Wearing
a long black coat, a smiling Bush walked briskly alone down the gangway
from Air Force One.
He
was to leave by helicopter to Hillsborough Castle near Belfast for his
third summit with Blair in less than a month.
Bush
and Blair broadly agree on the need for the United Nations to endorse a
post-war administration in Iraq, but the United States rejects European
demands for the UN to play a role in running a transition
administration.
"What
the summit will give us is a chance to take stock of where we are,"
a spokesman for Blair told reporters in London, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"It
seems a lot longer than - what was it? - 10 days that we were at Camp
David," the presidential retreat outside Washington where Bush and
Blair last met, when the war looked bleak in the face of then-stiff
Iraqi resistance.
"We
will want to... discuss the post-conflict situation in terms of the
scale of how we will make the transition to Iraqi rule as quickly as
possible," the Blair spokesman said.
Besides
Iraq, the two leaders - meeting at Hillsborough Castle just outside
Belfast - will also discuss the war's impact on the Israel-Palestinian
conflict, transatlantic ties and other "strategic" issues, the
spokesman said.
With
Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern Tuesday, April 7, they will also try
to exploit the presidential visit to give a boost to the stalled peace
process in Northern Ireland.
Bomb
Alerts
 |
|
“…the
insensitivity of having a war summit which appears to be trying to
use the Irish peace process as a stage or a prop," Adams
|
Meanwhile,
in a city that has known decades of bitter fighting between Catholics
and Protestants, a police spokesman said the threats were "a
disruption."
But
he added: "These calls have to be taken seriously for everyone's
protection and security."
Police
said one threat came from a man who called to say that he was from the
Real IRA, a splinter faction of the nationalist Irish Republican Army
(IRA).
The
bomb alerts were all lifted during the day but it was clear there were
doubts in Belfast about Bush's visit.
The
first bomb alert, at Belfast's international airport, where Bush's plane
arrived at around 6:25 pm (1725 GMT), was lifted Monday after a search
of the site.
Another
alert at Belfast's domestic City Airport was lifted as was a third on
the M2 motorway between the international airport and the city. A
terminal at the City Airport was evacuated as a precaution.
Security
was high in Belfast for the visit, with "hundreds of police"
being deployed, a government source said.
The
Northern Irish police said they were "working in the closest
possible cooperation with the U.S. Secret Service and the United Kingdom
government during the visit."
A
government source said security was helped by the fact that Bush's
entourage will be smaller than the number of people who came from
Washington when then-President Bill Clinton visited in 1995 and 1998
since the Bush trip is only a 24-hour affair and limited to one site.
In
their third summit in just over three weeks, Bush and Blair were set to
discuss the Iraq war and the future of the country after the expected
fall of President Saddam Hussein, as well as the Middle East and
Northern Ireland peace processes.
“Insensitive
Summit”
Gerry
Adams, head of Sinn Fein, the IRA's political wing, criticized Monday
what he called the insensitivity of holding a war summit which discusses
the Northern Ireland peace process "in the margins."
Adams,
whose Sinn Fein opposes the war in Iraq, said it appeared the peace
process was being used as a "stage or as a prop."
"We
would be wrong not to point it out ... the insensitivity of having a war
summit, of having a war summit which then discusses peace in the
margins, of having a war summit which appears to be trying to use the
Irish peace process as a stage or as a prop," Adams told Irish
radio.
Thousands
of anti-war protesters were expected to demonstrate at Hillsborough
Castle, the site 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Belfast where the
summit is to be held.
