[jerseygirl]

from information warfare site:

Rumsfelds comments about biological attacks. Note also his rationale for pre-emptive strikes.



09 February 2004
Rumsfeld Urges NATO Intelligence Coordination

Defense secretary speaks at Munich security conference Feb. 7

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in Munich February 7 during a question and answer session with participants at a conference on security, tackled the subject of how NATO might address strategic issues before they become military ones.

"[O]ne thing NATO might do," Rumsfeld said, "would be to do a better job of seeing that the intelligence capabilities of the respective countries are brought together and that the people in NATO and the capitals of NATO countries are kept tuned into those threats and the kinds of capabilities that we as free people face. We're much more likely to get a faster common understanding to the extent we have a reasonably similar perspective with respect to what the facts are."

Asked for a good rationale to explain the doctrine of pre-emptive military action to European allies, Rumsfeld said what is at risk "is something that we all, collectively, individually, are going to have to think through. ... What we've seen in the press is a ... private network in some instances ... moving around weapons of mass destruction and the abilities to produce them. If that's happening ... one has to say, we know there's an appetite on the part of terrorists to kill people. They're training. People are being trained in schools to do that. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that at some point these private networks and these terrorist networks are going to connect, and at that moment people are going to have to face up to the realities of the 21st century."