TEHRAN, Feb 5: Iran took its objections to the United States’ war on terror to the United Nations on Tuesday after President George W. Bush proposed the largest military buildup since the Cold War.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said US “militarism, unilateralism and the logic of might makes right” were posing a “grave threat to global peace and security” in a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Still stinging from Bush’s inclusion of Iran in his “axis of evil” remarks last week, Tehran stepped up its war of words with Washington amid deep concern about the Bush administration’s plans to extend the war on terror beyond Afghanistan.

Kharazi accused the US president of “diversionary sensationalism” and twisting the definition of terrorism while ignoring the root causes of the problem.

Bush branded Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “axis of evil” during his State of the Union speech last week, referring to their alleged sponsorship of terrorism and development of weapons of mass destruction.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has since accused Iran of assisting members of the Al Qaeda terror network and the ousted Taliban regime to escape from Afghanistan.

The US allegations and the threats of possible military action have not only provoked strong reactions from the three countries, but also misgivings from some US allies about the direction of the global war against terrorism.

French officials have described the term “axis of evil” as “unsuitable,” while Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov has said he has seen no evidence to back the allegations.

President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday echoed Kharazi’s claim that the definition of terrorism was being twisted by some governments to justify the denial of basic human rights.

Whereas Kharazi referred to Israel’s response to the Palestinian uprising, Musharraf said India was portraying Kashmiri separatists as terrorists in order to “hoodwink the international public opinion by playing on Western apprehension”.

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, speaking during a meeting with air defence commander General Hamid Raja Shalah and other high-ranking officers, stressed the “need to develop Iraq’s combat capabilities.”

“When you emerge from the embargo with considerable scientific progress, you will beat the enemy twice over: you will never allow them to prevent your progress or lead you into a pre-industrial era,” he said.

Four Iraqi civilians were killed in air raids by US and British warplanes in the north of the country on Monday, according to the Iraqi military.

A US defence official said the war in Afghanistan is costing on average 1.8 billion dollars a month or, at the current rate of spending, 27 billion dollars a year.

“We don’t know where we will be in a year’s time,” he said. “We know we will be continuing the war on terrorism; but how, at what pace, in what countries, is uncertain.”

The 14.5 per cent increase in defence spending proposed for 2003, a 48-billion-dollar increase, exceeds the hikes that kicked off former president Ronald Reagan’s military buildup in 1981 and 1982.

Over the next five years, the US administration plans to spend 408 billion dollars on weapons and other military gear.—AFP