The only defense against terror is offense, Rumsfeld tells NATO
(AFP) Seeing a clear and present danger of biological and chemical attack from terrorists and rogue states, NATO set in motion urgent reform toward a leaner, meaner alliance capable of quick response to new threats.
At their biannual meeting here, NATO defense ministers heard a clear call from US colleague Donald Rumsfeld that it was time to move the traditionally defensive alliance to the offensive with possible pre-emptive stikes against terrorist threats.
"The real situation is worse than the facts show," he warned. "The threat is not theoretical. It is real. It is dangerous. And if we do not prepare promptly to counter it we could well experience attacks in our countries that would make the events of September 11 seem modest by comparison.
"If a terrorist can attack at any time and any place using any technique, this is physically impossible to defend," Rumsfeld told a press conference after the meeting.
"One needs to re-calibrate the definition of defensive, because truly the only way to defend against individuals or groups or countries that have weapons of mass destruction and are intent on using them... is to go and find those global networks and deal with them... as we did in Afghanistan."
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who later joined his 19 counterparts in a meeting of the newly former NATO-Russia Council, said he disagreed with "unilateral actions" against terrorists.
He said such actions should only be taken in the context of the UN Security Council, on which Russia, as a permanent member, has a veto.
The defense ministers, shaping a complete overhaul of the 50-year-old alliance to present to the NATO summit in Prague next November, were talking about wholesale change in the way NATO operates.
Massive tank attacks from the former Soviet Union and Warsaw pact countries, against which NATO was originally formed to defend, "are a thing of the past," said NATO Secretary General George Robertson.
"The range of threats is going to be a lot bigger than ever before," he said. "We have to face the fact that germ warfare is now coming onto the agenda of terrorists and terrorist states...," he said.
"We know weapons of mass destruction exist," he said, "and proliferation has put them in the hands of people far less rational than the people who were players in the past... There is concern that we do not have enough... capability to deal with these new and emerging threats."
A US spokesman told reporters the ministers had focused on responding to threats from weapons of mass destruction, particularly chemical and biological, from "rogue states."
States mentioned, were Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Libya and Cuba.
The spokesman said Rumsfeld and others had subscribed to the idea of the allies, particularly smaller ones, specializing in the type of military operations to which they were best suited.
Reforms being forged here, said the official, are "not a wish list... At the end of the day there will be clear instructions, a game plan on capabilities... with specific areas and dates" to take to Prague.
The message the ministers want to bring to the summit is that NATO needs to give itself the flexibility and capability so that, "if we're hit, we'll take action quickly, wherever it comes from."
The ministers hammered out concrete proposals to fine-tune NATO's defenses against chemical and biological weapons, a package of counter-terrorism measures that commits the allies to deploy as and where required.
They also looked at internal reforms aimed at trimming fat and waste and becoming more flexible as the alliance brings in new members, to be invited to join during the Prague summit, said the official.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, here for the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Council, said Russia was unconcerned with NATO eastward expansion, calling it "a concern for NATO, not for Russia."
Ivanov debriefed his NATO counterparts on Russia's growing role as mediator between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan over disputed Kashmir.
"We will be closely monitoring what (Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf has said to the effect that he will take every effort to limit trans-border terrorism against India," Ivanov told reporters.
"Russia is exercising caution" in the region, said Ivanov. "We see our prime task as not making the situation any worse than it already is. We intend to coordinate our actions with other nations similarly active in that area."