With Presidents Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan silent and stiff by his side in the White House Rose Garden, Mr Bush praised them as his "personal friends" with strong stakes in the war on terrorism.
"We've got a lot of challenges facing us. All of us must protect our countries. But at the same time, we all must work to make the world a more hopeful place," Mr Bush said during the brief public appearance.
The three leaders broke bread in a stately White House dining room in an effort to ease tensions that Bush aides say undermine efforts to quell surging Taliban violence and to hunt down terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
The US president, gesturing towards Mr Musharraf, said the Al-Qaeda chief "wants to hurt my friend here," seeks to "upset the democracy in Afghanistan" and must be "brought to justice".
A brief White House statement after the dinner said Mr Bush, Mr Musharraf and Mr Karzai had made a commitment to support "moderation and defeating extremism through greater intelligence sharing, (and) coordinated action against terrorists".
Mr Karzai and Mr Musharraf have been waging a war of words over which country bears the brunt of the blame for the surge of attacks by the Taliban militia in Afghanistan, amid Afghan charges that Pakistan is coddling extremists.
In an interview with CNN television on Wednesday, Mr Karzai charged Pakistan was "not doing enough at all" to rid Islamic schools of teachers who are "training extremists full of hatred for the rest of the world".
He also renewed his accusation that Taliban leader Mullah Omar had found refuge in Pakistan after US-led forces ousted the militia for refusing to hand over its sponsor bin Laden, the architect of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
And Mr Musharraf on Tuesday used an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to accuse Mr Karzai being "concerned more about himself than about Afghanistan."