US President George W. Bush, ending a weeklong trip through Europe yesterday, welcomed Britain’s pledge to tighten sanctions against Iran and to send more troops to Afghanistan.
Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown used a joint news conference to show solidarity on an array of vexing foreign policy matters — chiefly Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush dismissed reports he had differences with Brown on Iraq, where Britain has cut its troops.
“I have no problem with how Gordon Brown is dealing with Iraq,” Bush said. “He’s been a good partner.”
The two leaders, both weakened by low public approval, traded compliments and emphasized common stands on global problems such as Zimbabwe, Myanmar and Darfur, and a stalled world trade pact.
They then headed to Belfast where, along with Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen, they were to visit the Protestant and Catholic leaders of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government.
In London, Brown praised Bush for his “steadfastness and resoluteness.”
And Bush said of Brown: “He’s tough on terror and I appreciate it.”
The prime minister came ready with twin announcements that helped buoy Bush’s position.
Brown said Britain would freeze assets of Iran’s largest bank in a further move to discourage the country from developing nuclear weapons. And he announced that Britain was sending more troops to southern Afghanistan, upping London’s commitment to the highest level ever.
Britain’s new deployment of about 230 engineers, logistical staff and military trainers to Afghanistan will boost the number of British forces in the country to more than 8,000, most based in Helmand Province in the south.
Brown showed no distance from Bush on the strategy in Iraq. The prime minister said he would not order an arbitrary withdrawal of the 4,000 remaining British troops until the task is done, and there would be no trade-off by moving troops out of Afghanistan.
“In Iraq, there is a job to be done and we will continue to do the job and there will be no artificial timetable,” Brown said.
Britain’s remaining troops in Iraq are on the outskirts of Basra.
British forces withdrew from their base in Basra’s city center last year and began to focus only on training Iraqi security forces.
Britain suspended plans to remove another 1,500 troops after fighting broke out in Basra in March — a development Bush highlighted yesterday as a positive sign that Brown would only pull out troops as conditions merited.
Questioned about his own reflections on Iraq, Bush offered no apologies.
He said that history would judge how the US waged the war — whether more troops should have been deployed and whether they should have been positioned differently. But he said he had no doubts about deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
“Bush also chided leaders of other major industrialized nations for not fully keeping their promises to funnel aid into Africa.
He said his message at next month’s G8 summit in Japan would be: “Just remember, there are people needlessly dying on the continent of Africa today, and we expect you to be more than pledge-makers. We expect you to be check-writers for humanitarian reasons.”
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