WEST POINT (USA), June 1: Amid speculation that the United States may attack Iraq, US President George W. Bush warned on Saturday that his “war on terrorism” may often require “pre-emptive” military action.

“Our security will require all Americans to be forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for pre-emptive action, when necessary, to defend our liberty and to defend our lives,” he said in a speech at this storied military school.

Bush did not name Iraq, where official US policy calls for “regime change,” but reprised his warning that he will not sit idly while “unbalanced dictators” work to develop chemical, biological or nuclear arms or provide them to terrorists like those who carried out the Sept 11 strikes.

“We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best,” said the US leader. “In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action, and this nation will act.”

In remarks to cadets graduating from the US Military Academy — now in its bicentennial year — Bush warned that the newly minted officers face a “shadowy” enemy immune to Cold War strategies like containment or deterrence.

Deterrence “means nothing against shadowy terrorist networks with no nation or citizens to defend”, while containment “is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies,” he said.

“The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge,” he said.

Bush also defended his designation of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “axis of evil”, vowing to continue to “call evil by its name” because a key weapon in the campaign against terrorism is “firm moral purpose.”

“Some worry that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak the language of right and wrong; I disagree,” the president said.

Some key allies have derided the “axis” label as simplistic, while others have openly worried that such rhetoric harms efforts to engage such nations — such as South Korea’s “Sunshine Policy” towards the communist North.

But Bush, who did not use the “axis” label in his speech, countered: “By confronting evil and lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in opposing it.”

“There can be no neutrality between justice and cruelty, between the innocent and the guilty. We are in a conflict between good and evil, and America will call evil by its name,” said the US leader.—AFP