Washington ? President Bush’s aides and allies sought Wednesday to blunt the impact from his naming North Korea, Iran and Iraq as members of an “axis of evil.”

Among them was Sen. Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican and a member of the Armed Forces and Intelligence committees.

“It’s a sort of not-so-gentle tap on the shoulder that we mean business,” Roberts said. “I didn’t read anything into it other than that he was laying down a strong marker: ‘We have the intelligence; we know what you’re doing with proliferating weapons of mass destruction.”‘

In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Bush named the three nations and said: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.

“By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.

“In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic,” Bush said.

The nations all are accused of supporting terrorism against other nations and trying to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. North Korea sells weapons, especially missiles and rocket technology, to other regimes, including Iraq.

Bush aides said Wednesday that no military action is imminent against any of the three nations and that months of economic and diplomatic efforts would come first.

That was Roberts’ take on the issue, too.

“I wouldn’t be surprised that some limited military action would be forthcoming, but I think it would be preceded by very strong diplomatic efforts,” he said. “I don’t think he’s going to be doing anything on a unilateral basis. I think the strength of this whole business is allied cooperation.”

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld added a warning on Wednesday that the United States will watch closely to see what Iraq, Iran and North Korea do next.

“If I were in Iran or North Korea or Iraq and I heard the president of the United States say what he said about weapons of mass destruction and about terrorism … I don’t think there’d be a lot of ambiguity,” Rumsfeld said. “Now, what they will do about that is something we’ll find out.”

Another Kansas Republican, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, was disappointed the president failed to mention another country where terrorists are operating. U.S. troops are now in the Philippines, where Muslim rebels with links to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network have been holding Kansans Martin and Gracia Burnham as hostages for eight months.

The Americans are helping train Philippine Army soldiers battling the Abu Sayyaf, a group that kidnapped the Burnhams.

“I don’t think we’re getting the focus on the Burnhams that we need,” Tiahrt said. “We should admit we have a cancer in the Philippines, and that’s called terrorism. Those two Kansans are in a great deal of need right now, and we have to get them out, or else I’m afraid they’ll perish.”