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Bush calls Iran and Syria 'outlaw regimes'
By Caren Bohan
10/29/05 "Reuters" -- -- President George W. Bush on Friday called
Iran and Syria "outlaw regimes" and said countries that support
terrorism are just as guilty of murder as those who commit the
violence.
"We're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary
of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long
history of collaboration with terrorists and they deserve no
patience from the victims of terror," Bush said.
During the president's speech on terrorism, a heckler yelled: "Mr.
President, what is terrorism? What is terrorism? Step down now." The
man was escorted out and others in the audience booed the heckler.
The United States has repeatedly expressed concern over Iran and its
nuclear energy program, which it suspects could be a cover for
nuclear weapons development. Iran insists the program is intended
for civilian electricity generation.
And Western countries condemned recent comments by Iran's President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the map.
Last year, the United States and its allies, in fighting
proliferation of deadly weapons, "have stopped more than a dozen
shipments of suspected weapons technology including equipment for
Iran's ballistic missile program," Bush said.
"This progress has reduced the danger to free nations, but it has
not removed it," he said. "Evil men who want to use horrendous
weapons against us are working in deadly earnest to gain them. And
we are working urgently to keep weapons of mass murder out of the
hands of the fanatics," Bush said.
The Bush administration justified the March 2003 invasion of Iraq by
saying Baghdad posed a threat because it had stockpiles of chemical
and biological weapons and was pursuing nuclear weapons. No weapons
of mass destruction were found in postwar Iraq.
The United States accuses Syria of allowing foreign fighters to
cross its border into Iraq to fuel the insurgency, and last week
U.N. investigators blamed Syrian and Lebanese security officials of
organizing the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
on February 14.
The United States and France have threatened Syria with economic
sanctions if it does not cooperate fully with the U.N. probe into
Hariri's assassination.
"The United States makes no distinction between those who commit
acts of terror and those who support and harbor them because they
are equally guilty of murder," Bush said.
"We're determined to deny the militants control of any nation which
they will use as a home base and a launching pad for terror," he
said.
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.
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