Bush vows to end global tyranny

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President Bush was sworn in for his second term yesterday and used his inaugural address to lay out an unapologetically aggressive agenda that amounts to nothing less than "ending tyranny in our world."

"America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof," he told thousands who had gathered in the snow at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol for the nation's 55th inauguration ceremony.

"Renewed in our strength -- tested, but not weary -- we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom," he said.

Far from retrenching his policies of pre-emption and democratization, the president used his 21-minute speech to press for them as assertively as he had in his first four years, notwithstanding an overstretched military.

The speech was delivered after Mr. Bush took the 39-word oath of office dating back to George Washington from a frail-looking Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who recently was diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

Mr. Bush took the long view of history, invoking God, the nation's founders, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and even the Liberty Bell, while the Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln memorials stood off in the distance around the National Mall.

The president limited his speech to broad thematic terms. For example, he used forceful, ominous language to put the tyrants of the world on notice without using the words "terrorism" or "Iraq."

"As long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny -- prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder -- violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat.

"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom," he said.

After having taken the oath of office on his family Bible, his speech made repeated references and allusions to biblical verses and lauded "the words of the Koran" in a nod to America's Muslim population.