"Cooperation with respect to security matters is crucial to political and economic success," Rumsfeld told a gathering of Central American defense ministers in the US state of Florida.

He said the expected benefits of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) were at risk because of destabilisizing forces such as drug trafficking, human smuggling and transnational gangs that plague the region.

"Those in the business community understand the nexus between security and economic opportunity. Money is a coward. It flees uncertainty, it flees instability," he said.

"Not one nation can deal with these times of cross-border threats alone."

Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua -- the only countries in the region with armies -- want to create a transnational rapid response force to combat youth gangs and the drug trade.

But the idea is problematic due to curbs on the armed forces taking police roles in the constitutions of various countries as well as in peace treaties that ended bitter civil wars in the region, and sovereign protections that bar joint military activities across borders.

Rumsfeld was asked why he advocated the use of the armed forces in roles reserved for the police, when that is prohibited in the United States, and given the disgraceful human rights records of some of the armies of Central America.

"For a number of challenges the military are not the answer. Different threats require different instruments of national power, and each country needs to determine the role of the military," Rumsfeld said.

But "many of these countries will begin trashing their old rules under new democracies," he added.

Honduran Defense Minister Federico Breve advocated creation of a regional peacekeeping force and another to respond to natural disasters, such as the one that struck chiefly Guatemala last week when Tropical Storm Stan killed more than 2,000 in flooding and mudslides there.

"Thirty percent of the population was affected in terms of infrastructure, roads, as well as their livelihoods," Guatemala's defense chief, General Carlos Villanueva, told the gathering.

"If there is anything that is clear ... is that countries that work closely together and plan together can cooperate in ways that are vastly more efficient and certainly have the potential to save lives and to assist people in a much more efficient way," Rumsfeld said.

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