"General Wesley K. Clark and Bill O'Reilly - The O'Reilly Factor" transcript
Fox News
September 23, 2005

Bill O'Reilly: In the Impact Segment tonight, one of the catastrophes of [Hurricane] Katrina was the Louisiana National Guard was out of position to defend the city once the levees were breached. It took days before the Guard arrived in force to stop the looters and bring supplies to the needy. In Texas, Governor [Rick] Perry has called up 5,000 Guard and strategically placed them in the hurricane zone. Also, the federal government is sending another 10,000 active troops to the Rita zone. Joining us now from Little Rock, Arkansas, is Fox news analyst General Wesley Clark.

You know, this is -- we just talked to the Mayor of Galveston, and I was surprised. I said, Look, do you have guard and state police there just to make sure that when the power goes out, and it went out during our conversation, you've got enough people to stop the inevitable crime that happens in any kind of a chaotic zone? But she didn't. She didn't. She didn't have any guard that she knew about in the city. Does that strike you as strange?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Not really, Bill. I'm a firm believer that the real responsibility lies with local authorities. I would much rather have the police, the state police there to do this. They know the people. They know the area. They know the vulnerabilities of it better. You know, when the guard should be there as a back-up. Now, what happened in Louisiana was that the real headquarters for the Guard is that maneuver brigade, the 256th Brigade of the Louisiana Army National Guard. They were actually in Iraq. And what happens is, it's not just the numbers of Guard or the numbers of Federal Troops. It's actually what the capabilities are that you want. So what you want your Guard, and your other troops, your active troops to do is you want them to bring communications, provide medical, provide logistics, supplies, trucks that can go through mud and stuff like that. Water, emergency construction. Getting people out of the elements. They can do all that. The last resort. That you'd hope you'd never have to do is put them in there to quell civil disorder. That's the hardest mission. It's the mission they should never be called on first but last because it's really the civil authorities up front.

Bill O'Reilly: All right. But here's not what I am understanding. Because I was in the middle of the LA riots in the early 90's when Rodney King, you remember right?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I remember.

Bill O'Reilly: The Governor of California called the Guard out right away to assist the LAPD. Because there was violence, rampant anarchy down in the South Central District of Los Angeles. They came in and they stopped it. Now in New Orleans, the Mayor there, and the Governor had to know that there were more than 100,000 people not leaving the city. They knew that because they designated refugees of last resort at the Superdome and the Convention Center. Yet they did not put security people in those refuges, ok, not refugees, refuges is what I meant.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well I think they had a battalion of the Army National Guard in the Superdome.

Bill O'Reilly: But they were overwhelmed

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, they were there but

Bill O'Reilly: There were two hundred. There were two hundred, and they were looking at 25,000 people. They were overwhelmed quickly. So I'm saying to myself

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: They were cut off. What happened Bill is the water came up and they couldn't get relief. They couldn't get replacements. They couldn't get their own supplies.

Bill O'Reilly: Right. Right.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: And that's when people went to the Convention Center and because of the water they didn't have people there.

Bill O'Reilly: But why wouldn't you as a Governor, and I would do this if I were Governor of any States, anticipate where the chaos would hit and then deploy before so that, if you know, you gotta know there is going to be flooding and your gotta a big communications breakdown. You gotta know that's gonna happen in any kind of a big storm like this.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Always happens

Bill O'Reilly: Yea, you gotta put them in first and then they're there to prevent. See, all of the things that have happened in Katrina. And we hope it doesn't happen in Rita, we don't think it will, have been reactive rather than pro-active General.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well they weren't all reactive Bill. But what happened is the quality of the troops that were there, you know the headquarters that planned it and rehearsed it wasn't available. It was in Iraq. And so when you bring people in they don't have the maps, they haven't thought it through. They haven't participated in the drills and exercises. That's why I am such a believer in really treating these kinds of things as National Security problems that require local, state, and federal cooperation and support with proper, prior, planning. You gotta have exercises. And you gotta assume things like levees breaking, and communications failure.

Bill O'Reilly: That's right, you and I are agreeing

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: You gotta get all that stuff positioned, gotta practice it.

Bill O'Reilly: But none of that happened and in Rita we don't know where the 10,000 troops are. We don't know where the 5,000 Guard troops are. Now 15,000 military people in the Rita Zone, that should be enough to handle anything that happens. We just hope they are where they should be and it's not going to take them 2 days to get there because of flooding and things like that. Now you mentioned Iraq and it's interesting. I'm going to go away from the hurricane just for a second with the General because I was very surprised General, very surprised, when I heard today you met with Cindy Sheehan and I

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well I don't know why you would be surprised Bill?

Bill O'Reilly: Because she's an outright radical

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: She's a mother that's lost a son and I would meet with any mother, who, or any father or brother or sister who lost a relative in the military, whether in Iraq or anything else.

Bill O'Reilly: Do you know how radical she is General?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, you know what I saw is a women in a lot of pain. Now, my purpose in being there is talking about my own prescription for Iraq. I haven't had a chance to talk about it on your show Bill, but I think there is a small window before it's too late in Iraq.

Bill O'Reilly: Well let's get to, we'll, we'll

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: If we do the diplomacy right, we can take the pressure off our troops.

Bill O'Reilly: Let's get to that next week. We'll book you next week when we don't have a hurricane to deal with. But I was a little surprised that a man of your stature, would go to meet with somebody who said the following, America is a bad country, we've been murdering people since we first stepped foot on the continent. That the insurgents who are killing our soldiers right now are "freedom fighters in Iraq." I mean this is talking about Sunni fanatics and al Qaeda, right?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well

Bill O'Reilly: I mean meeting with her you gave by meeting her, with all due respect

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Bill, I'm not endorsing anything she says except for her grief

Bill O'Reilly: But you gave her credibility

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I didn't give her any credibility at all

Bill O'Reilly: Sure you did, you're a prestigious guy

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I was there. Now listen to me. I was there with Charlie Rangel and a couple of other Congressmen and we are trying to work on the right exit strategy, success strategy for Iraq. It's a very serious meeting. I was in there Tuesday night with a bunch of them in the Iraq Caucus with Congresswoman Maxine Waters. I've got traction. I think it's moving in the right direction for the country. Look, you cannot win this with military force alone. Everybody knows it. Ask any of the soldiers and they will tell you. The diplomats have to get to work. Our President [Bush] has got to get to work.

Bill O'Reilly: Ok. Ok.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: And as much as we dislike Syria and Iran, we've got to talk to them.

Bill O'Reilly: Alright. And we will have you on next week to get into a very serious discussion about this. But I will tell you, and we disagree. Gentlemen disagree. We're both gentlemen. You gave her credibility. She does not like this country. I fill bad for her loss. But her statements over the last month

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well I, no, no

Bill O'Reilly: have been absolutely irresponsible and outrageous, I am, I am just flabbergasted.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I can't imagine that she doesn't like the country.

Bill O'Reilly: Well she said we committed murder

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: She supported her son serving in the Armed Forces and I can tell you there is a lot of people who wear that American Flag pin who wouldn't let their children serve in the Armed Forces, so I honor any parent who's son serves in the Armed Forces, or daughter.

Bill O'Reilly: All right. Gentleman's disagreement. But just go back and look at the things she's said General. I don't know if this is the company you want to keep.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Let's talk next week. I want to talk about the policy not the company.

Bill O'Reilly: We will. We'll get deeply into that.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK: All right.

Bill O'Reilly: We're still hours away from Hurricane Rita making landfall, but as we've been reporting...