WASHINGTON, March 28 (Xinhuanet) -- US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended the Bush administration's handling of terrorist threats on Sunday arguing that it was not possible to "stop every terrorist attack."

    Terrorists could attack at any time at any place, and "it means that you can't stop every terrorist attack," Rumsfeld said at "FoxNews Sunday."

    Arguing that Iraq was not a distraction for the Bush administration in the days before and after the Sept. 11 attacks, Rumsfeld said the US forces struck Afghanistan, not Iraq, after the attacks.

    "If one looks at what was done, we went to Afghanistan, we didn't go to Iraq," Rumsfeld said at ABC's "This Week."

    "It was a highly successful effort...It wasn't Iraq. It was Afghanistan," he added.

    Former White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clark testified before the independent commission investigating the Sept.11 attacks last week that the Bush administration did not take theterrorist threat seriously enough. He claimed that the administration had undermined the fight against terror by launching an "unnecessary" war in Iraq.

    The White House started a counterattack against Clarke after hehad the testimony and got his book critical of Bush on sale last week. Enditem