America Under Attack: Gen. Wesley Clark Discusses Ongoing
Terrorist Situation
Aired September 11, 2001 - 11:28 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS
FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH
TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE
UPDATED. JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN ANCHOR: Former commander of
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is joining us
from -- is it? -- from Little Rock, Arkansas.
General
Clark, from your knowledge of the military you know the
Pentagon, what are you thinking right now?
GEN. WESLEY
CLARK, FMR. NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Well, good morning, Judy.
First of all, we've got to try to assess what's really
happening. And as all of the new reports indicate, this is --
it's clearly a coordinated effort. It wasn't announced. It
hasn't been announced that it's over. We don't know how it
will finally conclude. So there's likely to be more trouble
before all of this concludes.
So we've got to protect
the American people first. We've got to look after those who
are injured. We've got to take precautionary measures to deal
with future incidents. And I think all of that's under way
with a lot of responsible action by people everywhere.
The damage at the Pentagon is unclear from all the
news reports that I've seen. The one report that said it
crashed into the Army- side of the building. There are command
centers in various places of the Pentagon and there are many
other alternate command centers. So I don't think there's
really any issue about the command and control of the United
States armed forces. I'm sure that's very solid right now.
WOODRUFF: General Clark, why do you say there are
likely to be -- there's likely to be more trouble?
CLARK: Well, we're hearing, still, reports of aircraft
that are out there. There's no way of knowing when all of the
possible incidents have either taken place or been aborted by
whoever it is that's behind this.
CLARK: And so, we
have to -- we have to be ready for whatever might happen
next.
WOODRUFF: General, can you give us some sense of
-- clearly the United States has never experienced anything of
this magnitude, but what is the -- what are the leaders of our
military, the Joint Chiefs, the secretary of defense and
others, what presumably are they doing right now, in order to
be on top of the situation, where you have the Pentagon on
fire, New York City in a state of chaos, and every federal
building in Washington evacuated?
CLARK: Well, first of
all, we'll be trying to -- we'll be trying to assess what
happened. We'll be making sure that the protection posture of
our bases worldwide and all of our units out there is raised
so that we're able to protect our forces and our family
members.
And then we'll be looking to provide
assistance to wherever such incidents might occur, whatever
military capabilities there will be that could be of use will
be certainly made available to the other agencies of state,
local and federal government who are involved in trying to
deal with these tragedies right now.
Then, beyond that,
we'll be waiting for the information to come in about who may
have been behind this, and we'll be looking at what measures
can be taken to strike and prevent further actions or in
punitive retaliation.
WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of that,
General Clark, wouldn't you agree there are very few of the
terrorist groups, at least that we're familiar with, who would
have the capability to pull off something this coordinated, on
this scale?
CLARK: I think that's exactly right. There
is only one group that has ever indicated that it has this
kind of ability, and that's Osama bin Laden's. So obviously,
that will be the first suspicion.
WOODRUFF: Are you --
clearly, we are all in a state of shock, General Clark. But is
it fair to say that you're not truly surprised by this given
what we've heard from that particular group? And again, we
don't know who is behind this, but given what we do know.
CLARK: Well, there have been many threats made against
the United States, and threats of terrorism. And we know that
the World Trade Center has been a target. We know that
aircraft have been hijacked, and we know that car bombings are
used in many places in the world. And there is no doubt that
for a long time there have been groups who have tried to
target the United States.
Normally, many times, we've
gotten indications, we've been able to take actions that the
American public never knows about that have broken up these
attempts. In this case, for whatever reason, we didn't have
the information. We weren't able to take the actions to break
it up.
WOODRUFF: And General, what do you say to those
Americans who are looking at these horrific pictures that
they've been watching now for almost three hours on
television, who are thinking, "Will I ever feel safe again in
an airplane, in a tall building in this country?
CLARK: I think that that will be one of the primary
issues that has to be addressed by government leaders is how
to restore ever a sense of normalcy to the country. Will it
ever be the same? And that's a question everybody will be
asking. But I think it's too soon to expect any answers to
that. I think we've got to assess this. We've got to track
this down.
I think one thing that come through very
clearly now is, if this is terrorism and international
terrorism, then clearly there has to be a much greater degree
of cooperation between nations to deal with this.
Whoever did this lives somewhere. He's supported by
someone, and people know him. And someone knew that these
events were being planned. And if we didn't have that
information, we should have. And I think that's one resolve
that will come out of this from nations all over the world
that more has to be done collectively together.
WOODRUFF: But in a large sense, General Clark, whoever
was behind this has clearly succeeded in the most horrific and
devastating way.
CLARK: Well, it's been a tragedy for
America, there's no doubt about that. And for so many people
and their families, our hearts go out to them.
WOODRUFF: General, we're looking -- as I'm talking
with General Wesley Clark who is a former NATO commander, he's
talking to us from Arkansas. We're looking at helicopter
patrolling, I believe, it's the area around the Pentagon,
although, I can't tell by the banner across the lower part of
the screen.
WOODRUFF: We do know that President Bush
was in Florida this morning. He abruptly cut his trip short in
order, we think, to fly back to Washington.
And,
General Clark, while you are with us, what would the plans be
for the president in this situation, without giving away
secure information, would the president necessarily return to
Washington? Is there always a plan in place in these
situations?
CLARK: Well, there would have to be a plan
always in place to take the president to where he can best
control what's going on and monitor it and make decisions and
also where he will be safe. And you can be sure that there are
plans and backup plans and alternate plans to the backup
plans. There'll be no shortage of efforts under way to assure
his safety and his ability to maintain the continuity of
government.
WOODRUFF: And once again, just finally,
General Clark, as we look at these live pictures of the
Pentagon, describe for us what you know of the section of the
building that evidently was hit by the commercial jet
liner?
CLARK: Well, that picture seems to be from the
area of the bridges, the 14th Street bridge, looking at the
corner of the Pentagon that is opposite from where the strike
was. So it looks like the strike hit between the fourth,
fifth, maybe sixth corridors of the Pentagon, perhaps on the
Army side of the building. There are a number of offices
there, administrative offices, where Army leaders and staff
officers work on a daily basis.
They deal with things
like planning and logistics and congressional relations and
public affairs in that area. And the Army leadership is
probably close to where that may have impacted. There are a
number of other facilities below ground, some of which have
been relocated and it's impossible to see from that picture
what the condition might be there.
WOODRUFF: General
Clark, any final word before we let you go?
CLARK:
Well, I think that we've known for some time that there were
groups planning this. And I think that the American people
should know that the men and women in government and all the
agencies have worked very hard and very diligently against
this.
Obviously, we didn't do enough. We didn't either
have the tools or the cooperation or somehow get the
information that we needed to have prevented it.
And
you can be sure that those men and women are right now
resolved to do more and to be more effective. This is a
national challenge and I'm confident that we'll meet it.
WOODRUFF: All right, General Wesley Clark joining us
now from Little Rock, Arkansas. He is, of course, the former
commander of NATO.
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