MUNICH: A parade of European security officials expressed alarm Saturday about what they considered an aggressive, go-it-alone stance staked out by President Bush in his State of the Union address last week, especially his warning that the United States was prepared to take pre-emptive action against Iraq or other countries that provided terrorists with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

The US delegation to an international security conference here responded to their concerns with bipartisan unity. Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman and a host of other foreign policy heavyweights urged the Europeans to get with the American program and faulted them for their lack of urgency in combating terrorism.

Wolfowitz, who is considered the Bush administration’s leading hawk on Iraq, played against expectation. When a panel moderator pointedly asked him to explain Bush’s description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an “axis of evil” that had sought weapons of mass destruction, Wolfowitz said simply, “Countries must make a choice.”

But he was followed by McCain, who delivered a fiery speech attacking Iraq and called on countries to decide whether they stood with the United States. “A day of reckoning is approaching,” said McCain, a former presidential candidate. “Not simply for Saddam Hussein, but for all members of the Atlantic community (NATO).”

Lieberman, who was his party’s most recent nominee for vice president, promptly stood to endorse “everything my colleague and friend has said.” “The American speakers - Wolfowitz, McCain, and Lieberman - all had Iraq in the cross hairs,” said Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank specializing in defence issues.

The biggest surprise of the first session of the 38th annual conference here, which gave US and European officials their first opportunity to assess the impact of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on both sides of the Atlantic, may have been the clear disconnect between the two sides about the urgency of the situation.

After listening to a dozen European officials vaguely discuss how plans should be made to eventually increase their military budgets, William Cohen, the Clinton administration’s last defence secretary, lectured the audience on the need for quicker action. “This in fact poses a threat to civilization as we know it,” he said.

But the Europeans expressed qualms about the stated US willingness to act unilaterally if necessary. “There is a danger that the Europeans and the Americans in pursuing terrorism may diverge in their points of view,” said Karl Lamers, the foreign policy spokesman for Germany’s conservative opposition Christian Democratic Party. “We want to participate, which is why I would ask our American friends to bring us along in the formation of strategy, instead of you doing it and asking us to trot along behind.”

Similarly, Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman for the centrist Liberal Democrats in Britain’s Parliament, questioned Bush’s threat to attack Iraq, saying that, “Action against Iraq, it seems to me, would require incontrovertible evidence,” which he said was lacking.

Some officials said they feared the United States had become so technologically advanced and militarily adept that it no longer believes it has much need to heed the views of its European allies. “We are losing our punch and our political influence,” warned Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats.

Trying to come to terms with a United States altered by the terrorist attacks, Europeans expressed surprise at the size of the Bush administration’s proposed $48 billion increase to the defence budget, at the swiftness of the apparent US victory in Afghanistan and at the willingness of the United States to go it alone if necessary. —Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.