DONALD RUMSFELD, US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE: We are getting scraps of intelligence, saying that Syria has been cooperative in facilitating the movement of people out of Iraq into Syria.

Almost on a daily basis, Rumsfeld and associates began piling new charges against Syria, from harbouring Saddam to hiding weapons of mass destruction. It was all news to Syria's Foreign Minister who heard each accusation only through CNN.

REPORTER: Are the Americans transmitting this information to you directly or are you getting just media reports of these accusations?

FAROUK AL-SHARAA, SYRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Media report. They are just making statements to the media.

REPORTER: So they're not making these accusations to you or asking for any clarification?

FAROUK AL-SHARAA: No.

The verbal assault was a classic expression of the new American foreign policy - no pussyfooting around with diplomacy or international opinion, make a demand and back it up with a barely veiled military threat.

GEORGE W. BUSH, US PRESIDENT: The Syrian Government needs to cooperate with the United States and our coalition partners and not harbour any Ba'athists, any military officials, any people who need to be held to account for their tenure.

The international response was sceptical at best. Then Colin Powell stepped in to cool things down.

COLIN POWELL, US SECRETARY OF STATE: And so we have a new situation in the region and we hope that all the nations in the region will now review their past practices and behaviour.

The American right was outraged when Powell announced he was not only prepared to talk to the Syrians but to visit them as well - further evidence, in their eyes, that Powell's sense of diplomacy is undermining America's new might. The most public attack came recently from Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the house and now defence policy adviser to Donald Rumsfeld.