. Again we welcome C-SPAN viewers. Today on the

exchange as well we encourage your calls 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 to Grantham and Chris. Good morning Chris. Randi you're welcome. Good morning. Good morning General Clark. Good morning. I have a quick question for you regarding human rights and U.S. foreign policy on the war in Chechnya is now in its fifth year. About half the Chechen population has been killed or displaced. And U.S. and European human rights groups have reported war crimes rivaling those in Bosnia and Kosovo. A few days ago a spokesman for the Chechen resistance called for peace talks. I'm wondering what are the implications of allowing this war to continue. And what role would a Clark administration play in helping Russians and Chechens end this war. Chris thank you. Well I think it's a real tragedy in Chechnya. The United States has tried quietly behind the scenes to try to help at least during the Clinton administration it did. I've been outraged by a repeated pattern of human rights abuses over the years I've talked to some of the Russian generals who fought there

previously. It's a conflict that can only be ended through diplomacy through dialogue. It cannot be ended by military force. Under Clark administration we'll do everything we can to help end this terrible conflict. I want to turn to another domestic issue that made headlines for you this week that's your new tax plan. Under this plan no income taxes for a family of four making under $50000 a year. How come how come because American families are struggling and if you're a family of four and you're making 50000 or below you need every penny and you need help. I just don't think it's right. When you look at where the economy is where the country is since the 1970s the gross domestic product the United States has more than doubled but 90 percent of the American population. The lower 90 percent hasn't seen their real income rise at all. In fact it's gone down 2 percent for the bottom 90 percent of the American population. It's a shocking figure you would think if

the country is doing so much better. Isn't everybody doing better. The answer's no. And people are working harder than they are now. The top 10 percent are doing better and the top 1 percent is doing wonderfully 350 percent income improvement. So we need to help ordinary Americans. When you do that it's not only that it's the right thing to do but it's also better for the economy because when you put money back in the hands of these working families who are trying so hard to make it in America what they do is they spend it on food clothing transportation and housing. It lifts the level of economic activity it helps people all that stuff. It even helps wealthy people when you do that. Whereas if you give the money to the wealthy people what happens is they don't spend it on the necessities. A lot of that goes into bank accounts. Some of that may go on expensive vacations overseas some of it goes to compete to raise real estate prices and resort areas like Aspen Colorado where where still the prices of homes are going up to astronomical levels because a select number of people in this country have done

extremely well. There's two hundred and seventy thousand families in this country who have incomes of more than a million dollars a year we're going to ask them to contribute more to the United States government so we can help 31 million families in America making $100000 or less with children who are struggling to do well and take care of their kids in America. I think it's the right answer for the country. So that's the cutoff 100000 or less would get either no taxes under Wes Clarkson ministration or lower the average comes out to be about 4500 dollars per family. It'll be in New Hampshire there's about 130000 families that fall into this category that will benefit you know in the 2002 election. A lot of Democrats talked about President Bush's tax cuts for the rich. We should get rid of them. But so the Democrats ran on that. But Americans didn't seem to respond. They overwhelmingly still elected Republicans in that election. They didn't seem to buy that what the Republicans called class warfare argument.

I don't believe in class warfare either. I believe in what's good for the country as a whole. And I I can't describe the 2002 election I really wasn't part of it. I wasn't in politics at that point. All I can tell you is that I did teach economics and political philosophy and national security. I've got a degree in economics I was in the Office of Management and Budget. I've been in business. I've worked in the financial services sector I've been on corporate boards. I know people from every walk of life and I spent most of my time in the military making less than $100000 a year and a lot of it was making less than 50. And if you can get 4500 dollars extra a year that's more than $100 a month it makes a huge difference for families. Now contrast your tax position with the other Democratic candidates in the field. I couldn't. I mean I don't I don't really study their positions I don't know much about them. Some people have said they want to repeal all the Bush tax cuts. I never want to do that. I think that anything you can do for working families middle class people you should do because as I

gave you the figures at the beginning they just had people who work in this country have not received their proportionate share of the vast increase in wealth in America. It's concentrated at the top with a few very small one tenth of 1 percent of the population doing exceptionally well and the vast majority of people struggling and America. We built this country with people who worked and worked hard and took care of their families and we don't ever want to lose that spirit in America. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 again is our number 1 800 8 9 to NH. One more question about your tax plan General Clark. How much money would this cost the federal treasury if if any at all. Well it won't cost the federal treasury anything because we're going to make the tax system more progressive. My belief is and having lived in this country and suffered under it for a long time through the economics struggles of the 1970s and

80s on very little SALIR in the military and then now being in the business community having made a lot of money the last couple of years progressive taxation is essential when you don't have very much money you need it for the necessities. When you've got more you can afford the luxuries you should pay a higher tax rate. There's no way a boss should say pay the same thing as a secretary. We need progressive taxation in America. This is the exchange on an HPR. More with Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark coming up in just a minute on the exchange on New Hampshire Public Radio. And coming up at 10:00 on the Diane Rehm Show a look at new proposals for immigration reform. It's 9:30 Dan COLGAN Good Morning support for New Hampshire Public Radio comes from our contributing listeners like Frederick ERTS of Bedford support also made possible from Hinckley Allen and Snyder a full service New-England law firm with offices in Concord Boston in Providence. Information about Hinckley Allen and Snyder

at HHS law dot com. And from any net I.T. consulting helping organizations make smart investments in information technology online at. I and I. Any t dot com. This is New Hampshire Public Radio news and information for the Granite State. This is the exchange I'm Laura Conaway. Tomorrow on the exchange. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman is here the U.S. senator from Connecticut. That is tomorrow and the exchange today. Retired General Wesley Clark is here. He's also running in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary. We're getting his positions on the major issues of this campaign. We've talked a lot already about Iraq. Also immigration policy taxes join us 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 and HPR and at 10:00 Let's go right back to those phone calls and go to Wentworth. Let's see Steve is up from Wentworth Go ahead Steve.

Hi. Good morning. Morning. Morning. Earlier in the show you admitted you have no experience navigating the rough waters. Washington D.C. No I never admitted that what I told you as I had never run for elective office. That's a huge difference. Go ahead Steve. What's the substance of your question Steve. The question is how could you fix No Child Left Behind. How could you fix No Child Left Behind that's the Federal Education First of all you have to have a vision for how you want to fix it. You know what's wrong with it. You have to go to American support. If you were in Congress to vote. No No No Child Left Behind is a Trojan horse Bill. It's basically designed to kill public education. Take away the money and support private schools. And you know public education is what's made this country great when we made the decision that every American child had to be literate know how to read and write. We made the decision that was essential for democracy and essential for economic development and in countries today like Brazil. They cannot promote real economic development or

democracy because they don't have the literacy level are really struggling on literacy. Public education is essential. No child left behind doesn't support it. No Child Left Behind is essentially aimed at taking money away from it. I don't believe that you can create education by teaching a vast and when schools don't do well enough you should not punish them by taking money away. You should put leadership and resources into the school and figure out why it's not doing as good a job we should be helping teachers in the classroom. They should be getting the money they need for development for them educational resources they need. They should be coached. They should be counseled teaching his leadership. Some of it's about substance but mostly it's about reaching out to the hearts and minds of students getting him excited inspired enthusiastic interested. Building up the interest in the subject matter and in learning and in their own future and encouraging kids to take responsibility for their own lives. Teachers are the most important leaders in America and especially public school teachers and we've got

to help them. I like to see smaller schools I like to see schools with close relationships with parents and teachers. I like to see a lot of energy and enthusiasm in the classrooms. I think you have to pay teachers more. And I think you have to measure students and schools not in accordance with a standardized test. But look at the delta between where students start and where they finish doesn't know till they're behind do that to some extent though it measures what they call adequate yearly progress so not just how are you doing this year but how you're doing from last year and the year before. Well first of all No Child Left Behind is not funded adequately so it's between seven and nine billion short. You've got states like New Hampshire in which progress measurements in social studies for example have been dropped so that they can afford to do the federal testing in only certain grades are tested and the tests are standardized so even children who are developmentally Handey disabled and don't have the resources they need or the start they need are still measured against the same standard. So this is an incentive

for schools to gain the test. Apparently that happened in Houston when they were putting this plan together. Some kids apparently were held back in the ninth grade for two or three years and then vaulted over the 10th grade. So there's a lot of gaming in this there's a lot of pressure on teachers that's not productive. Pressure teachers under no child left behind education systems across America have dismissed qualified people who have given long and outstanding service in public schools because they lack paper qualifications and instead of helping them to get the qualifications they've simply thrown them out on the street. There are so many things wrong with No Child Left Behind we're keeping back on it when we're finished with it you won't recognize it but we'll have a better system to promote public education in America and make it the foundation for our economic future. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 to San Quentin and Lynn. Go ahead Lynn you run the exchange welcome.

Thank you. Good morning. Morning. I have to quarter out in 2001 under Bush. You did not turn the Kyoto Protocol which would have come to the rescue of our overburdened our ecological system for the earth. And in 2002 we didn't sign on to the International Criminal Court. And I wonder what the journal had her position on the Kyoto Protocol and the International Criminal Court. OK Lynn thanks. Well then I think the threat of global warming is real I think we have to do with it. Deal with it. I would have gone into Kyoto and then I would have pressed to move the next step so we really had a carbon credit trading scheme and we could have brought the developing countries like India and China also into a system to help control the greenhouse gas emissions that will lead to global warming. I think that is an essential national security factor that we have to consider and we will take action on that. As far as the International Criminal Court is concerned I want to see the United States act in accordance with international law. We always have. I was judged by international law when I was a commander of the NATO operation against Milosevic the International Criminal Court

became a huge ideological issue. I think there are a couple of things that I'd like to see fixed with it. I'd like to see us work our way into that system so that our soldiers are clearly seen to be acting in accordance with international law as I believe we always have. But I want to make sure that we're participating in supporting a system of international law that we're not aligned with the so-called rogue states in opposing international law. So we just have to we've got to do a little tweak on the court before we can get into it. But we want to move in that direction and we will. The fear I think about the court and U.S. participation is that because the U.S. is the biggest kid on the block our soldiers our diplomats might be natural targets for all sorts of quote unquote frivolous lawsuits. I would like to see the court have a mandate given by the U.N. Security Council. Right now the court is standing sort of have gun will travel let's go find a case I think we can do better than that if we'll bring this to the U.N. Security Council. There are other people who

are opposed to that. We need some kinds of restrictions on on let's say frivolous lawsuits and so forth. But I think the court is you know it's very very close to what we want we need just a couple of tweaks to be able to work with this and it's very important for the United States to get in line with the International Criminal Court concept and move in line with international law. We don't want to be on the outside of international law. We want to be leading it and promoting it and developing it because it's in our interest to use law to hold down human rights abuses and settle disputes rather than having to intervene and put forces on the ground. Speaking of American forces General Clark your position on the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy in the military has been interesting to many people because you have been in the military you know most of your career. Why do you feel first of all so strongly that don't ask don't tell should be repealed.

It's not working and you can't always tell it when you're in the military because if you're in the chain of command and somebody comes up and says Sir I'm gay then you can do is say I'm sorry you've been a good troop but according to the law you're gone. You have to let them go if they don't you turn over the personnel system personnel system our processes and that's it they're discharge. And so you never find out the real feedback on it until you get out and people come up and say Did you know this. And did you know that and so forth. The whole principle of Don't Ask Don't Tell was supposed to be that we we always knew that there were gays and lesbians in the United States armed forces and they did a good job. The only thing we believed was that we didn't want to have someone sexual orientation a factor on the job. Well don't ask don't tell doesn't work. And I believe we've got to go back we're going to ask the military to relook at. Well ask the armed forces leadership to relook at. I believe everybody in

America should have equal rights. And I don't believe the armed forces should be the last institution in America to discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation. But the armed forces is a professional organization. You know the British have had the British at this Rights don't ask don't misbehave get on with the job and it's working pretty well for it is their stated policy don't ask don't misbehave. That's what people characterize it as. And we just need to move ahead and the United States Armed Forces in my view did you as a commander ever have to deal with a situation where someone was gay where they told you you were gay where people suspected they were gang you weren't sure what to do. Well it was never any question about what to do. I remember the first time I learned of the policy I was a battalion commander at Fort Carson and the C Company Commander call me head he said sir we're going to have to do so on OWN So he's going to have to get processed out. He's the first sergeant driver he's a great troop. He was up for Soldier of the month a couple of months ago and you interviewed him and

he says now that he's gay and he's brought his friend into the orderly room and so now I said why as I said I don't understand said Sir Haven't you read the New Army regulation blah blah blah and I said no. He said Well it says you know it doesn't matter what you do if you say this you're out. And so he was processed out. That was my first. That's the first time I was ever conscious of the regulation. There's a lot of heart and regulations and I'd never pay any attention to that one. And so and I had occasions in my military career where people would say so-and-so came in and you know they're being processed because she said she just couldn't stand it anymore. And those things happened. Now I think it's a tragedy. I just I just don't believe the United States armed forces should have to be the last institution in America that discriminates against people. 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 is our number on the exchange. I'm Laura

Conaway. And today our guest retired General Wesley Clark. Democratic Presidential Candidate 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 1 800 8 9 2 HPR. It's our second interview with General Clark today and the exchange that we're covering a broad range of issues from foreign policy to education to taxes. Join us with your questions 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 2. Conway and George welcome George you're on the air. Hi. Hi General Clark. Hi George. I saw the other night up in Conway at the elementary school you and I. Great great. Did a great job. Thank you. I know it's a tough question but I really have never understood why America's to be an enemy of the Muslim extremist groups you know we were just calling them al-Qaeda. But I wonder if it's if that much broader and deeper than that and I was wondering if you could just comment on is this a failure of American foreign policy. And I'll just listen to your comment. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Well it is a hard question because it's complicated and there's so many different strands of thought. Let me see if I can boil it down to two or three key thoughts here. First of all we have supported for diplomatic reasons a lot of we call them moderate Arab regimes but they're really repressive Arab regimes that were moderate in the sense they weren't communists. They are repressive in the sense that they don't let their own people have access to freedom of expression and democracy. Like I said Egypt Saudi Arabia Pakistan was another one. Secondly in these countries some countries because of oil wealth or because of U.S. assistance the powers in the country have been able to postpone dealing with the pressing issues of economic development. Again the result is that they've got high unemployment rates in Saudi Arabia something like 20 percent among young man and this failure to deal with economic development provides fertile conditions for frustration and anger a sense of powerlessness and

humiliation among young people. And then the third thing is you add in the zealotry that comes out of some sects of Islam. And in this case the one we're worried about is the Wahabi sect in Saudi Arabia. Combine that with the petrodollars the recruiting the sort of militant attitude toward only our way or no other way. And you combine that with a frustrated and humiliated young people a certain percent are ripe for terrorist recruitment. But let's be clear this is not spontaneous action against the United States the vast majority of people all over the world including hundreds of millions of Muslims would love to live in the United States and have the protection of U.S. laws and the freedom of opportunity and the ability to raise their families. That's why so many millions want to come here. This is what's happening is there's a network of recruiters who go out and they find angry alienated young people. What does a cleric administering a man against those recruiter got a deal with Saudi

Arabia and Pakistan got to bring nations together. It's a whole I'd have a whole different approach. Number one you've got to get a definition of terrorism and put it in international law and bring other nations on board. Number two you've got to work to solve the Arab-Israeli crisis. It takes U.S. leadership to do it. Number three you've got to deal with the Saudis and the Pakistanis the Saudis have the money and the ideology. The Pakistanis have the people you've got to get serious about change in those two countries. And then you put together through NATO and through other alliances all kinds of cooperative or re-insurance which lets you exchange information on finance flows travel tracking terrorists using law enforcement harmonizing laws to really use the legal system. And finally we would we would want the expedition to go into northwest Pakistan and with the Saudis clean out Osama bin Laden from his sanctuary. He's been there for two years the Bush administration

distracted us took us into against Saddam Hussein they've let Osama bin Laden get away with it and they've taken the heat off Osama bin Laden and that's why we're still at state orange for terrorists. Do you think the Saudis would conduct such a joint investigation with the United States. Well a joint military operation would be a special operations. I think they could be persuaded to Saudi Arabia's in a state of virtual siege right now. The same al Qaeda elements who are coming after the United States are of course their real prize has always been control of Mecca Medina and the oil revenues of Saudi Arabia with them terrorism in Saudi Arabia Absolutely. And there were lots more seething underneath and the Saudis have a real internal security problem. What we have to convince the Saudis is that the solution is not only to act within Saudi Arabia but take action against the external leadership it's in northwest Pakistan or elsewhere. Let's go to Manchester next. David is up. Hello David you're on the exchange Welcome. Hi is this me. This is you. Hi how are you doing General Clark David. I'm doing

fine how are you today. OK good. Great. I wanted to ask you. I just heard yesterday and it disturbed me a little bit that you were in command of the School of the Americas and that school trained some of the worst Latin American dictators like Nordie Noriega on Pinochet. I've heard of a school David. I did not know that you had anything to do with that. Well it was under my control when I was a commander in chief U.S. Southern Command. Obviously I wasn't in control of it. When Noriega went through that was when he was still a lieutenant somewhere else. But we kept the school. It's a very important device for training human rights. And what we do is every student from Latin America who goes through that school gets countless hours of instruction in human rights. It's the best vehicle for imparting human rights instruction in militaries and national police in Latin America that we have. We can't afford to get rid of it. If we're interested in human rights. But you know there's a popular mythology about there that you need to get rid of the school because there are bad graduates will listen. I think the

guy that that wrecked Enron who was the CEO I think he went to Harvard Business School but I don't hear people saying they should get rid of Harvard Business School because one graduate went bad. And in fact if you want better business ethics you need to change the curriculum at Harvard and they've done that so that they're teaching business ethics. What we did for the school of the Americas was teach human rights and we think it's a factor in helping us improve the human rights posture in Latin America 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 again is our number in the exchange. I'm Laura Conaway and retired General Wesley Clark is here today. Democratic presidential candidate. We're taking your calls at 1 800 8 9 2 6 4 7 7 at 10:00. We haven't talked yet about health care as I understand your plan is universal access to insurance. How is that different from universal single payer coverage. Well we're still going to we're going to build as much as we can in the present system. It's it's guaranteed insurance for every child in America and we'll help the parents if they can't pay child up

to through the age of 22 22 through 20 to get through college get them off on on their own. Then beyond that it's guaranteed access. In other words you're going to have to buy into an insurance program if you're making not very much money if you're not making anything you're eligible for Medicaid up to 150 percent of the poverty level. Beyond that up to 275 percent of the poverty level will give you assistance through the income tax system through rebates credits and refunds and so forth for participation in health insurance programs. But just as important is the cost containment piece. We can't survive in America. This national health crisis if we've got double digit growth annually in a 1.4 1.5 trillion dollar health care legislation it's just going it's just going up some fast that nobody can afford the cost increases. So it's not just 44 million people who don't have insurance but it's also people who can't afford the

increases in the expense for the surance coverage they have and other people who are afraid if they lose their job they'll lose their insurance or self-employed people. So we've got a lot of work to do. This is a program that will make it possible for every American to be covered by insurance. And then we're going to make sure that insurance is focused on preventive and diagnostic care so we catch diseases and problems early. Starting with children but also for adults. So you pick up these aging diseases like diabetes and heart disease and other conditions which if they're not treated early become real expense factors and debilitating if you really work the comprehensive diagnostic and preventive methods you save money. You keep the pot everybody happier and that's where we want to be. And that was the original premise of the Health Maintenance Organization says that the. That was what originally was supposed to happen we're all going to focus on prevention and early checkups and so forth and then ultimately the costs will come down. All right. Problem is that when you look at co-payments and other things that people

don't do it. We've got to go back and retool that. The other thing we're going to do is in our cost containment program we're going to really be able to determine which methods of treatment work which ones are the most effective and which ones are the most cost efficient. We're going to have these decisions then made not by accountants and HMO but by health standards corporation and that health standards corporation or commission is going to also be able because it will it will have the information available what's the right treatment and so forth. It will also help our medical profession. It will prevent the sort of unnecessary tests and procedures that doctors are increasingly forced to resort to to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. So what we're going to do is we're going to try to not only get people under health insurance but help the medical profession itself. We've got the finest doctors the finest health care available in America. But we have a system that's broken and it's going to take a lot of different pieces of legislation and effort to pull it back

together and restore effective and efficient health care for all Americans and I'm committed to doing that. Let's go to Concord and talk to Corey Hello. Corey you're on the air. Welcome. Hi. Hi. General Clark I have a two part question. I I'm interested in your view on energy policy and what you would do maybe to promote renewable energy in the country. And secondly as I heard on NPR the other day that your your tax plan will actually raise taxes on those who make less than 20. And I'm wondering if that's true and if you can explain that. Well let me go back to that. Let me take tax plan first we're not raising taxes on on on anybody making less than a million dollars if you make more than a million dollars I'm going to ask you to contribute more if you're making less than a million dollars. But more than $200000 we're going to ask you to give back the Bush tax cut if you're making less than $200000 you're going to keep everything you have if you're making less than $100000. You're going to get a tax

cut of averaging $4500 if you're making less than $50000 you're going to pay nothing with a family of four for income tax. It's that simple. And upheld policy energy policy we need to move away from reliance on imported hydrocarbons both natural gas and oil. We need to use the technology that's increasingly developed over the last 30 years for renewable wind and solar in particular also things like bio mass conversion with the right techniques to make ethanol you can use ethanol or you can burn ethanol and generate energy. But but solar and wind are even better because they are clean. They don't produce carbon compounds or anything of the sort. The technology is getting pretty good. We need to put the government resources behind it. We need incentives in the tax code and I'll send those back. I would came out and Jimmy Carter also. We also need to tighten our air emissions standards. What we found over the years is that almost

every standard for pollutants is too low. Ultimately you know you can inject mice with the substance and it doesn't seem to hurt the mice. But if you live it for 40 or 50 or 60 years then increasingly it shows that in some people depending on individual people and their exposure and there are many other factors you get a higher incidence of diseases like cancer. So we need to protect our people. The environmentalists tell us that under the Bush administration proposals to relax air quality standards there'll be 100000 premature deaths in the next 15 years. We're going to tighten up air quality standards we're going to save 100000 people from premature deaths. I have one campaign related question for you General Clark. Lots of news coverage out of Iowa this week because of the upcoming caucuses. Do you regret at all not campaigning there. Well I I have I loved Iowa. I mean that was first place for the first of the early voting states. I went to I was there on the 19th September I was extremely well received.

I spoke to about 3000 people at the University of Iowa. They were very enthusiastic. I went back another time. I did a town hall meeting with Senator Tom Harkin. I talked to him about it. It was I really like Iowa. There's wonderful people there. It'll be the first place I campaign when I'm the party's nominee and I intend to carry Iowa in the general election. But I couldn't get in to Iowa for the caucus system. It was in feasible financially and time wise considering when I joined the race. New Hampshire is the first primary the first real voting and I've never run in an election. This is my first election and I'm thrilled to do it. New Hampshire a lot of the people in Iowa and but this is my first try here we're in a nationwide campaign we've got advertisement going in eight or nine states. I think we've got strong organizations in South Carolina Tennessee and Virginia and Oklahoma and Arizona Wisconsin Michigan in North Dakota where we're in

many many states. I just couldn't do Iowa given the time and the resources it was going to take. And I'm sorry I couldn't do it but it wasn't a mistake. I just couldn't do it. How important is a good showing in New Hampshire too. You could join to me as many people as I can to the voters. And I'm real happy. All right General Clark thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Good to be with you. Retired General Wesley Clark. Democratic presidential candidate for a list of upcoming shows in the exchange visit the exchange page in HPR darg. You can find out what's coming up in the days ahead on the exchange. Again the address and HPR. The exchange is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio produced by Keith shields Rebecca Kaufman and Ty Fraley. Our engineer is Dan COLGAN And I'm Laura canoeing on the

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