Bush vows to strike enemies first in terror war

3.00pm

CRAWFORD, Texas - US President George W. Bush proclaimed victory in Iraq on Saturday but said the war on terror was far from over and vowed to hunt down America's enemies before they could strike.

He closely linked the US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein to the campaign to stamp out terrorism launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks despite the lack of a definitive connection between the two.

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that still goes on," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

"The scattered cells of the terrorist networks still operate in many nations and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people."

In an apparent warning to North Korea, Iran, Syria and other countries accused by Washington of helping terrorists or pursuing weapons of mass destruction, Bush said the United States would not stand idly by in the face of serious danger from the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical arms.

"Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend our homeland and, more importantly, we will continue to hunt the enemy down before he can strike," Bush said.

The president also paid tribute to allies who offered military help in the war on Iraq, singling out Australia, whose prime minister, John Howard, is a guest at Bush's 547ha ranch near Crawford this weekend.

The two leaders flew together from California, where Bush declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq from the deck of a homebound US aircraft carrier, to central Texas aboard Air Force One on Friday evening.

Howard is the last of a trio of stalwart war supporters to win coveted invitations to "Prairie Chapel Ranch" for a social evening, a tour, talks and a Saturday news conference. Prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Jose Maria Aznar of Spain already have visited.

Bush said Australian forces played "an important role in the liberation of Iraq," citing special operations during the opening days of the six-week war, bombing runs by FA-18 fighters, securing sites in western Iraq that could have been used to launch Scud missiles and helping British forces take control of the Faw Peninsula.

Howard and Bush were expected to discuss how Iraq will be secured, rebuilt and steered along the road to democracy.

"Our coalition still has much work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous," Bush said. "The transition from dictatorship to democracy is hard and will take time, but it is worth every effort."

Bush said US and other forces would stay in Iraq until their work was done; "then we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq."

Australia plans to open an office in Baghdad soon to help co-ordinate its involvement in rebuilding postwar Iraq. But most of the 2000 military personnel that Australia sent to fight alongside US and British troops in the Gulf will start to return home this month.

Howard has so far ruled out sending a significant peacekeeping force to Iraq, saying Australia already has peacekeeping obligations in East Timor and the South Pacific.

But Australia has sent a small contingent of military and civilians to Iraq to help search for weapons of mass destruction, control air traffic at Baghdad airport and try to get Iraq's agricultural sector up and running again.

Bush repeatedly justified the war as necessary to remove Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he said posed a direct threat to the United States.

But so far the United States has failed to find any chemical or biological weapons almost a month after toppling Saddam's government.

American forces have looked at about 10 per cent of about 1000 sites on a list provided to the war commanders but a senior US official said he believed there were probably thousands more not on that list.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq