Intensive security measures fell into place in London on Monday on the eve of a state visit to Britain by United States President George Bush that could flesh out the future of post-war Iraq.
Extra police were deployed at Britain’s ferry ports and airports, and passengers were being checked as they came off Eurostar trains from mainland Europe, ahead of Bush’s arrival on Tuesday evening.
Police were meanwhile in talks with the Stop the War Coalition, which is insisting on leading a big protest march Thursday against Bush and the Iraq war past Downing Street to Parliament.
Large-scale demonstrations and a heightened terrorist alert risk overshadowing talks that Bush will be having with British Prime Minister Tony Blair on winning the peace in Iraq.
In the latest of a series of pre-visit interviews with the British media, Bush told the mass circulation Sun newspaper that he wouldn’t be rattled by voices of dissent.
”Presidents and prime ministers should never worry about how they are viewed in short-term history,” he said in the interview published on Monday.
”I think in terms of long-term history. I set big goals. And I know what we’re doing is going to have a positive effect on this world.”
Bush and Blair are expected to review plans for an accelerated transfer of sovereignty in Iraq on June 30 next year, and how that could impact on a withdrawal of US, British and other occupation forces.
Bush — whose chances for re-election in November next year could be ruined if US casualities in Iraq keep growing — welcomed the handover timetable on Sunday, but warned: ”It depends on what’s taking place on the ground.”
Bush and Blair are also expected to discuss ways to patch up Euro-American relations and head off a looming trade war over US tariffs on steel imports, which have been deemed illegal by the World Trade Organisation.
Bush will be staying at Buckingham Palace as the personal guest of Queen Elizabeth II, in what the palace is calling the first-ever state visit to Britain by a US president.
His programme includes a ceremonial palace welcome and a keynote speech on Wednesday, a press conference with Blair on Thursday, and a quick side trip on Friday to Blair’s constituency of Sedgefield, in northeast England.
Bush is also to meet relatives of some of the 53 British soldiers killed in Iraq. Several relatives say they will use their face time with him to express their anger at the war.
Many political analysts in Britain suspect the real purpose of Bush’s visit is to polish his image among Americans as he aims for a second term in the White House.
”Electoral reasoning lay behind the presidential desire to be entertained in style,” wrote columnist Peter Osborne in the usually pro-Bush Spectator magazine.
Stop the War, which organised a million-strong anti-war protest in London last February, has a series of events lined up, culiminating with a rally on Thursday in Trafalgar Square and the toppling of a Bush effigy.
More than 5 000 police officers have been deployed in London for the visit, plus several hundred armed plainclothes US Secret Service bodyguards sent over from Washington.
Over the weekend Britain was placed on a heightened state of terrorist alert, amid talk of a possible strike by North African operatives from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Metropolitan Police chief Sir John Stevens has described the security operation as ”unprecedented”.
Bush has come to Britain as president once before, in July 2001, two months before the September 11 attacks. — Sapa-AFP