The BBC seems to have taken comments made during that speech as grouping the three extra nations into the "Axis of Evil" - weren't they mentioned in the speech in the same context as the original three?

Here are Bolton's exact words:

Beyond the axis of evil, there are other rogue states intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction -- particularly biological weapons.

He goes on to accuse Libya, Syria, and Cuba of being three of those states. It doesn't seem to me that he is including them as alternates or anything.

To be fair to the BBC, in Bush's original speech where he listed Iran, Iraq, and Korea, he said "...states like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an Axis of Evil..."

Upon reflection, it's not really so unreasonable that the BBC came to the conclusion they did. "Well, we wondered which states were 'like' Iran, Iraq, and Korea, and now Bolton has told us."

The big proliferators that are missing from the list, of course, are Pakistan and China. It's fairly obvious that China cannot be restrained by force, thus there is nothing to be gained from challenging them publicly on proliferation. The Bush administration seems to have had the idea that they could eventually restrain Pakistan from proliferation through increased 'silent' pressure, which has also worked out nicely after Libya rolled over on them. Khan's operation seems to have been shut down, and the shutting down of Khan's operation appears to have revealed Iran's nuke program.



On a related note: Did you see that Sudan has agreed to go "WMD free" and is sending a whole bunch of WMD back to Syria? Chalk another one up, I suppose.

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