The United States moved Wednesday to marshal a broad international coalition of partners to combat terrorism with President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and others working the phones to lobby foreign leaders to support the cause.
Officials said the effort would be raised at various international venues and was aimed at more than just retaliating against the perpetrators of Tuesday's audacious terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
"We're building a strong coalition to go after these perpetrators, but, more broadly, to go after terrorism wherever we find it in the world," Secretary of State Colin Powell said.
"It's a scourge not only against the United States, but against civilization, and it must be brought to an end," he told a news conference.
A senior State Department official said Washington was going to demand that countries flatly renounce terrorism or suffer and would stiffen its standards in judging cooperation.
"The expectations are going to be higher, the tests are going to be stronger," the official said.
"The world has a right to expect and we have a right to expect everybody to take sides, to stand up and be counted either as a country that supports peace and freedom or a country that tolerates terrorism. We will judge accordingly, it's time for people to say what they are and to act like it."
Shortly after Powell and the senior official spoke, the diplomatic initiative scored its first victory as NATO's governing board agreed to invoke the alliance's collective defense clause if Washington determines that Tuesday's terrorist attacks were masterminded from abroad.
That decision followed numerous phone calls between Bush and other NATO leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
It also followed multiple calls from Powell to his alliance counterparts, including the organization's Secretary General Lord George Robertson.
But Powell stressed that the effort would not be limited to North America and US allies in Europe, insisting that rival powers and Muslim countries must also be brought into the fold.
"It should include Muslim nations," he said, noting that he had already spoken with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and would speak shortly with others in the Arab world.
"Muslim nations have just as much to fear from terrorism that strikes at innocent civilians."
Washington is also looking for strong support for its battle in the UN Security Council, the European Union, and the Group of Eight leading industrialized countries, Russia and China, officials said.
Along with speaking to Blair and Chirac, Bush also placed calls to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin -- completing his telephonic tour of leaders of the four other permanent members of the security council.
Powell said he had discussed the anti-terrorism drive with Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero, whose country is the current chairman of the G8 -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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