FREEDOM FIGHTERS ; CAMP DAVID SUMMIT Bush: We Share Same World Vision Brown: UK Troops Pulled Off Streets

By BOB ROBERTS in Camp David, Maryland

GORDON Brown yesterday reinforced the UK’s special relationship with America by highlighting the joint crusade for world freedom and justice.

The Prime Minister put paid to rumours he and President George Bush would not get along in their first face-to-face talks by stressing the two countries’ shared vision.

In a dramatic Camp David summit, he also gave Mr Bush two months’ notice that he would pull UK troops off the streets of Iraq.

Standing beside Mr Bush, he said: “It is our shared task to expose terrorism for what it is – not a cause but a crime. A crime against humanity.

“There should be no safe havens and no hiding places for those who practise terrorist violence .”

Mr Bush added: “I found Mr Brown a person who shares that vision and who understands the call.

“After all, we are writing the initial chapters of what I believe is a great ideological struggle between those of us who do believe in freedom and justice and human rights and human dignity and cold- blooded killers who kill innocent people to achieve their objectives.”

Mr Brown made clear he would fulfil Britain’s “duties and responsibilities” to Iraq.

But he told Mr Bush he wanted UK troops home as soon as possible from combat to “overwatch” status – where they stay on their bases and only help Iraqi forces when they get in trouble.

The PM revealed: “We’ve got to a situation where there are perhaps 300,000 people who are in the Iraqi security and policing forces. In Basra and in the four provinces we’re dealing with, security forces have built up over the last few years to around 30,000 people.

“It’s in that context we can achieve what we want to do.”

He insisted the decision would be made on the basis of British military advice on the ground.

Mr Bush was said to be nervous the UK could pull out too early, leaving US troops exposed.

But he said he knew Mr Brown would do the right thing in Iraq.

Mr Bush revealed: “There is no doubt in my mind that Gordon understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our own countries.

Failure in Iraq would embolden extremist movements throughout the Middle East. He understands that violence could spill out across the region.”

In more than two hours of talks, Mr Brown assured him there would be no hasty pull-out over summer. The US military “surge” is expected to be completed within weeks and a report on its success will be delivered on September 15.

Speaking after the meeting – dubbed the “Roast Beef” summit after the pair dined on tenderloin beef and Mexican brownies – Mr Brown said it was a “great honour” to hold talks with the President.

He added he had told Mr Bush it was “in Britain’s national interest that, with all our energies, we work together to address all the great challenges that we face: nuclear proliferation; climate change; global poverty and prosperity; the Middle East peace process and international terrorism”.

He said the West was involved in a battles of ideas with al- Qaeda and that needed to be won as urgently as the struggle on the battlefield.

bob.roberts@mirror.co.uk

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