IMF can raise funds quickly for crises: Geithner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday the International Monetary Fund was in a position to raise a substantial amount of capital quickly but that it should not substitute for a forceful response by Europe to its debt crisis.

"The IMF is in a very good position ... to demonstrate to the world that ... it has the ability to raise additional finance from other countries very, very quickly if it needs to do that," Geithner said at the Brookings Institution. "I think that's good because that will prove to the world that there's a substantial capacity that can reinforce what Europeans are doing and help cushion, if necessary, the effects of any European trauma on the rest of the world."

"What we did not want to see is people look to the IMF as a way to substitute for a more forceful European response," he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Ahmann; Editing by James Dalgleish)