MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bush pledged to spread liberty around the world.

George W. Bush pledged on Thursday to use United States' power to spread liberty around the world, supporting “the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny”.

After taking the oath of office as the 43rd US president Mr. Bush said "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands", promising to "strive in good faith" to heal divisions in the country.

There was unprecedented security across Washington DC for the inauguration - the first after the 11 September 2001 attacks.

An estimated 500,000 people braved the snow and the cold for the 40 million US dollars ceremony and the traditional parade, including protestors of Mr Bush's policies.

Mr Bush took the oath of office outside the Capitol building using a family Bible, moments after his Vice-President Dick Cheney was sworn in, in accordance with the US constitution.

Insisting with the word "freedom", Mr. Bush said that "ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder" constituted "a mortal threat" and only one force of history could break that, "the force of human freedom".

"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in the entire world". It is the policy of the US, he said, to support forces of democracy "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world".

The US president had stern words for US allies - good relations with the US "will require the decent treatment of their own people", he said.

Unlike four years ago when his legitimacy was questioned because of the tight call of the election, Mr. Bush begins his second term after a comfortable election victory but with many challenges foremost the quagmire in Iraq. The war has become increasingly unpopular and opinion polls suggest Mr Bush's overall approval ratings are lower than any other re-elected president in recent years, below the 50% mark, the lowest since reelected Dwight Eisenhower in 1957.

And with a more domestic emphasis Mr. Bush called for a united country: "We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them"

He called on US citizens to "abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time".