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Rumsfeld Preaches Offence Against Terror
Friday, June 7, 2002
l'Agence France-Presse (AFP)

BRUSSELS
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged Nato yesterday to go on the offensive against terror states and terrorists, warning that the threat of weapons of mass destruction is worse than imagined. Although Nato is by charter a defensive alliance, Rumsfeld suggested it take a broader view of pre-emptive military action against threats posed by terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction.

"If a terrorist can attack at any time, any place, using any technique, and it's physically impossible to defend every time, every place against any technique, then one needs to calibrate the definition of defensive," he told reporters. Going on the offensive, as the United States did in Afghanistan, is "literally the only way to defend against groups or countries that have weapons of mass destruction and are bent on using them against you," he said.

"Clearly every nation has the right of self defence and this is the only, only conceivable way for us to defend ourselves from those kinds of threats," he said. Rumsfeld's call to action came as ministers laid plans to make Nato forces more capable of responding swiftly to terrorists and weapons of mass destruction in far-flung crises. "We are a defensive alliance. We remain a defensive alliance. We don't go out looking for problems to solve," Nato Secretary General George Robertson said.
(More: The Oman Observer News Source)
2002 © l'Agence France-Presse (AFP).

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