Bush tells Europeans: We must fight 'evil'

By Seattle Times news services

	AP President Bush and Queen Elizabeth II walk yesterday at Buckingham Palace in London, where he attended a state dinner.
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"In some cases, the measured use of force is all that protects us from a chaotic world ruled by force," Bush said in a foreign-policy address before a handpicked audience in a heavily fortified city that today is expected to host up to 100,000 anti-war demonstrators.

As the president attended yesterday's banquet in his honor, throngs of anti-war demonstrators converged outside. Police arrested more than two dozen protesters.

Because of security considerations, the White House canceled a Bush appearance scheduled for earlier in the day in Grosvenor Square, across from the U.S. Embassy, where he was to have lain a wreath at the United Kingdom's Sept. 11 memorial.

"I've been here only a short time, but I've noticed that the tradition of free speech, exercised with enthusiasm, is alive and well in London," Bush told a forum organized by the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies and the Institute for Strategic Studies.

"We have it at home, too," he said. "They now have that right in Baghdad."

For many Britons, Bush's visit touches an exposed nerve, still inflamed months after an anguished national debate over whether to join Washington in its invasion.

Far from backing down, the president delivered remarks replete with history lessons as he urged Europeans never to forget that their relative harmony was achieved only by "allied armies of liberation and NATO armies of defense."

Bush, who thanked Prime Minister Tony Blair for his staunch support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, rebuked those who say the war was unjustified and defended it as a fulfillment of "moral duties."

Bush's trip Remaining schedule for the president's visit to Britain: Today • Visits Westminster Abbey and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the morning. • Meets soldiers who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their families. • Talks and lunch with Prime Minister Tony Blair. • Laura Bush and Blair's wife, Cherie, visit schoolchildren. • In the afternoon, roundtable discussion on HIV/AIDS. • In the evening, the Bushes host a dinner for the queen. Tomorrow • Bush heads for Blair's northern England constituency of Sedgefield for lunch with locals. • Returns to Washington, D.C., in the evening.

In a swipe at countries such as France, Germany and Russia, which resisted U.S. and British efforts to win U.N. approval for the invasion, Bush warned that the United Nations was "solemnly choosing its own irrelevance and inviting the fate of the League of Nations. It's not enough to meet the dangers of the world with resolutions; we must meet those dangers with resolve."

To further justify the Iraq war and his controversial doctrine of taking pre-emptive military action, Bush invoked memories of World War II and the Holocaust, saying they occurred because "free nations failed to recognize, much less confront, aggressive evil in plain sight."

The result was a century filled with violence and genocide, he told several hundred members of the two British national-security think tanks in his only official address of a three-day state visit.

The United States and its allies have yet to find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that Bush and Blair repeatedly said Saddam Hussein had been developing. But Bush emphasized again that the "greatest threat of our age is nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists and the dictators who aid them."

The United States, he said, intends to keep its word and continue pursuing democracy in Iraq. "We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq and pay a bitter cost of casualties and liberate 25 million people, only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins," he said.

Bush was received politely, if not enthusiastically, in the ornate Banqueting House of Whitehall Castle. His appearance had been orchestrated by the White House, right down to the specially printed "United Kingdom" backdrop, largely as an alternative to an address to the British Parliament, in which the president would risk being heckled by his critics.

Bush, in his midday address before the two think tanks, laid out three "pillars" for peace and security. The first pillar, he said, is the use of diplomacy over warfare, when possible, as a way of resolving security threats. But the second pillar, he said, is "the willingness of free nations, when last resort arrives, to restrain aggression and evil by force."

The president touted as his third pillar the promotion of democracy and democratic values, saying liberation of peoples from oppression and violence was "still a moral goal."

Bush also repeated his harsh criticism of the leadership of Yasser Arafat, although not by name. "The long-suffering Palestinian people deserve better. They deserve true leaders, capable of creating and governing a Palestinian state," he said.

The president further called on European leaders to "withdraw all favor and support from any Palestinian ruler who fails his people and betrays their cause," saying all leaders should "strongly oppose anti-Semitism."

Bush had tough words for Israel, too. "Israel should freeze settlement construction, dismantle unauthorized outposts, end the daily humiliation of the Palestinian people, and not prejudice final negotiations with the placement of walls and fences," he said. Israel is building a fence through the West Bank to prevent Palestinian militants from entering its territory.

As for Iraq and Afghanistan, the president counseled patience as he recited the progress being made in those countries toward civil society.

Earlier in the day, the president and Laura Bush, who are staying overnight in a ground-floor suite at Buckingham Palace, attended a public welcoming ceremony in front of the palace that was viewed by a few hundred onlookers.

A handful of Bush detractors unfurled a large sign in Green Park, just across from the palace, that read: "Bush is a vote thief."

But chants were quickly drowned out by a 41-gun salute and the U.S. national anthem, the first time it has been used at a Buckingham Palace ceremony since Sept. 13, 2001, when Queen Elizabeth II ordered that it be played during the changing of the guard as a show of solidarity with the United States.

During the state banquet last night in the ornate ballroom of Buckingham Palace, the queen and the president emphasized the "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain. "The two sides of the ocean have never been closer," she said.

Bush echoed the queen's remarks, but quipped at one point: "Of course, things didn't start out too well."

Earlier, he acknowledged the presence of the demonstrators, reminding the Banqueting House audience that the last American to make a notable stay in London was David Blaine. Blaine, a magician, spent 44 days this fall fasting inside a clear plastic box hoisted over the River Thames, and was pelted with eggs and other debris by Britons who took a peculiar delight in tormenting him.

"A few might have been happy to provide similar arrangements for me," Bush said.

Bush also met privately with about a dozen family members of some of the 67 British citizens who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Later, he conferred with leaders of Britain's opposition parties.

Material from the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Knight Ridder Newspapers, The Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News is included in this report.

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