Bush warns of 'first-strike' against rogue nations

Delivering his toughest foreign policy speech in months, President George Bush said he reserved the right to take pre-emptive military action against any rogue nation suspected of involvement in terrorism.

The speech, given to West Point military academy graduates at the weekend, renewed speculation about a US invasion of Iraq. The address dispensed with usual diplomatic niceties about the need to consult the United States' allies. Instead, Mr Bush portrayed a dangerous new world in which surprise attack was the best form of defence.

"We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge," the President said in the graduation address in upstate New York.

"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 ... In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action. And this nation will act."

The address was Mr Bush's most strongly worded public statement since raising the spectre of an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address to Congress in January, a speech that identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as possible future targets.

Invading Iraq is a long-cherished ambition of Bush administration hawks, but the idea has lost momentum because of the Middle East crisis and the commitment of US forces to the war against al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan. Mr Bush's speech suggested that a lack of international support for a bid to oust Saddam Hussein might not deter the US from carrying out what it sees as a moral obligation. He said: "Our nation's cause has always been larger than our nation's defence."

* America's itelligence services came underfresh scrutiny yesterday for their failure to keep track of two of the 11 September hijackers who were spotted at a meeting of al-Qa'ida operatives in Malaysia in January 2000. They were later allowed to enter the United States and live openly without police surveillance.

The frustrated trail of clues surrounding Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, both apparently on board the American Airlines planes that crashed into the Pentagon, first surfaced a few days after 11 September. But the issue roared back to life following an exposé in this week's Newsweek detailing a litany of official incompetence.