Free Republic

There were big demonstrations in Northern Ireland on Tuesday. Around 2,000 people, from both the South and the North of the divided island, converged on the fine old 18th-century manor house, rather misleadingly called a "castle," at Hillsborough in County Down. Ten miles away in Belfast city center, several hundred more took part in a prayer vigil outside the city hall. A casual observer might have thought that the old civil-rights movement of the late 1960s had come back to life, an impression that would have been fortified by the presence, at the first of those demonstrations, of an old...

<p>BELFAST, Northern Ireland. -- There was something comical about the "antiwar" protesters who gathered here for the abbreviated Bush-Blair summit meeting. They were opposing a war that is nearly over. They demonized the victors — who are fighting in a moral cause — and not the losers, who fight to preserve an immoral rule. These protesters' silence during the deposed (and possibly dead) Saddam Hussein's three decades of murder and mayhem makes them irrelevant.</p>

<p>BELFAST — President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday pledged to give the United Nations a "vital role" in postwar Iraq and vowed to cede control of the oil-rich country to its citizens as soon as possible.</p> <p>The president insisted that the United States will not be heavy-handed in administering postwar Iraq and that the "Iraqi people are capable, talented and will be successful in running their own government."</p>

For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary April 8, 2003 President's Remarks view listen President Bush Meets with Prime Minister Blair in Northern Ireland Hillsborough Castle Belfast, Northern Ireland 11:08 A.M. (Local) PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Good morning, everyone. First of all, I would like to extend a very warm welcome to President Bush to Northern Ireland. America has long been a friend of Northern Ireland and a friend to us in this important period for the peace process. So it's both significant and welcome that the President is here in person to give, once more, his support, and...

HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland (Reuters) - President Bush promised on Tuesday to turn his focus to settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was removed from power. Bush held out the Northern Ireland peace process, spearheaded by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, as a possible model, saying he was "willing to spend the same amount of energy in the Middle East." "The end of Saddam's regime will ... remove a source of violence and instability in the Middle East," Bush said after his third face-to-face meeting in less than a month with Blair, his main ally in invading...

YAHOO CAPTION: US President George W. Bush speaks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Hillsborough Castle in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland.(AFP/Luke Frazza)

<p>BELFAST — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday said the war is drawing to a close as President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair downplayed their differences over the United Nations' role in postwar Iraq.</p> <p>"The hostilities phase is coming to a conclusion," Mr. Powell told reporters as Air Force One crossed the Atlantic. "It's time for all of us to think about the post-hostilities phase."</p>

Blair tells Bush: take rest of world into account US security must be balanced with justice, says PM at summit Tony Blair last night appealed to George Bush to combine America's quest for its own security with the wider needs of international justice when the two leaders of the Iraqi war coalition met on British soil to review their military and diplomatic strategy. Hyper-security as Mr Bush flew into Belfast contrasted with deliberate informality once he met Mr Blair in the safety of Hillsborough Castle, Co Down - a deliberate attempt to recreate the atmosphere of Camp David, where the...

As George Bush prepares to meet Tony Blair tomorrow in Belfast, it is worth remembering what we are fighting for. We are seeking to rid Iraq of chemical weapons, change the regime in Baghdad, and introduce democracy into the Middle East via a newly-liberated citizenry in the heart of the region. Up until now, Britain has been a stalwart military ally, but all of this may change soon. The UN fiasco of November through March (trying to obtain a second resolution and such) came about because the US felt a need to help out our embattled ally at 10 Downing...

President Bush, right, is greeted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Hillsborough Castle, Monday, April 7, 2003 in Hillsborough, Northern Ireland. Bush and Blair are grappling with three of the world's toughest conflicts in Bush's 19-hour visit to Northern Ireland, discussing war and rebuilding in Iraq while trying to revive peace efforts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

PRESIDENT Bush arrived in Belfast last night to face rare criticism from Irish republicans, who accused him of using the Northern Ireland peace process to prop up support for war in Iraq. On the eve of crucial talks between Mr Bush and Northern Ireland’s main party leaders, Gerry Adams called the President’s decision to hold a war summit with Tony Blair in the Province “insensitive”. “We would be wrong not to point it out . . . the insensitivity of having a war summit which then discusses peace in the margins, of having a war summit which appears to be...

Bush Travels to Belfast to Discuss Iraq By SCOTT LINDLAW .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are grappling with three of the world's toughest conflicts in Bush's 25-hour visit to Belfast, discussing war and rebuilding in Iraq while trying to revive peace efforts in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. Bush departed Washington early Monday en route to Belfast for a summit meant primarily to review war progress and to iron out differences about how Iraq will be rebuilt and governed when hostilities end. Meanwhile, police shut down a major highway...

Bush brings hopes, high security to N. Ireland By Alex Richardson BELFAST, April 7 (Reuters) - Northern Ireland, a weary veteran of high security and dashed hopes, readied for U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday with steel barriers but also fresh optimism that he can help kickstart the peace process. Bush will begin a summit meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast later on Monday that will focus chiefly on the war in Iraq. But there were also hopes his intervention could breathe new life into the British-ruled province's flagging peace process. Bush has...

Bush lands in N.Ireland for Iraq talks with Blair BELFAST, April 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush flew into Belfast on Monday for talks about the Iraq war with his staunchest global ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Bush's Air Force One jet touched down at a military air-strip outside the capital of Northern Ireland at around 1720 GMT. Blair flew in earlier at about 1630 GMT and waited for Bush at Hillsborough Castle, south of Belfast, which is the official residence of London's minister for the British-run province. The pair were to dine together on Monday ahead...

Analysis: Blair-Bush talks could be tense WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- While Iraqi resistance collapses rapidly before the combined U.S. - British advance, President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are meeting Monday in Belfast in a hastily arranged meeting to discuss the widening gap in the coalition over the shape of a post-Saddam Iraq. The main divisive issue is the role of the United Nations in the political and economic reconstruction of Iraq once U.S. and coalition forces have toppled the Saddam Hussein regime, and claimed victory. A second potential difference is the question of how...

Bomb alerts were issued in Belfast ahead of a visit by US President George W. Bush for a summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, expected to be greeted by thousands of anti-war demonstrators.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...

Us to begin work on interim Iraqi authority-Powell BELFAST, April 7 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday the military campaign in Iraq was going "exceptionally well" and that Washington would send a team to Iraq this week to begin looking at what is needed to set up an interim Iraqi authority. Speaking to reporters travelling with U.S. President George W. Bush to Northern Ireland, Powell said it was now time to start talking about the future of Iraq because the military campaign was going "exceptionally well." He played down a transatlantic rift over the role...

U.S. satellite surveillance is so sophisticated it can now provide transcripts of high-level meetings before they are held. Here is what Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush are likely to say at today's Belfast summit: Bush: Your brave troops were fantastic at Basra. Blair: I'll pass that on. Great turn of phrase — "The power to be patient." That's what your chaps are wisely emulating in Baghdad. Water is the problem. Bush: And that war plan that those retired brass hats on TV thought was so risky looks pretty good now. The media "misunderestimated" us again.Blair: Memorable locution. Now...

DEAR PRESIDENT BUSH, AS ONE of the few Irish journalists to support your war against Saddam Hussein, I want to welcome you to Ireland. Although Iraq and Israel will dominate the public agenda, Sinn Fein will be privately told the score. Apart from that, you came to say thanks to the Irish politicians who stood by you in your hour of need. None of them are Northern nationalists. Sinn Fein IRA loathes America, fondles Farc, and despises the useful idiots in the Irish-American community and the State Department whom it fooled for many years until it was recently found out....

Even amid crucial battles in Iraq, US President George W. Bush has made the gesture of leaving his capital again this week for a second attempt to shore up his foremost war ally, British prime minister Tony Blair, in the fight for his political life at home. Although, according to the latest opinion polls, around 70 percent of Britons support their army’s participation in the Iraq war, Blair’s personal prestige is on the wane. Some diplomatic circles dubbed the Bush-Blair conference in Belfast this Tuesday, April 8, “the rescue Blair summit”, after last month’s Camp David encounter failed to turn...