US defense chief says preemptive strikes fair topic for discussion

AFP. 22 July 2002

WASHINGTON -- Democratic nations have a right to consider attacking dictatorial regimes such as Iraq or North Korea which threaten them with weapons of mass destruction, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday.

"Is it incumbent upon us to wait until there is a Pearl Harbor, wait until there is an attack that has killed several thousand people and risk, not several thousand, but several hundreds of thousands of people, or millions? Is that the responsibility of free people today in the 21st century?" Rumsfeld asked.

"Or conversely, is it the responsibility of free people to look at the world and take people at their word and watch the progress of the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and see the risk that that poses of hundreds of thousands of people or potentially millions of people in your country and in your friends' and allies' countries and in deployed forces and take a step that would prevent that in your own self-defense?"

"And that, it seems to me, is an issue that ought to be discussed. It ought to be considered."

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