US official: SEA should police itself to avoid pre-emptive strike

Southeast Asian nations should "better police themselves" to make preemptive strikes against terrorism unnecessary, a top US official said.

On the eve of his visit to the Asia-Pacific region, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage strongly backed Australian Prime Minister John Howard’s threat of preemptive strikes, describing it as a wake-up call to Asian nations to do more to stamp out terrorism in their backyards.

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

"For someone to talk about preempting 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 neighbors that they need to better police themselves and rid themselves of the scourge of terrorism," he said.

"The real message is that they have to make the utmost efforts to police themselves, because then there is no need for anyone to preempt 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 bombing 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 preemption had long been in the US policy arsenal, adding: "We used it most recently in Panama ten years ago. We went in there in a preemptive way, that’s not new."

Armitage is due to arrive in Australia on Friday at a time Canberra remains preoccupied by fears of terrorism and efforts to strengthen defenses 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. – AFP