ABSTRACT
By early 2002, the Taliban regime had been terminated and the paramilitaries in Afghanistan that had owed allegiance to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida movement had been largely dispersed, and the Bush administration moved on. In January 2002, President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address which introduced the concept of an ‘axis of evil’ of ‘rogue’ states. These were defined as those that sponsored terrorism, with the greatest danger being seen to come from those that were developing weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the three key members of the axis being North Korea, Iran and Iraq.
