By Jen DiMascio
The former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark last week emphasized the need for the Bush administration to work closely with its successor in the transfer of power that will occur next January.
“This is the first time in over 40 years we’ve had a transition when the country has been at war. And so the transition at the Defense Department is a very, very important one,” Clark said during a panel discussion sponsored by Fleishman-Hillard and Roll Call called “Looking Toward 2009.”
With that in mind, Clark said that the Bush administration should have a transition team that is at least as aggressive as the incoming transition team.
“There should be a clear direction and a very formal turnover of the facts and the issues concerning us in the security and national security arena,” Clark said.
Although the current discussion has been focused on Iraq, it will eventually move to a discussion of what the world is going to look like and whether the national security apparatus is shaped correctly for that world.
In terms of Iraq policy, both Democratic candidates Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) gave speeches last week saying that once elected, they would begin phased withdraws of troops from Iraq.
Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), shot down their plans as irresponsible.
According to Clark, victory in Iraq in the near term is not probable. “The reason is that the nature of this fight and the longevity of the fight that’s coming is something I don’t think the American people have come to grips with yet,” he said, adding it will be a key topic of discussion after the conventions.
Former White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta had a slightly different take, saying that once a candidate takes office, the president has to take on the responsibilities of the office, which means listening to the recommendations of military commanders.
As a member of the Iraq Study Group, Panetta said he is concerned that there has been no clear direction in Iraq and that three recommendations of the group still stand.
Those include moving the U.S. military from a combat role to a support one, pushing the Iraqi government to make political reforms promised for more than one year and drawing together an international diplomatic effort that includes Iran and Syria.
“That’s what we recommended in the Iraq Study Group, and those three things are still relevant,” Panetta said.