General Wesley Clark on Fox News
May 17, 2006
Transcript by Reg NYC

Martha MacCallum: Well, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld backing the President's plan to put the National Guard along the Mexico border. Rumsfeld and some of his Generals assuring members of Congress that using the National Guard to help secure our border will not stretch our military too thin.

For more on this, I'm joined by Fox News analyst General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. General Clark, good to have you with us this afternoon.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you. Good to be with you.

Martha MacCallum: What do you think about what Donald Rumsfeld had to say today? Do you think 6,000 troops in a non-military capacity, in a helping-out capacity on the border will do the trick?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that they can make some marginal contribution. I certainly hope they will. We've got great troops there. They've got great skills, and the border people always need help from helicopter transportation, logistics, some work in the commanders and so forth. It's a big burden on the National Guard, because they are heavily committed. But if this is what the President assigns them to do, out troops'll do it.

>Martha MacCallum: Why is it a big burden on the National Guard? You know, according to the numbers that I looked at, it's less than 2% of our National Guard at 6,000 people.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: It's a big burden for two reasons. First, because a lot of the Guard has been deployed overseas. It's recovering from that. They're scrambling to get their equipment in order. They're rebuilding their organizations. They're recruiting and training, and as I understand a lot of the deployment is going to take place over the two weeks of summer training period, the annual training period for these Guard units. So, what is means is a lot of people'll be going in and out of positions. That's going to put a lot of stress on the transportation, the coordination, the management of this program. So, this'll be a considerable burden on the Guard. It shouldn't be underestimated. I hope it'll do some good. Certainly, the American people want something done about immigration, and they're looking to the President for leadership.

Martha MacCallum: Do you think it accomplishes the goal or gets us closer? What would you like to see? You know, some people say it's going to take 20- 30,000 border patrol people, individuals on that border to really make a difference.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I'd like to see a strong commitment to reinforcing the US Border Patrol. I'd like to see better dialogue with the government of Mexico. I'd like to see some teamwork on both sides of that border, and I'd like to see some prosecution of companies that are using these illegal immigrants in their businesses. I think that it takes a full court press to solve this problem for the American people.

Martha MacCallum: Two, two issues that you just brought up that I want to get to. The first one, you know, when you look across the border, you say you want to improve relationship with the border with Mexico, and doesn't seem to me that they've done much to improve it, at least today, by saying that, that they might sue the US if their people get hurt trying to come across that border if they're trying to avoid the beefed-up personnel on the border.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think that's an overreaction at these American troops, these national Guard troops. They're not going to be on the border. They're not going to be doing stopping of the people coming across the border. They're not doing the police activities that have to be done along the border. They're just providing the backup support, the transportation, intelligence analysis and so forth. So, there's no reason for that, but what this does say is that we need much closer dialogue with the authorities in Mexico when we do something like this.

Martha MacCallum: And maybe some concessions on their side as well.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They need to do a lot.

Martha MacCallum: I know they're militarized on their side of the border as well.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: That's exactly right.

Martha MacCallum: General Clark, thank you very much. Good to talk to you.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.