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Bush Defends Iraq War Amid Protests

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 November 2003, 06:00 CST

Amid royal pageantry and a smattering of anti-war protesters, President Bush opened a state visit Wednesday defending the invasion of Iraq as a necessary use of military power while likening reconstruction efforts to rebuilding a shattered Europe after two world wars.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip gave a royal salute to the American leader, greeting Bush at Buckingham Palace.

As ceremonial cannon blasts from a 41-gun salute shook the palace, Bush and his wife, Laura, moved down a receiving line with the queen and prince, greeting Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and a phalanx of military officers in formal dress. Bush and the prince then inspected a column of Coldstream Guards, with their trademark grey coats and tall, furry black hats.

Buckingham Palace, the queen's London residence, also was a focal point for demonstrators bitterly opposed to the Iraq war. They shouted "Murderer!" and "You are not welcome!" as Bush's helicopter ferried him to the palace Tuesday night. Wednesday morning, they gathered again behind metal barriers, watched by large numbers of yellow-jacketed police officers.

The light crowd of protesters was kept several dozen yards from the palace gates, but their chants could be heard inside the palace grounds as the president greeted dignitaries.

And the palace was the setting of a major embarrassment for British security services. A journalist got hired as a royal servant despite presenting bogus credentials. The Daily Mirror newspaper said its reporter, who quit the job as a royal footman Tuesday night after Bush's arrival at the palace, had full access to the queen's residence and to the president's guest room for his two-month tenure.

Later, in a speech to academics at Whitehall Palace, Bush was seeking to puncture what he views as misconceptions on this side of the Atlantic about America's use of force. He was subtly invoking Europe's history of appeasement of dictators, and the price Europeans paid for their governments' inaction, aides said.

Bush was explicitly reminding Europeans about the critical work the Allies did to set postwar Germany on the path to democracy, a process the Bush administration and the British are trying to accelerate today in Iraq.

As many as 100,000 people were preparing to march through London to protest the Iraq war and occupation, a fresh sign of the opposition that swept through much of Europe in the run-up to invasion and has deepened for many Europeans since.

Bush's visit to Britain dominated broadsheet newspapers in the country Wednesday morning. Headlines concentrated on the unprecedented level of security surrounding the visit, with The Times of London's front page leading with "President strolls into Fortress Britain." Inside, many newspapers carried pictures of policemen carrying submachine guns, a rare sight in Britain.

On the first full day of a 3 1/2-day trip to England, Bush was trying to reframe Europeans' perceptions of American military might. He wants to sway people here like Nina Baker, a Scottish Green Party activist from Glasgow.

"Everything about (Bush) is just deeply depressing," she said Wednesday outside Buckingham Palace. "Bush stole the presidency, Blair lied to the people, Bush led us down the path of war. They are not listening to the public."

Bush argues that all free countries are at risk from terrorism, and that Iraq is a central front in the battle against terrorists.

Wednesday, he was broadening his argument by offering what his senior aides called a "three-pillared" argument for war as a last resort.

Bush was noting Europe's long history of wars, which in the White House view has created the Europeans' tendency to embrace international cooperative organizations like the United Nations.

Bush's speech was the centerpiece of a visit designed to win over Europeans. He was reaching out to a second audience as well, by granting an interview to the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper, which has an Arab readership. Also Wednesday, he was meeting with relatives of Britons lost in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Thursday, Bush was to sit down with family members of British soldiers killed in Iraq.

Blair has been America's staunchest ally in the Iraq war, even as doubts have grown among the British public and in Blair's own Labor Party.

Britain has sent more troops to Iraq than any country aside from America, about 9,000, and the British have lost more than any other American ally - 52 deaths since the start of the war.

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