Cheney- 'Direct threats require decisive action'

DAVOS, Switzerland -- Free nations, working together, must not shy from using force if diplomacy cannot deter terrorism and check the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons, Vice President Dick Cheney told Europe on Saturday.

"Direct threats require decisive action," Cheney said in a speech to the World Economic Forum, and he urged European allies to "act with all the urgency that this danger demands."

Ideologies of violence must be confronted at their source by promoting democracy through the Middle East and beyond, he told more than 1,500 political, corporate and opinion leaders who gathered in Davos to discuss global issues.

Cheney, one of President Bush's closest confidants, said the world is becoming safer, but alliances and international partnerships must remain strong in fighting terror. If security can't be reached through dialogue, he said, "We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary."

In his second foreign trip since taking office, Cheney acknowledged the work that European nations have done in Iraq and Afghanistan and in enticing Libya to its decision to rid itself voluntarily of weapons of mass destruction.

Then he asked for more.

He urged the European Union to admit Turkey. He also asked the allies to make more European troops available for deployments to fill a critical need and not to let the European Union and NATO duplicate efforts in providing international security. And he said Europe and America must demand jointly that Iran meet its international commitments not to develop nuclear weapons.

"Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism," Cheney said.

"The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations' wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over."

Cheney's appeal to nurture democratic reform throughout the Middle East comes at a tense time for postwar Iraq: The U.S. death toll in Iraq has topped 500. Thousands of the country's Shiite Muslims, spurred by the sect's most powerful Iraqi cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, are demonstrating in the streets to press their demand that direct elections, not the caucuses planned by the United States, be held to seat delegates to choose a transitional government.

"We urge all democratic nations and the United Nations to answer the Iraqi Governing Council's call for support for the people of Iraq in making the transition to democracy," Cheney said. "We urge all nations holding Iraqi debt to be generous in forgiving it."

Last year at the forum, as anti-American sentiment ran high during the run-up to the war, Secretary of State Colin Powell took the Davos podium and appealed to all nations to back U.S. efforts to force Iraq to disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction. After the war that ended Saddam's government, weapons cited as the main cause for the invasion have not been found.

With Saddam in U.S. custody, the tone at this year's forum was more conciliatory for Cheney, but not universally so.

Eva Biaudet, a Finnish lawmaker, said she was shocked by Cheney's "militarism" and his focus on increasing Europe's military capabilities. "His solution for reaching democracy was armaments, which is not really the European solution," she said. "He forgot the development part, and it worries me."

Swiss President Joseph Deiss, who met with Cheney after his speech, was more diplomatic.

"On the one hand it was a clear expression of American leadership and the will to combat terrorism in the world," Deiss said. "On the other hand, ... I felt that the Americans also are quite aware of the necessity that (it be) an action of the international community."

Anti-Americanism was heard in Chur, about 45 miles from Davos, where up to 2,000 protesters demonstrated. The protesters, whose signs decried the conference as elitist, putting profits for business ahead of people and the environment, burned effigies of Bush and several European leaders, broke shop windows and threw paint bombs.

Even though the United States has turned to the United Nations for help in transferring sovereignty to the Iraqis, Cheney still had tough words for the international body. He demanded that the U.N. Security Council stand behind its resolutions; council members including France, Germany and Russia had sought continued diplomacy rather than invasion to disarm Iraq.

"There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are," Cheney said. "At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve."

After his speech, Cheney flew to Italy, where he is visiting until Tuesday. He will meet with Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a major backer of the Iraq invasion, and Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

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Associated Press writer Naomi Koppel contributed to this report.