U.S. Democrats rebuked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday for likening critics of the Iraq war to appeasement with Nazis during World War II.

In a speech on Tuesday at the national convention of the American Legion, a veterans' group, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Rumsfeld said critics of the Iraq war suffered from "moral or intellectual confusion" about what threatened the nation's security.

He cited "lessons" of history, including the failure to confront Hitler in the 1930s, and recalled a string of recent terrorist attacks, saying that terrorists must be confronted, not appeased.

"I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

"It's clear that if anyone's confused about what's happening in Iraq, it's Rumsfeld," the Democratic Party struck back in a statement posted on its Website.

Representative Ike Skelton, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said it was a "dangerous business to accuse those who disagree with you of moral and intellectual confusion."

"Debate in our democracy is based upon respect, not vilification," he said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said that if Rumsfeld was so concerned with comparisons to World War II, he should explain why U.S. troops had been fighting in Iraq longer than it took American forces to defeat the Nazis in Europe.

Source: Xinhua