| http://www.dawn.com/2002/02/01/int2.htm
US officials struggle to paper over Bush speech By Our Staff Correspondent WASHINGTON, Jan 31: Senior US administration officials are attempting to scale down the Caesar-like imperial pronouncements made by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday in which he put Iran, Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil" and threatened them with military action. It is being suggested that the president was merely sending a signal to the three nations and others seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction or seen as abetting terrorism and putting them on notice. Various officials stressed in briefings on Wednesday that Bush had earlier been saying more or less the same things that he outlined in his speech on Tuesday and said the president was not suggesting imminent military action. Some officials who had seen the speech before it was delivered were reported to have advised against the strong phraseology employed by the president, but their advice was not heeded. Bush's "evil axis" remark led to close questioning at the State Department briefing on Thursday, when Spokesman Richard Boucher was asked whether there was evidence of any combined effort between Iran, Iraq and North Korea that justified the term "axis". Boucher said the word was appropriate because there were relationships between these countries, each of which had weapons programmes that constituted a danger to countries in the region and to the world. But he would not be drawn into discussing what the "relationships" were, saying he would just leave it at that. Boucher also indicated that the possibility of negotiations on issues of concern to the United States remained open. He said opportunities to explore cooperation were utilized whenever the occasion arose, such as when the Iranian government cooperated with efforts at Bonn for the formation of an interim administration in Kabul. But then, Boucher said, there were concerns about what Iran was doing on the ground in various places in Afghanistan, and this was followed by the arms shipment episode. On North Korea, he said the US remained prepared to undertake a serious discussion at any time and anywhere on nuclear proliferation issues, and President Bush's speech was a signal to the North Koreans to undertake such discussions. The US president is due to visit South Korea next month, and Seoul is worried that Bush's speech might have harmed chances of seeking a rapprochement with North Korea and endangered South Korea's "sunshine policy" towards the North. At the Pentagon, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defended his president's speech, saying it had "near perfect credibility" and declaring that despite Iran's offers to help in the war against terrorism, "we know Iran is actively sending terrorists" to threaten Israel and "we also know that they have a very active weapons of mass destruction programme". White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said in using the word "axis", Bush meant no comparison to the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan during World War II. |
