George W Bush started his second term in office today with a rousing call for Americans to help spread freedom until "it reaches the darkest corners of our world".

As half a million people flooded the snowy streets of Washington to watch, celebrate or protest against his second swearing-in as president, Mr Bush's inaugural speech focused almost entirely on the challenges still facing the United States after the September 11 attacks - a "day of fire" that transformed his first term in office.

Although evangelical in tone and florid in its rhetoric, Mr Bush's 20-minute speech appeared to confirm recent signs that America will adopt a less unilateral foreign policy over the next four years. But Mr Bush said the guiding principle of his actions since 2001 would continue to hold: the drive for liberty.

"There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom," Mr Bush said.

"We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

"America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth.

"Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.

"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

"This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities."

Mr Bush was watched not just by Washington's political elites, but by the three surviving former presidents - including his own father, who watched him swear the solemn oath of office on an old family bible that Mr Bush junior also used in 2001.

He started the day with a service at St John's Church near the White House and after his swearing-in was to ride slowly by motorcade down Pennsylvania Avenue to watch the inaugural parade from a reviewing stand freshly built in front of the White House.

The 43rd US president starts his second term with considerably less popular support than other recent incumbents after their re-election - an approval rating in the 50 per cent range. That is well below the support enjoyed by Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Security was extremely tight, with about 100 square blocks of the city cut off by steel barricades. Some protesters intended to turn their backs on Mr Bush along the route of the inaugural parade and anti-war demonstrators gathered in Washington's Malcolm X park.

The President is due to visit Europe next month in the first overseas trip of his second term - a decision that is being seen as an attempt to mend fences with European partners angered by the US decision to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein. Tony Blair said in an interview published today that he expected a more consensual foreign policy in coming years.

Mr Bush's second inauguaration came just ten days before Iraqis are asked to vote for a new national assembly, in the face of an upsurge of violence from anti-coalition forces determined to spoil the election. In his speech Mr Bush made no apologies for the decision to invade Iraq, or the earlier war in Afghanistan, saying tens of millions of people had already found freedom because of that action.

He said: "Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonourable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.

"And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."

He added: "We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul."

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