WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 (UPI) -- The United States can still be victorious in the war on terror, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says.
Wars are not "won by retreat or wishful thinking," Rumsfeld said, but "by determination; they're won by understanding the nature of the enemies we face and the consequences -- I would say the dire consequences -- of failing to understand or failing to refute them."
Rumsfeld told the Keeper of the Flame award dinner at Union Station Thursday that Americans needed to reaffirm their commitment to the fight against global terrorism.
"In the long, hard slog ahead -- and it will be long, and it is hard, let there be no doubt -- it's up to all of us to continue to wage the war of ideas and convey to others the importance of the fight, the scope of the threat, and the consequences of failure," Rumsfeld said, according to a report carried by the American Forces Press Service.
The Keeper of the Flame award was created in 1990 by the Center for Security Policy. This year, the award went to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The United States had to keep on the offensive against terrorist forces and fight them where they were based, to keep them off balance before they could attack the U.S. mainland again, as they did on Sept. 11, 2001, Rumsfeld said. "Wars are not won by evacuations," he said, quoting Winston Churchill, according to the AFPS report.
