Arnie snubs Dubya, won't give troops

Sacramento (US): California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this week rejected a request from the Bush

administration to send an additional 1,500 National Guard troops to the Mexican border, the Governor's office confirmed.

The National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, asked for the troops to help with the border-patrol mission in New Mexico and Arizona, but Schwarzenegger said the request would stretch the California Guard too thin in case of an emergency or natural disaster.

Schwarzenegger's spokesman Adam Mendelsohn confirmed the Governor's decision on Friday after two California National Guard officials revealed it.

Mendelsohn said the Governor believed sending more troops would create an inappropriate burden on the state and disrupt the Guard's training schedule. The overall deployment for the border mission will remain at 6,000 soldiers.

White House spokesman Blain K Rethmeier said the administration remained committed to expanding the border

patrol and reaching its targets of deployment as soon as possible.

"We are reviewing how this decision by California's Governor may affect the overall deployment schedule of

National Guard troops to the border," Rethmeier said in a statement on Friday night.

On June 1, Schwarzenegger agreed to send the California National Guard to the Mexican border to help the federal government's effort to curb illegal immigration.

That ended a 17-day standoff with the Bush administration over whether the state would join the border patrol effort and who would pay for it.