WASHINGTON, March 24: Two-and-a-half years after assuaging Muslim anger over US President George Bush's use of the word "crusade" to describe anti-terror efforts, Secretary of State Colin Powell slipped on Tuesday and allowed the term to re-enter the lexicon.

Mr Powell repeated the word as he described US efforts to bring President Pervez Musharraf on board to topple the Taliban government and dismantle the Al Qaeda network after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

"We gave them 24, 48 hours to consider it and then I called President Musharraf and said: 'We need your answer now. We need you as part of this campaign, this crusade'," Mr Powell recalled in testimony before a commission investigating the attacks.

President Bush's original "crusade" comment - made after the attacks as Washington tried to build a coalition to fight Al Qaeda - drew winces from Middle East watchers and diplomats who regarded it as impolitic.

It also offended Muslims as they say the word "crusade" recalls the campaigns by mediaeval Christian Europe to capture and hold Jerusalem. The president's remark forced US officials onto the defensive as they sought to convince the Muslim world that the "war on terrorism" was not directed at Islam. Officials were then instructed not to use the term.

Asked about Mr Powell's repetition of the word on Tuesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher moved to head off any suggestion that the secretary had used the term intentionally or in reference to Islam.

"It doesn't always have its historical meaning attached to it," he told reporters. "It's a word that's in general use in English. "But there is absolutely no effort directed at Arabs and Muslims," Mr Boucher said.

"This is an effort that we and many Arab and Muslim governments and countries have directed against terrorists who have tried to undermine not only our society, but theirs as well," he said.

AL QAEDA: Colin Powell saidPresident George Bush ordered moves to "destroy" Al Qaeda as soon as it took office because the previous administration under Bill Clinton had failed to eliminate the threat from Osama bin Laden's group.

Mr Powell and his predecessor Madeleine Albright both defended action taken by their administrations against bin Laden. "We were not given a counter-terrorism action plan by the previous administration," Mr Powell said.

"We were given good good briefings on what they had been doing with respect to Al Qaeda and with respect to the Taliban." But he added: "We noted early on that the actions the previous administration had tried had not succeeded in eliminating the threat."

Mr Powell said "We wanted to move beyond the roolback policy of containment, criminal prosecution and limited retaliation for specific terrorist attacks. We wanted to destroy Al Qaeda." -AFP