Clark says Bush is playing into Al Qaeda's hands

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Stumping for a Democratic congressional candidate, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark said the Bush Administration is playing into the hands of Al Qaeda by creating “zones of chaos” where the terrorist organization can work to build Islamic fundamentalist states.

“We hit the wall on Bush’s national security problem,” Clark told about 60 people at an American Legion Hall here. “The foreign policy of this administration is a failure.”

Clark said he was recently briefed by the Army on the strategy of Al Qaeda. According to the organization’s website, Al Qaeda hopes the United States will be “overextended” by various crises around the world. In these areas, Al Qaeda hopes to create “zones of chaos and savagery” where they can build fundamentalist Islamic states to take on the United States, Clark explained.

Clark said with Iraq, Afghanistan, and looming problems with Iran and North Korea the country is falling right in the playbook of Al Qaeda.

“The greatest gift we could have given Osama Bin Laden is to invade Iraq. He’s gone in their and exploited it,” Clark said. “That’s playing into Osama Bin Laden's strategy. He’d love it if we were to going to attack Iran."

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said Clark's comments were "typical of a man known by his military colleagues as
lacking integrity and trustworthiness".

"There is only one person that ran for president in 2004 that had more
positions on the Iraq war than Wesley Clark, and that was Massachusetts's junior senator," said RNC spokesman Danny Diaz.

Clark's comments come just a day after the Republican National Committee began running ads with images of Osama bin Laden telling voters to remember him as they go to the polls on Nov. 7.

This is Clark's fourth trip to New Hampshire since in the 2004 presidential election and his first since May. Clark finished third in the 2004 New Hampshire Democratic Primary behind John Kerry and Howard Dean, but slightly ahead of John Edwards.

Anne Warner, a Democratic candidate for state representative in Londonderry, said she didn’t expect Clark to run a second time for president.

“Last time he started too damn late,” Warner said. “I don’t see how he can really run a second time but he has great credentials on national security.”