“On January 29 [2002], the president [Bush] brandished the phrase ‘axis of evil’ in the State of the Union address… North Korea was ‘arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction,’ Iran was ‘aggressively’ pursuing weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq had ‘plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade,’ the president said. Then he made his point: ‘States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.’ ”
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 174