ASHINGTON, April 4 — The White House said today that President Bush would meet with the British prime minister, Tony Blair, in Belfast next week to discuss the war in Iraq and the peace efforts in Northern Ireland and in the Middle East.Posted on 04/04/2003 10:02:36 PM PST by JohnHuang2
ASHINGTON, April 4 — The White House said today that President Bush would meet with the British prime minister, Tony Blair, in Belfast next week to discuss the war in Iraq and the peace efforts in Northern Ireland and in the Middle East.
The meeting of Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, to begin on Monday, is expected to focus on when to declare the existence of a new Iraqi government, an event that American officials now say could come even before the government of Saddam Hussein is toppled or Baghdad is secured.
The two leaders will also discuss battle plans and the contentious issue of whether the United States or the United Nations should have the central role in postwar Iraq.
The meeting will be the third time the two leaders have convened a war council in the past four weeks, and Mr. Blair hopes to use the event to draw Mr. Bush deeper into the British agenda: pressing ahead on the Middle East peace plan known as the "road map," and seeking Mr. Bush's endorsement of a renewed peace effort for Northern Ireland.
White House officials said today that the Belfast meeting had been in the planning stages for the past week and would include the Irish prime minister, Bertie Ahern.
The setting was chosen in part, they said, to showcase the relative success of the peace effort in Northern Ireland, which was once considered to be one of the world's most intractable conflicts, as a lesson for the Middle East.
A new Iraqi government, whatever its form, was also the subject of a meeting President Bush conducted at the White House today with a group of a dozen Iraqi exiles.
In the session, which lasted nearly an hour, Mr. Bush did not specify the role of the United States in a new government and said only that "there is talk of an interim authority." He did say that the Iraqis were capable of selecting their own leaders and that a transition period would focus on empowering them.
The exiles at the meeting in the Roosevelt Room, many of them prosperous Iraqi professionals now living in the United States, have close ties to the administration and often speak publicly of the atrocities they attribute to Mr. Hussein's government.
A number of the exiles who attended the White House meeting have much to gain politically and financially in an American-led post-Hussein Iraq. a
Today, with a reporter present in a corner of the room, they spoke in a unified voice of their support for Mr. Bush and the war to overthrow Mr. Hussein.
One of them, Emad Dhia, warned Mr. Bush of the dangers of a too quick American withdrawal. "Don't just get in and jump out," Mr. Dhia said. Mr. Bush responded, "I made that commitment."
Mr. Dhia said after the meeting that he was working with Jay Garner, a retired Army general who will be leading the Pentagon's office for Iraq reconstruction and relief.
Another exile, Jacob Bacall, a Michigan real estate developer, said that he hoped to help develop a new Iraq. Another participant, Zainab al-Suwaij, the executive director of the American Islamic Congress, told the president: "I am at your service."
Much of the meeting gave voice to Iraqi exiles' accounts of human rights abuses under Mr. Hussein that the White House has been eager to publicize as opinion has hardened in the Arab world against the American-led invasion of Iraq. Today the president went one by one around a conference table calling on each exile to tell a story that illustrated an aspect of Mr. Hussein's government.
Ms. Suwaij told the president that she had seen firsthand in a prison in Karbala the chemical baths used to torture opponents of Mr. Hussein.
Rahman al-Jebouri, a writer, said that he had a scar from a cigarette burn on his hand from Iraqi authorities who disliked one of the stories he had written.
He also urged the president to reserve a place in a future government for those Iraqis who did not necessarily speak proper English.
"Doesn't matter if your English is not all that good," Mr. Bush replied. "Some people say mine isn't either."
Later in the meeting, Dr. Adil Awadh, who said he had been an intern in an Iraqi hospital in the mid 1990's, told the president that he had seen thousands of Iraqi opponents to Mr. Hussein have their ears cut off as punishment.
Dr. Awadh said that some of the victims could no longer wear glasses and asked the president if they could be offered cosmetic surgery after the war.
"Well, I appreciate you bringing that up," the president replied. "It's an interesting idea."
Dr. Awadh then told the president, "If you treat some of these earless victims, this will help the Muslim world understand you better."
Mr. Bush left the meeting immediately after the last exile had finished, but he turned on his way to the door and, without waiting to be asked when the war would end simply said, "Soon."
Some in the administration want Mr. Bush to act quickly to declare a new government, which the White House is calling an "interim authority," to demonstrate that the Americans are less interested in occupation than in turning the country over to Iraqis.
But, acting prematurely, some in the White House counter, could undercut the new Iraqi government because the geographical scope of its powers would be so limited.
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