President George Bush yesterday appeared to signal an escalation in US war ambitions by pledging to "hold to account" countries which "develop weapons of mass destruction that will be used to terrorise nations".
And, as media commentators increased their speculation about a possible next phase of the campaign against terrorism, he had a specific warning for President Saddam Hussein of Iraq: "He needs to let inspectors back in his country to show he is not developing weapons of mass destruction."
What would the consequences be if he failed to do so?
"He'll find out," the President said during a brief press conference in the White House Rose Garden.
But journalists attempting to pin down the President on a perceived "shift of definition" in his war aims were told by a puzzled Mr Bush that "I've always held that definition".
His spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, later insisted that the President's current focus was still on the Afghan phase of the war and that the comments, prompted by a journalist's questions, were merely the reiteration of "longstanding policy".
Mr Bush was deliberately unspecific about consequences, Mr Fleischer said, and did not have a timescale for compliance in mind, insisting that accountability could take many forms.
The US campaign against terrorism included financial sanctions, international arrests and the trading of intelligence, he said.
In an editorial yesterday entitled "The Wrong Time to Fight Iraq" the New York Times responded to calls by many hawkish commentators for a war to topple President Saddam.
The paper argued that the US should instead continue to apply "maximum" pressure on Iraq and help develop a real opposition.
Referring to the deployment yesterday of up to 1,500 US marines inside Afghanistan, close to Kandahar, Mr Bush pledged that the search for Osama bin Laden would continue remorselessly.
"We're smoking them out, they're running and now we're going to bring them to justice," he said, cautioning that, as the war moves into this new, potentially more dangerous phase, "America must be prepared for loss of life".
The marines were in their first action last night, in an attack using helicopter gunships on a Taliban motorised column leaving Kandahar.
The Pentagon confirmed that five US special operations troops had been injured yesterday by "friendly fire" after they had called in bombing support in an attempt to quell the prison riot in Mazar-e-Sharif.
