SYDNEY, Dec 10: A top US official has strongly backed Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s threat of pre-emptive strikes, describing it is a wake-up call to Asian nations to rid themselves of terrorism.

On the eve of his visit to the Asia-Pacific region, US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told the Australian Financial Review the real message was that Asian nations have to make the utmost effort to better police themselves.

Armitage, Washington’s second-ranked diplomat, said he very much appreciated and supported Howard’s declaration last week that he would order pre-emptive strikes overseas if there was no alternative means of saving Australia from terrorist attack.

“For someone to talk about pre-empting danger is a statement of the obvious,” he said before leaving Washington on a visit to South Korea, Japan, China and Australia for talks on the US campaign to disarm Iraq.

“It was also a wake-up call to some neighbours that they need to better police themselves and rid themselves of the scourge of terrorism.

“The real message is that they have to make the utmost efforts to police themselves, because then there is no need for anyone to pre-empt any threats.”

Armitage did not name the countries he was referring to, although the strongest criticism of Howard’s comments came from Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines and, to a lesser extent Thailand.

But he complimented Indonesia’s investigation of the Bali bombings which has so far netted most of those suspected of plotting the attack in which around 190 people died, almost half of them Australian.

“The Indonesian authorities look to be intent upon getting to the bottom of it and they seem to be making good progress. I hope they catch every last one, I hope they do, I hope they rip ‘em up, root and branch.”

He said pre-emption had long been in the US policy arsenal, adding: “We used it most recently in Panama 10 years ago. We went in there in a pre-emptive way, that’s not new.”

Armitage is due to arrive here on Friday at a time Australia remains preoccupied by fears of terrorism and efforts to strengthen defences against it in the aftermath of the Bali bombing.

One of the country’s leading experts on terrorism, Clive Williams, earlier warned a parliamentary committee that Australia is more likely to be targeted for terrorist attack if it joins a US-led assault on Iraq.

He said Australia was now being mentioned in mosques around the region as being one of the countries aligned against the Muslim world, an issue he described as “disquieting”.

“I think that if we do get involved in an attack on Iraq, that will raise the level of threat to Australia both overseas and in Australia,” he said.

However, Armitage also expressed confidence that Howard would provide the help Washington would need in the event of a decision to go to war with Iraq, describing Australia as “fantastically supportive” of the global “war on terror” and the campaign to disarm Iraq.

“I don’t think I need to ask Australia for very much,” he said.

Howard, one of Washington’s staunchest allies in its standoff with Baghdad, cast doubts on the veracity of Iraq’s bulky declaration to the United Nations this week, saying it had lied about its weapons in the past.

But he called on the United States to come forward with information it claims proves Baghdad is hiding weapons of mass destruction.—AFP