COLUMBIA, S.C. - Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark plans to focus on national security in a speech in South Carolina on Thursday.

Clark, a retired Army general who led NATO forces in Europe, comes into South Carolina this week on a high note. A poll released Friday showed that Clark surpassed U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in a poll of likely voters in South Carolina Democratic primary.

That poll, conducted by American Research Group of Manchester, N.H., showed Clark with 17 percent and Edwards with 10 percent. More than a third of the voters were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

That poll is encouraging, said state campaign director Scott Anderson, especially considering that Edwards is a South Carolina native and has been campaigning longer.

"We do think the ... poll that was released earlier this week, showing the general out in front shows the general's strong base of support here in South Carolina," Anderson said Sunday.

He said the general's military background and Southern heritage help him in South Carolina.

"They see him as a leader," Anderson said. "People are looking for leadership more than anything else right now in these troubled times."

The troubled times will be Clark's focus next week when he speaks in South Carolina. He will talk about an alternative strategy for the war in Iraq, said James Rubin, a former State Department spokesman under the Clinton administration and Clark's senior foreign policy adviser.

Rubin praised Clark's handling of the U.S. military action in Kosovo in the 1990s, saying the plan then had three key elements, including support of an international coalition.

Rubin said Clark "has been extremely concerned that those tests were not met before the president pulled the trigger in going into military action in Iraq."

"And the risks and consequences and negative of effects of failing to meet those tests are now something that you see they're paying for on the ground every day."

Rubin wouldn't reveal details of Clark's alternative strategy for dealing with Iraq.

But, he said, daily attacks on U.S. forces, including one Sunday that killed 15 soldiers and wounded 21 others, has Clark "very concerned that this is an escalation of capability on the part of the resistance and demonstrates again that the wrong force is in place, the wrong plan in place."

"And there is no evidence right now that we have come to grips with this terrible resistance that our soldiers are facing."