WASHINGTON, 2 February — US President George W. Bush said yesterday that "all options are on the table" in protecting Washington and its allies from Iran, Iraq and North Korea, while US troops in the Philippines were confined to barracks after an attack on one of their planes. "All the three countries I mentioned are now on notice that we intend to take their development of weapons of mass destruction very seriously," Bush said as he welcomed Jordan’s King Abdallah to the White House.
"But having said that, all options are on the table as to how to make the United States and our allies more secure." It was his second warning in recent days. His first, raised in his State of the Nation address on Tuesday, drew contempt from Muslim countries around the Middle East.
But the bluntest response came from North Korea yesterday, where the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang said the isolated Communist state was ready for war and had been wise to develop "powerful offensive and defensive means."
"We are sharply watching the disturbing moves of the United States that has pushed the situation to the brink of war," a Foreign Ministry spokesman said, quoted by the Korean Central News Agency.
He said Bush’s speech was "little short of declaring a war." North Korean state media also said US warplanes had carried out scores of reconnaissance flights in recent weeks in preparation for an attack. The president, who responded to the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11 by launching a global war on terrorism, said the three countries were busily developing weapons of mass destruction.
The Jordanian monarch said he supported Bush’s position "tremendously." "The president has been very articulate from the beginning of Sept. 11 that there is a new world, there’s new expectations of how countries are suppose to react, and those countries better make up their minds pretty quickly," Abdallah said. "I endorse tremendously that view and that position."
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said he had seen no evidence supporting Bush’s charges of weapons proliferation against so-called "axis of evil" powers Iran, Iraq and North Korea. "So far we don’t have evidence of this," Kasyanov said following a White House meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney.
He said Moscow was behind efforts to strengthen cooperation with the United States in the interests of world security but suggested the two countries also work together "in verifying different potential dangers if any would come."
