The Hindu : Terrorist states must be punished: U.S.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jun 11, 2002

International

International

Terrorist states must be punished: U.S.

KUWAIT JUNE 10. The U.S. Defence Secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, on Monday dismissed claims by the Iraqi Government that it has no nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and is making no effort to acquire them.

``They are lying,'' he told a news conference at Kuwait's international airport before flying to Bahrain.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry in Baghdad issued a statement on Sunday asserting that the Government of Saddam Hussein has neither made nor possessed weapons of mass destruction in more than a decade. ``Iraq has said on many occasions that it is not concerned with entering the mass destruction weapons club. ... We left it in 1991,'' the official statement said.

Mr. Rumsfeld said the Iraqi claim could not be trusted.

``It is false, not true, inaccurate and typical,'' he said, adding that Iraq remained a destabilising factor in the Gulf region. ``They have had an active programme to develop nuclear weapons,'' Mr. Rumsfeld said. ``It's also clear they are actively developing biological weapons'' and used chemical weapons against their own Kurdish population in the 1980s.

On Sunday at Kuwait's Camp Doha, a desert encampment 56 km from the Iraqi border, Mr. Rumsfeld told American troops that state sponsors of terrorism must be punished.

Without mentioning Iraq by name, he said the soldiers were on the front lines against a dangerous foe.

``You are the people who stand between freedom and fear, between our people and a dangerous adversary that cannot be appeased, cannot be ignored and cannot be allowed to win,'' he told about 1,000 troops assembled in an air-conditioned gymnasium on a 43-degree Celsius afternoon.

Mr. Rumsfeld left little doubt he was aiming his words at Iraq, which he often says is among nations that support international terrorist groups and could help them gain access to weapons of mass destruction. These states, he said, ``do need to be stopped so that they cannot threaten or hold free people hostage to blackmail or terror.'' He again alluded to Iraq in describing the ultimate goal of the U.S. President, George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

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