THE US: The US administration yesterday set out plans to formalise a new "first- strike" policy against terrorists or states with weapons of mass destruction that will move the US away from Cold War-era security doctrines of deterrence.
The move came as the US announced the capture of an alleged al-Qaeda operative who officials said planned to attack the US with a "dirty bomb".
Mr Ari Fleischer, White House spokesman, said the new approach would be formalised in a national security strategy to be submitted to Congress by President Bush this autumn. It will comprise foreign relations and national security policies, and impose fresh economic and political conditions on countries that receive US aid.
The vice-president, Mr Dick Cheney, said yesterday: "In this new century, old doctrines of security will not always apply."
Speaking at a meeting of the International Democrat Union, an association of conservative political parties, Mr Cheney said that during the Cold War, the US was able to manage threats through arms control treaties and a policy of deterrence.
But he added: "In terror, we have enemies with nothing to defend. A group like al-Qaeda cannot be deterred or placated or reasoned with. This struggle will not end in a treaty or accommodation with terrorists it can only end in their complete and utter destruction."
Mr Cheney said inaction by the US would only bring the grave threats it faced closer. "We will not wait until it is too late," he said.
As news broke that the al-Qaeda suspect who planned the attack was in custody, Mr Cheney said there was evidence that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network still posed a danger to the country.
"A serious threat remains that the al-Qaeda organisation is still at work on [weapons of mass destruction]," he said.
Mr Cheney added that he was concerned about link-ups between terrorists and countries that were developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and that the US would work against such regimes as that of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein.
"We will not live at the mercy of terrorists or terrorist regimes," he said.
The American citizen who allegedly plotted with al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan to detonate a radiation bomb on US soil had close links with al-Qaeda and at least twice last year met senior members of that organisation to discuss the plan, according to US officials.
Mr Jose Padilla, a 31-year-old former Chicago street-gang member converted to Islam in prison and now calls himself Mr Abdullah al Mujahir,
As well as meeting al-Qaeda officials, he also received training in explosives in Pakistan, law enforcement officials said. He had returned to the US last month to conduct reconnaissance, they said, but no bomb-making materials have been found.
Mr al Mujahir's arrest is believed to be based on information supplied to intelligence officials by Mr Abu Zubaydah, Osama bin Laden's head of operations, who was captured in Pakistan in March and who has reportedly been co-operating with his CIA and FBI interrogators.
Mr Ashcroft emphasised that the information on Mr al Mujahir came from "multiple, independent and corroborating sources".
Law enforcement officials said al-Qaeda valued Mr al Mujahir because his American citizenship would allow him to travel in the US without scrutiny, and he is said to have met Mr Zubaydah repeatedly while in central Asia.
Mr al Mujahir's designation as an enemy combatant makes it likely he will be the first detainee to be tried by a military tribunal, and US officials said the decision was made in order to protect intelligence sources.
Mr Larry Thompson, Mr Ashcroft's deputy, said the laws of war and several second World War-era court rulings, including one by the Supreme Court, give the US government the ability to charge one of its own citizens as an enemy fighter.