Skip to main content /WORLD
CNN.com /WORLD
CNN TV
EDITIONS






Rumsfeld's terror warning for NATO

Rumsfeld
Rumsfeld visits a NATO AWACS centre in Germany  


BRUSSELS, Belgium (CNN) -- NATO has moved to include its eastern nations in the debate on terrorism after a stark warning from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the threat western alliance nations face.

Speaking at a NATO summit in Brussels, Rumsfeld said the western military alliance must take the offensive against terrorists who will attempt attacks that could make September 11 look "modest by comparison."

On Friday NATO defence ministers moved to seek greater cooperation with 27 mostly former East bloc nations who joined a second day of talks.

"It is our task to ensure that the partnership continues to make its contribution to Euro-Atlantic security in a rapidly changing world," NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said at the meeting.

Robertson said the 46-nation partnership was already "an essential pillar of the international coalition against terrorism" but stressed, "to enhance our security, we must continue to evolve."

CNN NewsPass VIDEO
Rumsfeld seeks ways to calm South Asia crisis (June 5)

Play video
 
IN-DEPTH
India and Pakistan South Asia power play over Kashmir 
 
 QUICKVOTE
Can Rumsfeld and Blair defuse the Kashmir crisis?

Yes
No
View Results

 

The countries attendeding ranged from Slovenia, Latvia and Romania, which have long worked closely with NATO and are expected to receive an invitation to join the alliance in November, to Central Asian states, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, assisting the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

NATO is hoping to bring them into a wider campaign against terrorism, which the alliance ministers highlighted as the priority on Thursday after Rumsfeld delivered his warning about threat from extremist groups obtaining nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Rumsfeld told a news conference on Thursday it may be necessary for NATO to "calibrate the definition of defensive" to counter new threats from global terrorist organisations with weapons of mass destruction.

"If terrorists can attack at any time and any place using any technique, and it is physically impossible to defend in every place, in every time against every technique, then one needs to calibrate the definition of defensive," Rumsfeld told reporters.

"Literally the only way to defend against individuals, or groups, or organisations, or countries that have weapons of mass destruction and are bent on using them against you, for example... then the only defence is to take the effort to find those global networks and to deal with them as the United States did in Afghanistan. Now is that defensive or is it offensive? I personally think of it as defensive."

Rumsfeld's remarks came in answer to a question about whether NATO might have to change its traditional stance as a defensive organisation.

The United States, he said, had no interest "in doing anything in Afghanistan. The terrorists that had been trained there and that global network attacked the United States."

He said intelligence reports make it clear that "there are a good number of people who are well trained, they are well-financed, located in 40 or 50 countries, and they are determined to attack the values and the interests, the peace and the way of life of the people of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation nations.

"So I don't find this task notably different. It's different in the sense that we aren't dealing with armies, navies and air forces, but clearly every nation has the right of self-defence and this is the only conceivable way for us to protect ourselves from those kinds of threats."

Asked if he had discussed Iraq with the NATO ministers, Rumsfeld said the subject came up in the context of a nation that was trying to gain weapons of mass destruction.

Asked if there was any consensus about what to do about Iraq, Rumsfeld said that never came up.

Rumsfeld will also visit several Gulf countries including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, during his 10-day tour.

He is due to visit South Asia next week following U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday.



 
 
 
 






RELATED STORIES:
RELATED SITES:

 Search   

Back to the top