Blair Meets Bush, Shocked by Pictures on Al-Jazeera

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 27, 2003

Blair Meets Bush, Shocked by Pictures on Al-Jazeera

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British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday expressed outrage that Arab television had broadcast pictures showing what appeared to be dead and captured British soldiers as he met President Bush for talks on the war in Iraq.

Blair's official spokesman told reporters the British leader was appalled after Qatar-based al-Jazeera television broadcast images of two men it identified as British prisoners of war and showed the bodies of two others it said were killed in action.

British media said the two bodies were likely those of two British soldiers who went missing in action during an Iraqi ambush on Sunday. But the Ministry of Defense in London declined to comment, saying the footage was still being studied.

Newspapers reacted with disgust. "Horror film of shot Britons," the Daily Mail splashed across its front page. "British bodies lie in the dust as mob exults" lamented the London Times.

Blair's dinner with Bush was "partly sociable" and partly a wide-ranging discussion of issues including the Middle East, the world after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and relations between Arab nations and the West, his spokesman said.

Blair was joined by his chief foreign policy adviser Sir David Manning and his chief of staff Jonathan Powell. Bush was accompanied by his wife Laura, his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and his chief of staff Andrew Card.

Seeking to dampen impressions that Britain is desperate to push a reluctant United States into agreeing to a central U.N. role in post-war Iraq, Blair's spokesman said no concrete decisions on that would be made at Camp David.

Blair, who flies to New York late on Thursday to meet U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, had stressed a similar line on his way over from London. He said it was "premature" to start arguing over a U.N. role in Iraq after the war.

Washington is resentful at the United Nations for failing to agree on a second resolution effectively endorsing military action in Iraq. France, Russia and Germany -- which all oppose the war -- are furious that London and Washington effectively sidelined the United Nations and proceeded with an invasion of Iraq aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein.

Although cautious on the issue of a post-Saddam rule of Iraq, Blair was in a hurry to get the U.N. oil-for-food program, upon which many Iraqis depend, "up and running as soon as possible," his spokesman said.

Source: Agencies

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