Gen. Clark Interviewed on terrorists and Gitmo

Adelante

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Wed Dec-30-09 08:29 PM
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Gen. Clark Interviewed on terrorists and Gitmo

BOLLING: General Clark, it doesn't strike me that these terrorists are afraid of us. Should they be afraid of us? Should they worry about President Obama going in Yemen and doing a preemptive strike? Fear might be a good thing in this case, no?

CLARK: Well, I don't know if they're worried about us or not. I'd like them to be right out in the open so we can snatch them all up right at once. But I want to do is take them out. I don't -- I'm not worried about their mindset, whether they're afraid, or cocky. I just want to deal with them. And to deal with them is take them down. Take them down, take them out of business. I'd like to see...

BOLLING: General?

CLARK: ...them brought on trial and dealt with the way terrorists should be dealt with.

BOLLING: General, I read that you'd like to see Gitmo closed. It strikes me as surprising that a general would like to see Gitmo closed. What do we do? We see two Gitmo detainees that were sent back to Yemen, who may have been or probably likely have been involved in a plot to blow up 300 people on Christmas Day. If we do close Gitmo, don't we risk another 195 detainees out there, out there plotting to blow up planes in America again?

CLARK: Well, I hope we've got evidence against these people in Gitmo. I'd like to see them put on trial. And if the evidence supports it, lock them up for the rest of their lives or worse. But I think Gitmo itself is a process that hasn't served the country's needs very well.

As far as these people that got to Yemen are concerned, apparently there was a rehab program that the Saudis were doing. It looks like it didn't work. So, I'd like some feedback on that if I were the commander and chief. I'd say what are you doing? What's our fail safe? We can't have people that are supposedly rehabbed and going back and plotting against us. That won't work.

BOLLING: Well, so what would you suggest? You would suggest, you know, more terror trials here in New York? Maybe a few in L.A.? Maybe some in Miami under the civilian codes rather than the military combatants that a Gitmo might allow?

CLARK: I don't think there was any net advantage of doing it under the military tribunal concept. I think we've got adequate capacity in the civilian courts to deal with these people. We've put them away before. If we need to take extra measures to protect intelligence information, we can do that through the court process. But I think it's really to our advantage as a society as a nation to use the full powers of the rule of law that we believe as Americans, show it as an example to the rest of the world, and show these people's crimes and their plots against humanity. That's what this is really all about. We want the Islamic world to turn against these terrorists in a very forceful way.

BOLLING: General, what do we do with this guy? What do we do with Mr. Abdulmutallab? Do we interrogate him? Do we use aggressive interrogation?

CLARK: I think from everything I've gotten so far, he's singing like a canary right now. So I think it's really up to the specialists who are doing the interrogation to figure out how to handle him, but he's a criminal. He should be charged with attempted murder and terrorism and everything else. I don't expect he'll ever see the light of day again.

BOLLING: You know, general, real quickly though, running out of time, about a minute left here, he could faces a little as 20 years in prison for plotting, attempting to kill 300 innocent people above Detroit. That seems like a fairly soft sentence for a guy who really wanted to carry this out.

CLARK: I'm not sure where you're getting your figure, but I would think that if you put him in, and put the charges against him, and let an American jury hear it, that they'll ensure that he gets a very adequate punishment.