- President George W. Bush singled out Iran, Iraq and North
Korea as "an axis of evil," bluntly warning the three nations
that they could soon become targets in the US-led war on terrorism.
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- Delivering his first State of the Union address to a
joint session of Congress, Bush put the three so-called rogue states on
notice that the United States is prepared to act, alone if it has to,
against
them should they threaten their people, their neighbors or others.
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- In addition, the president said the United States could
and would bear the immense cost of a military campaign against any one
the nations, maintaining that the price of doing nothing to counter such
threats "would be catastrophic."
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- "States like these, and their terrorist allies,
constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the
world,"
Bush said in the speech which appeared to anticipate an extension of the
anti-terror campaign beyond Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden.
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- "By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these
regimes
pose a grave and growing danger," he said. "They could provide
these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their
hatred.
-
- "They could attack our allies or attempt to
blackmail
the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would
be catastrophic.
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- "All nations should know: America will do what is
necessary to ensure our nation's security," he said.
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- "We will be deliberate, yet time is not on our side.
I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as
peril draws closer and closer.
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- "The United States of America will not permit the
world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most
destructive
weapons," he said, laying down a direct challenge.
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- Bush said that while Iran, Iraq and North Korea might
not have been particularly active since the September 11 terrorist attacks
in New York and Washington which sparked the US war on terrorism, he was
not fooled by them.
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- "We know their true nature," he said.
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- Bush accused Stalinist North Korea of arming itself with
missiles and weapons of mass destruction "while starving its
citizens."
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- "Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports
terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for
freedom,"
he said, in an apparent reference to Iran's alleged involvement in a foiled
Palestinian arms smuggling operation.
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- But Bush saved his harshest comments for Iraq --
frequently
mentioned as a possible next target in the anti-terror campaign.
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- "Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward
America
and to support terror," he said.
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- "The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax,
and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade," Bush said,
demanding that Saddam Hussein allow UN weapons inspectors back into his
country.
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- "This is a regime that has already used poison gas
to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers
huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to
international
inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors.
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- "This is a regime that has something to hide from
the civilized world."
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- Bush left his warning to the three countries vague
without
mentioning any specific actions that could be taken against them, but he
hinted that he would move to use the full force of American military might
if he had to.
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- He told Congress that the war in Afghanistan was costing
more than one billion dollars a month to fight, but that it was worth
it.
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- "It costs a lot to fight this war ... and we must
be prepared for future operations," Bush said.
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- "Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons
defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We
need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile to put
our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely."
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- Copyright © 2002 AFP. All rights reserved.
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