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Rumsfeld: US Positions Military Forces Around World
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Sunday that his country is positioning military forces around the world to fight a war on terrorism that will involve more than Afghanistan.
"What we've been doing since the day of the attack is getting our forces positioned in various places around the world," Rumsfeld said on CBS television's "Face the Nation."
"This is not an Afghan problem. This is a worldwide problem of terrorist networks," he said, adding that Saudi-born extremist Osama bin Laden's organization, al Qaeda, operates in at least 60 countries and is just one of many networks.
The U.S. military is in the midst of its biggest mobilization since the 1991 Gulf War, with B-1 and B-52 bombers, dozens of fighters, and support aircraft ordered to the Gulf and Indian Ocean region, along with elite Special Operations troops.
Asked whether the United States had ruled out using nuclear weapons, Rumsfeld said that historically "the United States, to my knowledge, has never ruled out the use of nuclear weapons."
However, Rumsfeld did not suggest the country intended to use such weapons.
The United States has named bin Laden as the prime suspect in last week's hijacked airliner attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Defense Department building in Washington that left 6,800 people dead or missing.
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