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Wesley Clark

From Internet-Encyclopedia,
http://www.internet-encyclopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Wesley_Clark

Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) was the U.S. Army General who commanded Operation Allied Force. This was NATO's response to the 1999 Kosovo crisis, and the first major combat operation in NATO history. He had a distinguished career in the United States Army and the Department of Defense. Clark retired a four-star general, and is said to have received more decorations than any soldier since Eisenhower.

Biographical Sketch

Clark's father Benjamin Kanne was an Orthodox Jewish lawyer and Democratic Party politician, who died in 1948. His mother then returned home to Little Rock and married a former banker, Victor Clark. Wesley was brought up a Baptist Christian, and attended public schools. During the Vietnam war, he married Gertrude Kingston of Brooklyn, New York, and became a Roman Catholic. They have a son, Wesley Jr.

Clark graduated first in his class at West Point, and studied PPE as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He also graduated from the National War College, Command and General Staff College, Armor Officer Advanced and Basic Courses, and Ranger and Airborne schools. He was an instructor and later an Assistant Professor of Social Science at West Point.

Clark led the US military team during negotiations that led to the Bosnian Peace Accords at Dayton, under the overall leadership of Richard Holbrooke.

From 1997, he was head of the U.S. European Command (CINCEUR), responsible for about 109,000 U.S. troops and all U.S. military activities in 89 countries and territories of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. As SACEUR he also had overall command of NATO military forces in Europe and led approximately 75,000 troops from 37 NATO and other nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.

According to a BBC profile of the General, at the conclusion of his command in Kosovo, which followed the end of the military campaign, there was an incident involving Russia's use of an airfield in Kosovo. After a token Russian force took control of the Slatina airfield (also called the Pristina airfield) on June 10, 1998, there is said to have been a "battle of wills" between Clark and and the British NATO commander, Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson. Clark ordered British forces to resist Russian troops that occupied the airfield. Jackson did not comply, reportedly later saying "I'm not going to start the third World War for you."

Clark, in an NPR interview, said that the incident was a surprising moment for him. Clark indicated that his order to block the runways was refused by an emotional Jackson and that he took the matter up the British chain of command. Clark stated that General Sir Charles Guthrie, British Chief of Defence Staff, said that he agreed with Jackson. Guthrie also, according to Clark, told him that Hugh Shelton the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also agreed with him. Clark says that this was very surprising to him since the original suggestion to block the Russians came from Washington. Clark called the Pentagon looking for support and was told by Shelton "we don't want a confrontation but I do support you". Clark says he told Shelton "then you've got a policy problem". Clark maintained in the NPR interview that the matter was a difference in the perception of the policy between the US administration and the British government. Clark's position is that he was carrying out the suggestions of the administration in Washington.

Since his retirement from the army, Clark has worked as a military and international affairs analyst. He appears regularly on CNN in this role. In mid-2003, Clark's name began surfacing as a possible Democratic candidate in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election.

Clark's issues with the Bush administration may include Donald Rumsfeld pressuring credible military figures to support a U.S. invasion of Iraq "barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon." By August 2003, several organized groups were making a nationwide effort to "draft Clark" for the Democratic Party's nomination for the 2004 Presidential election. CNN on August 13 showed a commercial by one of these groups, and interviewed Clark. He disavowed any connection with the "draft Clark" groups, but said he had been considering his position and would likely within a few weeks make a public decision whether or not to run.

On September 17 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clark announced his intention to run for the Democratic nomination, becoming the tenth Democrat to do so: "My name is Wes Clark. I am from Little Rock, Arkansas, and I am here to announce that I intend to seek the presidency of the United States of America." He said, "We're going to run a campaign that will move this country forward, not back."

Life Events

* 1944 Born in Chicago, Illinois
* 1948 Father dies
* 1966 Graduates first in his class from US Military Academy at West Point
* 1966-8 Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics
* 1968- commander of a mechanized infantry company in combat in Vietnam wounded four times receiving Purple Heart and Silver Star
* 1975-6 White House Fellow, Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
* 1994-6 Director of the Pentagon's Strategic Plans and Policy operation, responsible to the Joint Chiefs of Staff for world-wide politico-military affairs and U.S. military strategic planning. Led the military negotiations for the Bosnian Peace Accords at Dayton.
* 1996-7 commander in chief of the U.S. Southern Command, Panama, controlling all U.S. forces & most U.S. military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean.
* 1997-2000 Supreme Allied Commander of NATO (SACEUR), and Commander-in-Chief for the United States European Command (CINCEUR).
* June 2000 retires from military service
* July 2000 senior adviser at CSIS
* 2000-2, corporate consultant for Little Rock-based Stephens Group Inc. helps develop emerging-technology companies.

Current offices

This list is not complete

* Chairman and CEO of Wesley K. Clark & Associates, a business services and development firm based in Little Rock
* Founder & Chairman of "Leadership for America", an independent non-partisan, non-profit organization "fostering the national dialogue about America's future"
* Senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
* Director of the Atlantic Council
* Board member of the International Crisis Group
* Chairman of the board of WaveCrest Laboratories of Dulles, Va., a technology company specializing in electric propulsion systems
* Senior military analyst for CNN, commenting on the US anti-terrorism activities and foreign policy

Military decorations

* Silver Star Medal
* Bronze Star Medal (2 awards)
* Purple Heart
* Distinguished Service Medal
* Defense Distinguished Service Medal (5 awards)
* Meritorious Service Medal (2 awards)
* Legion of Merit Medal (4 awards)
* Army Commendation Medal (2 awards)

Other honors

* Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bill Clinton
* Honorary knighthood (UK) in recognition of his role in Kosovo
* Honorary knighthood (Netherlands)
* Commander of the Legion of Honour (France)

Clark received more than 20 other major military awards from non-US governments.

Books

* Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat (2001, 2002), detailing diplomacy backed by force that was used to press back the Yugoslav troops from attacking the Albanians in the Kosovo province. ISBN 158648043X
* Winning Modern Wars: Iraq, Terrorism, and the American Empire (September 2003) ISBN 1586482181

External Links

* Profile - Esquire magazine
* Center for Strategic and International Studies home page
* Leadership for America home page
* The Atlantic Council of the United States home page
* The International Crisis Group home page
* Wavecrest Labs home page
* 9/11 bombshell
* Campaign site: www.draftclark.com
* Campaign site: www.draftclark2004.com
* Campaign site: www.draftwesleyclark.com

Footnote

šThe following references report the confrontation. Clark devotes an entire chapter to the incident in Gen. Clark's book Waging Modern War (Chap. 15).

* CNN, 12 June 1999
* Sunday Times, 2 August 1999
* The Guardian, 11 May 2000

References

* Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Wesley Clark" http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Clark  September 18, 2003

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Media Silent on Clark's 9/11 Comments
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/062103A.shtml

Friday 20 June 2003

Gen. says White House pushed Saddam link without evidence

Sunday morning talk shows like ABC's This Week or Fox News Sunday often make news for days afterward. Since prominent government officials dominate the guest lists of the programs, it is not unusual for the Monday editions of major newspapers to report on interviews done by the Sunday chat shows.

But the June 15 edition of NBC's Meet the Press was unusual for the buzz that it didn't generate. Former General Wesley Clark told anchor Tim Russert that Bush administration officials had engaged in a campaign to implicate Saddam Hussein in the September 11 attacks-- starting that very day. Clark said that he'd been called on September 11 and urged to link Baghdad to the terror attacks, but declined to do so because of a lack of evidence.

Here is a transcript of the exchange:

CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."

RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"

CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence."

Clark's assertion corroborates a little-noted CBS Evening News story that aired on September 4, 2002. As correspondent David Martin reported: "Barely five hours after American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon, the secretary of defense was telling his aides to start thinking about striking Iraq, even though there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks." According to CBS, a Pentagon aide's notes from that day quote Rumsfeld asking for the "best info fast" to "judge whether good enough to hit SH at the same time, not only UBL." (The initials SH and UBL stand for Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.) The notes then quote Rumsfeld as demanding, ominously, that the administration's response "go massive...sweep it all up, things related and not."

Despite its implications, Martin's report was greeted largely with silence when it aired. Now, nine months later, media are covering damaging revelations about the Bush administration's intelligence on Iraq, yet still seem strangely reluctant to pursue stories suggesting that the flawed intelligence-- and therefore the war-- may have been a result of deliberate deception, rather than incompetence. The public deserves a fuller accounting of this story.