United Nations ? Croatia’s president took a swipe at the Bush administration Tuesday, telling the U.N. Security Council that the global fight against terrorism has been “compromised” by Washington’s pre-emptive approach.

Stipe Mesic, a staunch opponent of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, said solidarity with the U.S. diminished after it adopted “a kind of exclusive competence of one country, or of a group of countries which it led.”

“The fight against terrorism as a global project was also compromised by the way in which it was waged,” he said.

Stipe oversaw a 9-hour Security Council session he convened to renew the world’s commitment to fighting terrorism. His Balkan country holds the 15-nation council’s rotating presidency this month.

Bush defended his pre-emptive “Bush Doctrine” in a speech that coincided with the council session Tuesday. He told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., that a strong offense was needed to prevent Americans from being attacked again.

“We resolved that we would not wait to be attacked again, and so we went on the offense against the terrorists overseas so we never had to face them here at home,” he said.

The council session ended Tuesday night with Mesic reading an unanimous statement condemning terrorism “in all its forms and manifestations” and asserting that “any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivations.”