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Iraq war did not create wave of terrorism-Rumsfeld
5.2.2006
By Louis Charbonneau
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MUNICH, Feb 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said on Saturday terrorists had made
Iraq the "central front" in their fight against the
West but denied the U.S. invasion of the country had
been a catalyst for terrorism.
"Iraq is the central front of the current war. And
they have announced it. The terrorists have
announced it," Rumsfeld told an annual security
conference in Munich.
Eventually "they will move it elsewhere", he added.
Rumsfeld said radical Islamic terrorists were using
Iraq as a training and recruiting ground, in the
same way as they operated in Afghanistan when the
Taliban were in charge.
But he vehemently rejected any suggestion that Iraq
had been a catalyst for a global wave of terrorist
acts.
"Any argument that Iraq might have been a trigger is
inconsistent with the facts," he said.
In addition to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which
are believed to have been carried out by al Qaeda,
Rumsfeld listed other attacks which he said Islamic
terrorists had masterminded. He mentioned the
massacre of schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia and
bombings in Britain, Spain, Egypt, Israel and
elsewhere.
Rumsfeld said that the world needed to prepare
itself for a long fight against Islamic terrorists
who he said wanted to set up a global Islamic
empire.
"They have designed and distributed a map where
national borders are erased and replaced by a global
extremist Islamic empire," he said. "As during the
Cold War, the struggle ahead promises to be a long
war."
Washington and its allies were doing everything
possible to ensure that terrorists did not get hold
of weapons of mass destruction, which he described
as a nightmare scenario.
"The world would change overnight if a handful of
terrorists managed to obtain and launch a chemical,
biological, or radiological weapon," he said.
He described Iran, which Washington and the European
Union suspect is developing nuclear weapons under
cover of a civilian atomic energy programme, as the
worst sponsor of terrorism on the planet.
Iran denies charges by the United States and Europe
that it is developing atomic weapons, insisting it
wants nuclear energy to meeting booming demand for
electricity.
Reuters
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