Iran, Iraq and North Korea on Wednesday rejected an accusation by US President Bush that they form an "axis of evil" developing weapons of mass destruction to threaten America and the world.
Iran said Bush's remarks smacked of a desire for hegemony, Iraq suggested they presaged a US attack on Baghdad and North Korea saw them as evidence of a "policy of aggression."
Britain said the US president had made a "powerful case for the coalition's actions against global terrorism." France questioned the merits of labeling nations as terrorist.
In his first State of the Union speech, Bush vowed on Tuesday to prevent "terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world," and he singled out Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
"The world will not accept US hegemony," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi retorted Wednesday. "The American president had better back up his assertions with evidence instead of repeating old and unfounded claims...
"Bush intends to divert public opinion from the Middle East issue and to prepare the domestic grounds for continuing his support of Israel in its brutal oppression of the Palestinian nation," state radio quoted Kharrazi as saying.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, top adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ridiculed Bush's remarks.
"It is amazing that Bush, officially and in a combative tone, describes ... Iran, Iraq and North Korea as terrorists," he told a gathering of journalists from Muslim countries.
"It is possible that Americans will cheer Bush as the Congressmen did, but we will not be threatened by such aggressive language," state television quoted him as saying.
The United States was Iran's chief ally until the 1979 Islamic revolution toppled the shah. The two countries broke ties in 1980 after revolutionaries seized the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.
"BASELESS ACCUSATION"
In Baghdad, a senior Iraqi parliamentarian said Bush was laying the groundwork for another US assault on Iraq, whose troops were driven from Kuwait in 1991 by a coalition led by his father, former president George Bush.
"Little Bush's accusation against Iraq is baseless," said Salim al-Qubaisi, head of the Iraqi parliament's foreign and Arab relations committee.
"The American administration led by Bush has been threatening Iraq from time to time to prepare world public opinion for a new aggression against Iraq," said Qubaisi, who is also a senior official of the ruling Baath Party.
"But such threats do not scare us, as the Iraqi people are well prepared to repel any aggression or foolishness by the American-Zionist administration," he added.
Bush has warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein he will face consequences unless he lets UN inspectors resume their work of monitoring the scrapping of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"Iraq has said clearly that it no longer possesses any weapons of mass destruction and no longer has the ability to develop them," Qubaisi said.
PYONGYANG SCOFFS
North Korea's official media scoffed at Bush for identifying the country as a threat.
"The US loudmouthed 'threat' from the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) is sophism intended to justify its military presence in South Korea and persistently pursue the policy of aggression against the DPRK," said a commentary carried by the north Asian state's official news agency.
South Korean President Kim Dae-jung responded to Bush's speech by stressing the importance of peace with its neighbor. "Our economic future depends on North-South relations," he told the cabinet.
Bush's remarks, branding Iran, Iraq and North Korea as "the world's most dangerous regimes," appeared to mark a new setback to already flagging prospects for better US-Iranian ties.
Some Iranians had wanted to use the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities as a chance to improve relations, although hard-liners opposed this. Nevertheless, Tehran did not obstruct the U.S. campaign against Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hizbollah guerrillas said Bush's charges showed hostility toward the Middle East and its people.
"There is nothing new to this American logic, which continues to nurture the Zionist entity (Israel) that represents the harshest of terrorist presences," said Hizbollah, which forced Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
Hizbollah is on Washington's terrorism list, but Lebanon has rejected US demands that it freeze the assets of a group that Beirut's Syrian-guided government calls a liberation movement.
Bush's aides said he had named Iraq, Iran and North Korea because they are the most advanced in developing weapons of mass destruction, not because they are the next targets.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair considered it "entirely right" for Bush to voice concern about other countries.
"We have always said the fight against terrorism does not stop at Afghanistan and that there would always be another phase to this," Blair's spokesman said.
"Clearly that can encompass a comprehensive range of activities. It doesn't just involve military action."
French Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau voiced reservations about naming states as sponsors of terrorism.
"France still doesn't consider countries as terrorist states," he said. "What counts for us is the degree of cooperation of all states in the fight against terrorism."
(China Daily January 31, 2002)
