en. Wesley K. Clark accused the Bush administration
yesterday of "wrecking NATO" with a unilateral policy on Iraq, and he
angrily denounced as a smear a former colleague's statement that he was
replaced as NATO commander early because of questions of character.
General Clark was one of two candidates for the Democratic nomination
for president who sought yesterday to play to their strengths with what
aides characterized as major policy addresses. In Palo Alto, Calif.,
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut emphasized his integrity theme,
accusing President Bush of "handing over public policy to private
interests," including putting industry lobbyists in charge of regulating
the industries for which they once worked.
General Clark, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New
York, said that if elected he would seek to build a new alliance of
European and Middle Eastern nations to pursue a policy of "collective
preemption" against terrorism and the proliferation of unconventional
weapons. He said the administration was right in seeking to update the
doctrine of collective security and deterrence, the linchpin of American
foreign policy in the cold war. "But," he added, "it is wrong to insist
that the alternative must be unilateral pre-emption."
A new alliance, which he calls the Atlantic Charter, would "enable us
together with our allies to reach beyond the periphery of Europe to effect
a security equation that is increasingly global."
The United States would, however, retain the right to act in its
interest if its allies failed to back it, he said.
Although he named no prospective members of the Atlantic Charter from
the Middle East, General Clark said in an interview on Wednesday that he
would invite Israel and a number of Arab countries to join.
The Atlantic Charter would be modeled on NATO's "Partnership for
Peace," a sort of junior NATO status, without a military umbrella, that
was offered to Eastern European counties after the collapse of the Soviet
Union.
Asked by an audience member about his departure from NATO in 2000,
General Clark sharply criticized Gen. Henry H. Shelton, former chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said in September that General Clark left
his position early because of "integrity and character issues."
Without mentioning General Shelton by name, General Clark said that
nothing in his military record "has any suggestion about my character or
integrity." Banging his hand on the podium for emphasis, he added: "Let me
just underscore this � those words, whether they were intended or not,
whether they were misspoken or not � haven't been retracted, and they
constitute a smear, and I don't appreciate it."
General Clark restated his feelings about General Shelton's comments to
David Letterman, for a show broadcast last night.
He said any question of character was answered when he moved to "stand
up and help the United States do what was right in the situation in the
Balkans," where he successfully argued for the use of force in Kosovo.
Senator Lieberman hammered away on the issue of integrity in his
address to the Silicon Valley Commonwealth Club in Palo Alto.
"George Bush has compromised the people's trust in their government and
confidence in their economy by handing over public policy to private
interests," the senator said. "He has not just let them inside, he has
often put them in charge of the very federal agencies created to protect
the people."
Mr. Lieberman has touched on these themes before, but he used his
speech to go into far greater detail in his indictment of Mr. Bush,
accusing him of having the "foxes guarding the foxes" by putting former
lobbyists into watchdog positions.
"When you put these public agencies, these watchdogs, in the hands of
private interests they are supposed to oversee, you turn the meaning of
government on its head," he said.
