WASHINGTON – Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark has told friends he is likely to become the 10th Democratic presidential candidate, a move that could shake up the crowded field just four months before the first ballots are cast.

Clark, 58, has not made a final decision, but the Arkansas resident is aggressively recruiting campaign staff and plans to announce his intentions next week, friends and party officials said on condition of anonymity.

Clark confirmed that he was putting a campaign plan together but chalked it up to the type of "parallel planning" common in the military. "If you want to find out whether you're going to go ahead, you have to have financial resources and you have to have staff available," he told The Associated Press.

Clark is not looking to be VP.

If Clark were to enter the race, it would be to win the nomination and not simply position himself for the No. 2 slot, friends said.

Clark has a resume that unnerves potential rivals – Rhodes scholar, first in his 1966 class at West Point, White House fellow, head of the U.S. Southern Command and NATO commander during the 1999 campaign in Kosovo.

A Clark White House bid would grab the political spotlight and undercut the strengths of several in the nine-way Democratic race.