Criticism of US heard at UN session on terrorism

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
At a daylong session on counterterrorism Tuesday, Croatian President Stipe Mesic said the global fight has been "compromised" by the pre-emptive approach of President George W. Bush's administration. Mesic, a staunch opponent of the US-led war in Iraq, said solidarity with the US diminished after it adopted "a kind of exclusive competence of one country, or of a group of countries which it led." "The fight against terrorism as a global project was also compromised by the way in which it was waged," he said. Bush defended his pre-emptive "Bush Doctrine" in a speech that coincided with the council session Tuesday. He told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, that a strong offense was needed to prevent Americans from being attacked again.