Bush Hopes to Forge Relationship With New British Prime Minister

WASHINGTON _ President Bush and new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown strove Monday to present an unwavering common front in the forging of a relationship amid growing pressure at home for both leaders to find a way out of the Iraq war.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that Gordon Brown understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our own countries,” Bush said, after a series of meetings at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. “There’s no doubt in my mind he understands the stakes of the struggle.”

Brown, standing alongside Bush during his first visit to the United States as prime minister, said: “We are at one in fighting the battle against terrorism. And that struggle is one that we will fight with determination and with resilience and right across the world.”

Since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Britain has been the staunchest ally of the U.S. Yet that alliance took a political toll on Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair, who stepped aside during his third term amid intense criticism of the war and of his support of Bush.

For that reason, Monday’s joint appearance was closely scrutinized in Britain for any sign of whether Brown would be as close to Bush as Blair was _ a path that could hold political peril for the new leader.

As the British military scales back its 5,500-troop contingent in Iraq _ in the midst of a surge of American troops to 160,000 _ Brown suggested that the U.S. and Britain face a shared challenge in handing full control of security to Iraqi forces. British forces have achieved this in three of the four Iraqi provinces under their supervision, Brown said _ moving from “combat to overwatch” _ and they hope for the same in Basra.

The strategic relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is unshaken, both leaders said, and each called the other the most important partner in bilateral relations.

“Call it the special relationship,” Brown said. “Call it, as Churchill did, the joint inheritance. Call it, when we meet as a form of homecoming, as President Reagan did.

“And I do see this relationship strengthening in the years to come, because it is the values that we believe in that I think will have the most impact as we try to solve the problems that we face right across the world.”

Bush, asked if Britain’s alliance is as important to the U.S. as American support is to the British, said: “The relationship between Great Britain and America is our most important bilateral relationship. …We have common interests throughout the world. But it’s an important relationship primarily because we think the same.”

The personal relationship that might be forged between these two leaders, at the start of Brown’s rule and near the end of Bush’s, is another question. Bush and Blair established a warm relationship. And Bush appeared eager to dispel any differences in style with the new British leader, whom some in the British press have termed “a dour Scotsman.”

“He is not the dour Scotsman that you described him, or the awkward Scotsman,” Bush said of Brown, following a breakfast meeting, dinner the night before and a long meeting in which the two sent their aides off to the bowling alley at Camp David. “He’s actually the humorous Scotsman. … He’s a glass-half-full man, not a glass-half-empty guy.”

Brown, invoking diplomatic terms that often understate the tensions of any talks, said, “We have had full and frank discussions.” This included much more than the war in Iraq. It also included climate change, Brown noted, an issue that European leaders have pressed with more urgency than the Bush administration has.

At Bush’s urging, the most recent summit of the G-8 industrial nations, which includes Britain, issued a commitment to staging an international summit by the end of next year to agree on common goals for fighting global warming _ leaving each nation to its own strategy for carrying out those goals. European leaders have sought tough standards for the reduction of carbon emissions.

But, most of all, perhaps as a way of paving over differences of detail on this and other policy questions, the two emphasized the common “values” that the U.S. and Britain share.

These interests include the prevention of nuclear proliferation, climate change, peace in the Middle East and fighting poverty and terrorism.

“Terrorism is not a cause. It is a crime against humanity … and there should be no haven, no safe hiding place,” said Brown, asserting that, in Iraq, the British have “duties to discharge and responsibilities to keep, in support of the democratically elected government. … Our aim, like the United States, is step by step to move control to the Iraqi authorities.”

Bush, facing growing pressure from Democratic leaders and some within his own party to change course in Iraq, asked again for patience with a progress report that Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, will deliver in September. He said that the U.S. shares the same goal that Brown has stated in seeking to move from “combat to overwatch.”

“That’s what we want to do,” Bush said. “We want to be able to be in a position where we can achieve results on the ground so that we can be in a different posture.”

___

(c) 2007, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

_____

ARCHIVE GRAPHIC on MCT Direct (from MCT Graphics, 202-383-6064): 20070510 Brown bio

PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): BUSH-BROWN

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. 1046966