Bush Not Budging on Terror Warning

Facing criticism over his warning that an “axis of evil” threatens world peace, President Bush said Thursday that nations other than the United States could be targets of mass terror. And he put terrorist nations on notice, saying, “They better get their house in order.”

His remarks helped heat up the diplomatic climate as the White House led a daylong effort to answer critics, including long-standing allies, who have raised concerns that the United States is on the verge of expanding its war on terrorism beyond Afghanistan.

The president was unyielding in his response. He said the United States would hold accountable terrorist nations that develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons or the means to deliver them. “The rest of the world needs to be with us,” he said, “because these weapons can be pointed at them just as easily [as] at us.”

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Bush declared that Iraq, Iran and North Korea “and their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.” He suggested that the United States was prepared to initiate military action if such threats were deemed serious enough.

The next day, administration officials stressed that Bush was not about to take military action against Iran, Iraq or North Korea and that there had been no change in policy.

But Thursday, his aides said his original remarks had been carefully prepared. They were written, the aides said, to send notice that the initial military success in Afghanistan did not mean that the United States was becoming complacent. Washington, they said, remains alert to the danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of its enemies.

The slightly different interpretations of Bush’s Tuesday night remarks reflected a behind-the-scenes contest within the administration over the direction of the war on terrorism.

Although State Department officials argued that the speech meant a change in priority but not in policy, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the speech pointed to the need for action to avert an imminent danger.

Internationally, the use of the term “axis” to describe Iran, Iraq and North Korea raised eyebrows with its echoes of World War II’s Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan. It appeared to cast the three “axis of evil” countries in the same light, even though current U.S. allies such as Germany have ties to Iran, and South Korea has staked much on a rapprochement with North Korea.

Some foreign policy experts argued that Bush’s language went too far toward demonizing the regimes, considering that at least two of the countries, Iran and North Korea, could still be influenced by diplomatic pressure from the West.

Some compared it to President Reagan’s description of the Soviet Union nearly two decades ago as an “evil empire.”

Ivo H. Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Reagan’s phrase was “not particularly well received” and noted that Reagan had shifted his view within a few years on the possibility of negotiations with the Soviets.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, in Washington for a meeting with Bush, said he believes that a dialogue with pro-Western elements in the Iranian government would be productive and that military action against Iraq would be a mistake.

But Schroeder said he doesn’t believe that Bush intended to identify new targets for military action, and he predicted that the speech won’t set back efforts to bring about change in the three countries.

Schroeder added that as a German, he was “indeed aware” of the historical resonance of the word “axis.” Yet, “I didn’t think that the historical allusion . . . is the one that was intended.”

In Britain, although the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair has voiced no criticism, some lawmakers from Blair’s Labor Party pointed out that Bush’s tough approach doesn’t mesh with their nation’s recent effort to foster better relations with Iran and North Korea.

Last July, Britain opened an embassy in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, and in September, Foreign Minister Jack Straw marked an improvement in relations with Iran by visiting the country.

“We in the United Kingdom tend to see foreign affairs as less of a struggle of good against evil,” said Donald Anderson, a Labor Party member and head of Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.

Anderson said Bush’s speech appeared to foreshadow military action, and he warned that such a step would risk losing support from usually loyal international backers.

“The sheriff may find [that] some of his posse are not around,” Anderson said.

But in speeches in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Atlanta, Bush worked up to a full-throated defense of that warning. He declared that the United States won’t flag in its campaign “to find the enemy where they hide and bring them to justice.”

“I know some of the people around the world are saying, ‘Well, you know, he can’t possibly mean that, now that they’ve looked like they’re successful in Afghanistan. Gosh, don’t you think it’s about time they just kind of go on home?’ ” the president said.

“No,” he answered. “This great nation has been given a chance in history to make the world more free. And I promise you we’ll seize that opportunity. We’ll be wise and deliberate about how we pursue our grand objective. But we’ll pursue it.”

His stops Thursday, scheduled to promote volunteer work by older Americans and the Teach for America corps that sends young teachers into poor neighborhoods, completed a two-day trip following the State of the Union address. He also spoke to supporters at a rally at a downtown Atlanta hotel.

He used his bluntest language at the rally.

“If you’re one of these nations that develops weapons of mass destruction, and you’re likely to team up with a terrorist group, or you’re now sponsoring terror, or you don’t hold the values we hold dear true to your heart, then you, too, are on our watch list,” Bush said.

“People say, ‘What does that mean?’ It means they better get their house in order is what it means. It means they better respect the rule of law. It means they better not try to terrorize America and our friends and allies, or the justice of this nation will be served on them as well,” he said.

Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security advisor, ticked off the administration’s complaints in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Va.

North Korea, she said, “is now the world’s No. 1 merchant for ballistic missiles, open for business with anyone, no matter . . . the buyer’s intentions.”

She said Iraq “remains a regime determined to acquire these terrible weapons.”

And Iran’s support “of regional and global terrorism and its aggressive efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction belie any good intentions it displayed” when it supported the anti-terror campaign immediately after Sept. 11, Rice said.

“All of these nations have a choice to make, to abandon the course they now pursue,” Rice said. “We will use every tool at our disposal to meet this grave global threat.”