Washington ? Some Taliban and al-Qaida members who escaped Afghanistan have “found refuge” in Iran, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Sunday.

Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials also charged that Iran was creating instability inside Afghanistan by funneling arms to various factions within the country.

“There isn’t any doubt in my mind that the porous border between Iran and Afghanistan has been used for al-Qaida and Taliban to move into Iran and find refuge,” Rumsfeld said.

Iran has helped in creating the interim Afghan government and raising money to rebuild its war-shattered neighbor, Secretary of State Colin Powell said. But President Bush’s grouping Iran with North Korea and Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” supporting terrorism was justified, U.S. officials said.

“This regime deserved to be on the list and this regime knows it deserved to be on the list,” Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” She said Iran was seeking chemical and biological weapons, improving its long-range missiles and pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities.

Iranian officials have denounced Bush’s comments and denied giving any help to the Taliban or Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network. Iran’s government had strongly opposed the Taliban regime before its eventual collapse last year.

“We hated each other and we never had any commonalities,” the head of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said Friday.

Part of the reason was religious. Iran’s regime is Shiite Muslim, while the Taliban imposed a radical version of the rival Sunni branch of Islam.

Iran also has jostled for influence in Afghanistan for years with Pakistan and Russia, the other major powers in the region. Pakistan, whose population is mainly Sunni Muslim, had backed the Taliban until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

Since then, Pakistan has strongly supported the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, and Rumsfeld on Sunday chided Iran for not acting more like Pakistan.

“The Iranians have not done what the Pakistan government has done – put troops along the border to prevent terrorists from escaping out of Afghanistan into their country,” Rumsfeld said, acknowledging that some terrorist fighters probably have slipped into Pakistan despite the blockade.

“We have any number of reports that Iran has been permissive and allowed transit through their country of al-Qaida,” the secretary said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Asked if the United States planned any response to Iran’s actions, Rumsfeld said, “We don’t announce things we’re going to do before we do them.”

Bush warned Iranian officials in January not to harbor al-Qaida fighters and not to try to destabilize Afghanistan’s new government. If the warning were ignored, Bush said the United States would deal with Iran “in diplomatic ways, initially.”

Rice said the United States also was concerned about possible “Iranian attempts to surreptitiously influence Afghan politics at a very delicate time.” Rumsfeld said the U.S. has “any number of reports” that Iran has given weapons to some Afghan factions jockeying for influence in the aftermath of the Taliban’s downfall.

Rice and administration officials defended Bush’s “axis of evil” label, saying critics of the phrase should focus on the three countries’ misdeeds, not Bush’s words. North Korea is the source for ballistic missiles for other hostile countries and Iraq has refused to allow inspectors to see its weapons of mass destruction programs, Rice said.

While Bush’s speech was not a declaration of war, Powell and Rice said the president would consider using any aspect of U.S. power – political, diplomatic, economic or military – against such terrorist countries.

“We prefer diplomatic ways, political solutions. We’re not looking for a war; we’re trying to avoid war,” Powell said.

Meanwhile, Powell and Rice said the U.S. government assumes that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is still alive.

“I assume he is alive because we have no evidence to show he is dead,” Powell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

If he is alive, bin Laden is on the run and no longer in control of the al-Qaida network of terrorists, they said.

“One way or another, these people will be brought to justice,” Rice said.