WASHINGTON - President Bush pledged yesterday to help President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines "in any way she suggests" as her country wages its own fight with terrorism.
Her target is the small, militant Muslim Abu Sayyaf movement, which has been holding two Americans, missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham of Wichita, Kan., with 7,000 Filipino soldiers in pursuit.
Meeting with Arroyo at the White House, Bush said Arroyo expressed confidence that her military is capable of reining in Abu Sayyaf. Still, he said, the United States is ready to help her government make a stand against terror "in Afghanistan, or the Philippines or anywhere al-Qaida exists."
"We'll cooperate in any way she suggests in getting rid of Abu Sayyaf," Bush said.
Before calling on Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Arroyo declared, "Evil must not be allowed to rule even one inch of this earth."
After a meeting at the Pentagon yesterday morning, she and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld used a brief press conference to stress the longtime defense partnership between the two countries.
But Arroyo was noncommittal about whether she would request U.S. military equipment to help in the fight against terrorism. Pressed by reporters on whether she wants helicopters and other equipment, she said, "If that what is needed to make the partnership more efficient, yes."
Speaking Monday at Georgetown University, where she once attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service with former President Clinton as a classmate, Arroyo said Abu Sayyaf is evil and will be defeated.
In an apparent pitch for U.S. economic assistance, she said poverty nurtured the movement, which has been linked to Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorism network.
"Poverty provides the spawning grounds," she said in a warm return to the Georgetown campus, where she was presented with the president's medal.
Rumsfeld said Monday that a U.S. team was making an assessment and providing advice to Filipino troops.
"There is no question but that there has been a good deal of interaction between the terrorists in the Philippines and al-Qaida and people in Iraq and people in other terrorist-sponsoring states over the years," Rumsfeld said.
The first Asian leader to telephone Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Arroyo said the Philippines was cooperating with the United States in many ways, sharing intelligence information and providing overflight privileges.
"What we were fighting in the southwest Philippines is now a common fight," Arroyo said. "With assistance it will be the beginning of the end of terrorism in southwest Philippines."
She vowed not to negotiate with Abu Sayyaf. "I have seen what terrorists can do," Arroyo said.
"We've supported the U.S. every step of the way," Arroyo said later on PBS' "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer." "We've been unwavering in that."
Abu Sayyaf has been tied to a string of killings, kidnappings, bombings and other violence in the southern Philippines, the crushingly poor home for about 5 million Muslims in the overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country.
In the most recent incident, on Aug. 2, the guerrillas kidnapped 32 people during an attack on Balobo, a small, Christian-dominated farming village on Basilan Island. Ten captives were beheaded; the rest either were freed or escaped in succeeding days.
Like the Bush administration, Arroyo emphasized that her campaign against terrorism was not a campaign against Islam.
"I am very grateful for our Muslim population," she said. "We've been stepping up our interfaith dialogue with the Muslim population, and I think that helped very much in their support for me."
