General Wesley Clark on Fox News Live
May 30, 2006
transcript by Reg NYC

Martha MacCallum: And North of the border, Canada's intelligence service is warning, warning that the risk of home grown terrorism is growing in their estimation. The spy agency in Canada says that dangers from outside their border are now as prevalent as the risks that exist right inside their own country from their own citizens in many cases, and that is not very comforting here in the US where we share a very long border with our neighbors to the North. For more on this, I'm joined by Fox News analyst General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. General, good to to have you with us today.

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

Martha MacCallum: Now, we've spent so much time focusing on the border to the South and Mexico and being concerned, rightly so, about what should be done about the infiltration on folks illegally coming across that border. How concerned do you think we should be, and what do you think of Canada's intelligence assessment?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think we should be concerned. I think it's a good thing that the Canadians are admitting this publicly and recognizing that there is a threat up there. You know, we broke up a threat, an Al Qaeda threat directed against LAX at Christmas time of 1999 from a terrorist who was coming across the, the border from Vancouver and got picked up by one of our customs agents as he was excessively nervous about what he had with him in the automobile he was driving. So, I think that, you know, we've watched the Canadian border for a long time, but ultimately, we're not going to be able to solve this with just a fence across that border. This really requires active work by the government of Canada, and they've got to really look at the people that are there, both the people who're coming in and their own citizens. They are working with us. I think we can do more together, and I think that's ultimately what we're going to have to do to provide security here.

Martha MacCallum: And do you think that's what they're sort of suggesting here. Are, are they sending a clarion call that says, 'We may have more than we can handle, and we now know there are Canadian citizens who, some of whom are foreign born, some who moved there, some were born there who have been brought to a, you know, state of mind of radicalism, and we need help dealing with this situation' ?

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well, I think they're certainly saying to their own citizens that the government of Canada is going to have to look at a broad array of measures to provide stronger homeland security inside Canada, and of course that will help us. I don't know that they need so much help from us. There's a lot of cooperation now, but maybe they need to tighten up their own procedures. The Canadians are really strong believers in civil liberties and Democracy, and they've been very slow to really recognize the threat, the same way we have in America. Of course Canada, for all their sympathy for us, they weren't attacked on 9/11. They do come from a different tradition. So, I think this is more a political call inside Canada to get tough, get straight and do their own job on homeland security.

Martha MacCallum: Absolutely. Now, I want to switch gears for a moment and talk about Zarqawi. There were some stories over the weekend that he may be changing his tactics, that he might be looking towards building sort of a mini-military that could do guerilla-type attacks against Coalition Forces and against bases and hard structures in Iraq and around the Middle East. What do you think of that change in strategy and, and even the assessment that it's not so easy to find people who want to kill themselves in, in homicide bombings.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Well Martha, I think that's all part of it. First of all, this is the classic method of progression of guerilla warfare. Mao Tse Tung did this in China. Ho Chi Minh did it in Vietnam. It's about starting with very small guerilla activities, assassinations and terrorism, and then moving up eventually to what they called a 'war of movement', where actual units could maneuver out in the field. All guerilla, all insurgencies try to do this, because it gives hope and confidence to the people who are in it. It shows a path to the future and success, because they know they can't win just by suicide bombings. On the other hand, he's going to have a very hard time doing this.

Martha MacCallum: Yeah.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: As long as we're there, we've got control of the skies. We've got enormous-

Martha MacCallum: Alright.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: -firepower, and when they mass, we're going to take them out.

Martha MacCallum: Alright, General Clark. thank you very much.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Thank you.