Rumsfeld warns of deadlier attacks

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday the United States must prepare now for potential surprise attacks "vastly more deadly" than the Sept. 11 terrorist hijackings.

In a speech laying out the Bush administration’s justification for proposing a $48 billion increase in the 2003 defense budget, Rumsfeld said the nation is vulnerable to new forms of terrorism ranging from cyberattacks to attacks on U.S. military bases abroad to ballistic missile attacks on American cities.

"Our job is to close off as many of those avenues of potential attack as is possible," he said in a speech at the National Defense University.

His remarks coincided with new indications that terrorists have considered a range of possible attacks. The FBI warned on Wednesday that al-Qaida terrorists may have been studying American dams and water-supply systems in preparation for new attacks.

Rumsfeld said there could be no doubt that in the years ahead the American people will be faced with an attacker as unconventional and unpredictable as the hijackers who killed more than 3,000 people by flying airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

He warned of new adversaries who may strike in unexpected ways with weapons of increasing range and power. He appeared to be referring to ballistic missiles, a weapon the administration fears countries like North Korea, Iran and Iraq could either use against America or sell to terrorist groups.

"These attacks could grow vastly more deadly than those we suffered" on Sept. 11, he said.

Later in a question-and-answer session with his audience, Rumsfeld said that if a terrorist group linked up with a "terrorist state" and obtained nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the group would have the power to put at risk "not thousands of lives but hundreds of thousands of lives."