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U.S. Response: Administration Keeps Pressure on “Rogue” Regimes By David Ruppe Vice President Richard Cheney echoed his comments yesterday in London at the start of a trip to discuss the campaign with countries in the Middle East. Bush’s phrasing was, in a sense, less specific than previous comments. He did not repeat the “axis of evil” phrase he used during his January State of the Union address to describe such countries, nor did he this time name Iran, Iraq and North Korea as “axis” members (see GSN, Jan. 30). Still, he identified such countries as a threat the United States and its allies would address in what he called the second phase of the campaign, offering again reasoning for why they should be included in the campaign. “Here is what we already know,” he said. “Some states that sponsor terror are seeking or already possess weapons of mass destruction; terrorist groups are hungry for these weapons, and would use them without a hint of conscience. And we know that these weapons, in the hands of terrorists, would unleash blackmail and genocide and chaos.” “These facts cannot be denied, and must be confronted,” he said, speaking on the White House South Lawn six months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Questions of Evidence Since the State of the Union speech, some analysts have contended those particular facts — the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and support of terrorism by countries, and the desire of terrorists to obtain those weapons — are not sufficient justification for acting militarily against those countries, because there is no publicly available evidence the three have ever shared WMD technology with terrorists. In a March 4 Washington Post commentary, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace President Jessica Mathews argued having such evidence is important and that proponents of getting rid of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “brush aside the ‘why’ question as if the answers were either self-evident or immaterial.” Iraq, of such countries, is widely considered the most likely target of any U.S. military action. Justifying an attack on Iraq in the interest of “preventative self-defense,” Mathews wrote, provides the “least-sound justification,” with the “nightmare result of that becoming an acceptable norm of international behavior.” Administration officials, on the other hand, have argued that the consequences of a group such as al-Qaeda obtaining chemical, biological or nuclear weapons could be so horrible that any risk of that happening is unacceptable. Bush yesterday reiterated that argument yesterday, saying, “in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, there is no margin for error, and no chance to learn from mistakes.” Cheney, questioned by reporters, said, “we have to be concerned about the potential marriage, if you will, between the terrorist organization like al-Qaeda and those who hold or are proliferating knowledge about weapons of mass destruction.” Ways must be found, he said, “to make certain” that terrorists never acquire that capability. Cheney said al-Qaeda had been “aggressively” trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction and said it would have used them if it had them (see GSN, Feb. 26). Actions Unclear Indicating the seriousness with which he takes the matter, Bush last month called the probability of a terror-sponsoring nation providing weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist group a “nightmare scenario that we must not let happen.” “Imagine how the balance of power in the world would change,” he said at a fundraiser in North Carolina. The administration has not indicated, though, how it specifically intends to deal with the issue with respect to particular countries, analysts say. Cheney said no decision had been made yet with respect to Iraq. Bush yesterday said, “our coalition must act deliberately, but inaction is not an option.” “The question in all of this … is what do you do about it,” said Lee Feinstein, a visiting scholar at Carnegie. “Apart from very strong language, the president hasn’t put forward any plans. And by grouping [Iraq, Iran and North Korea] all together, the president has suggested somehow that the solutions to all of the three are the same, and they’re clearly not.” The most promising approach is diplomatic for North Korea and Iran, said Feinstein, a former senior official on the State Department’s policy planning staff during the Clinton administration. “In the case of Iraq, it’s much more complicated. There’s probably no solution until there is a different government,” he said.
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