Rumsfeld: Defeating terrorists will require going on the offense

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in a statement Tuesday, after an attack in Brussels, that defeating radical Islamic terrorists will require going on the “offense.”

“With the goal of stopping radical Islamic terrorists from attacking innocent men and women, our response cannot be defense alone — it will require offense,” he said in a statement released on Twitter. 

{mosads}”In short, we must go after the terrorists one by one, if we are to reduce the carnage they are bringing across the globe,” he said. 

Rumsfeld served as Defense secretary under former President George W. Bush during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. After the attacks, the Bush administration advocated a strategy of “preemptive strikes” against threats, which came to define the Bush Doctrine of foreign policy. The administration invaded Iraq in 2003 under a rationale that it had weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the U.S. 

The coordinated terrorist attacks in Brussels on Tuesday morning left at least 34 dead and more than 100 others wounded.  

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said the attack had all the “hallmarks” of an attack inspired or coordinated by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). 

Rumsfeld did not give any recommendations on how to go on the offense but said that it was impossible simply to rely on defensive measures. 

“A terrorist can attack at any moment of the day or night, at any location, using any technique. It is not possible to defend at every moment, in every location, against every conceivable technique,” he said.