08/10/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10058

RUMSFELD ON TERRORISM

After terrorists attacked the United States on September 11^th, President George W. Bush announced the U.S. would wage a war on terrorism. Mr. Bush said that the war was not just against the perpetrators of the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., but against all terrorists of global reach, their organizations and sponsors.

President Bush made clear his determination that terrorists that threaten the U.S. will find no safe havens. States that sponsor terrorism will be held accountable, with a heavy price to be paid for financing, harboring, or otherwise supporting terrorists. President Bush issued a worldwide call, inviting all freedom-loving nations to join the U.S. in this fight.

The world responded. Some seventy countries have joined the U.S.-led coalition. They are helping in many ways. They are sharing intelligence. They are seizing terrorist assets or breaking up terrorist cells on their territory. They are contributing air, sea and ground forces, combat air patrols, mine clearing and special operations. Others are helping quietly. But each is making important contributions to the global war on terror.

As U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld put it, "What a difference a year makes." Thanks to coalition efforts, said Mr. Rumsfeld, "The Taleban have been driven from power, al-Qaida is on the run, Afghanistan is no longer a base of global terrorist operations or a breeding ground for radical Islamic militancy." Afghanistan is now a free nation where aid workers can provide humanitarian assistance, girls can study, women can work, and the people can choose their leaders peacefully. Demonstrating the new hope for a better future in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees have already returned to their country.

But, said Mr. Rumsfeld, "These successes must not lull us into complacency. For every terrorist plot we discover and every terrorist cell we disrupt, there are dozens of others in the works." Al-Qaida operates not only in Afghanistan, but also in more than sixty countries including the U.S.

"Moreover," said Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, "al-Qaida is not the only global terrorist network. And terrorist networks have growing relationships with terrorist states that harbor and finance them – and may one day share weapons of mass destruction with them. What this means is that Afghanistan is only the first stage in a long, difficult and dangerous war on terrorism."