THE US: The former NATO commander and political novice, Gen Wesley Clark, has decided to join the 2004 White House race, making the retired four-star general the 10th Democratic presidential candidate, sources close to him said.
Gen Clark, a former senior Pentagon war planner who headed the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo but is a newcomer to the battlefield of presidential politics was to announce his decision in Little Rock, Arkansas, the sources said.
His entry, widely anticipated by many Democrats, throws another wild card into an already unpredictable campaign that has focused on the struggling US economy and President George W. Bush's decision to invade Iraq.
Gen Clark (58), who had agonised over his decision whether to run for months, has been meeting potential donors and supporters and recently began interviewing prospective campaign managers.
Mr Ron Oliver, the Arkansas Democratic Party chairman, said Gen Clark met about 75 to 100 local activists and national party figures in Little Rock yesterday.
He cited Gen Clark as telling the group: "I think this crowd is going to like the announcement tomorrow. I think you are going to see a new direction in the presidential campaign."
Mr Oliver said a decision on the time and place for the Clark announcement would be decided shortly.
Among those invited to the meeting with Gen Clark were officials of President Bill Clinton's administration, including Mr Mark Fabiani, a former White House spokesman.
Several members of the team that helped take Mr Clinton from governor of Arkansas to president in 1992 were in Little Rock and had been talking with Gen Clark.
Whether the decorated Vietnam veteran will be a campaign trail star or crash and burn is a subject of much debate among Democrats, who still do not know much about the political rookie.
Gen Clark has the resumé to be a legitimate contender - Rhodes scholar, first in his 1966 class at West Point, four-star army general and head of the US Southern Command - but he is getting a late start that puts him far behind his rivals in fundraising and organisation.
"I think it will be very difficult for him," Mr Richard Myers, former House Democratic leader in Iowa, said recently. "There is interest in what he has to say, but many of the other candidates have been here organising for a very long time."
Some analysts believe that the inability of anyone beyond the former Vermont governor, Mr Howard Dean, to make a move in the crowded Democratic field, as well as a recent poll that showed two-thirds of voters still cannot name a Democratic candidate, leave a clear opening for a new face four months before the first primary voting.
His major selling points have been his military experience, which could give him standing against Mr Bush on national security issues, and his early opposition to the war in Iraq.
Gen Clark's candidacy means that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a decorated Vietnam veteran, can no longer claim to be the sole Democratic candidate with combat experience. And Gen Clark's opposition to invasion of Iraq means Mr Dean has competition for the anti-war vote.
Being from the south, Gen Clark also could draw support away from Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who formally announced his candidacy yesterday, and Senator Bob Graham from Florida. - (Reuters)