Bush ends trip with U.K. hospitality

By Bob Kemper
Chicago Tribune

	OWEN HUMPREYS / AP British Prime Minister Tony Blair, left, watches as President Bush toss a soccer ball to schoolchildren in Sedgefield, England.
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DARLINGTON, England — President Bush ended a four-day state visit to Britain yesterday with a quick trip to the home district of Prime Minister Tony Blair, where the president hoped to trade the protests and pressures of London for fish and chips and down-home comfort.

He got the fish and chips at the Dun Cow Inn in Sedgefield. But the tiny former mining town in northeastern England from which Blair rose to political prominence provided no sanctuary from anti-war demonstrators.

The two leaders and their wives arrived in this bucolic region an hour's flight north of London to find warm greetings from Blair's constituents at the neighborhood pub.

	GETTY IMAGES An anti-war demonstrator protests during Bush's visit to the U.K.

The pub's main room was packed, with about 50 people seated at a half-dozen tables, when the Bushes and the Blairs arrived to nosh on leek and potato soup, fish and chips, mushy peas and lemon crème brûlée. Mushy peas are dried marrowfat peas that have been soaked overnight and then boiled. They are a great favorite of the north of England and are a traditional accompaniment to fish and chips.

"Hey there," Bush repeatedly said as he encountered pub patrons, "thank you for having us. We're thrilled to be here."

At one point, he reached across the bar to shake hands with workers. As he worked his way down the bar, he came to several beer-tap handles. Bush, a teetotaler, gripped one as if to draw a tall one, but then pulled back his hand as he grinned for the cameras.

The pleasant reception at the pub was mixed with shouts of disapproval from about 300 protesters gathered around the 13th century St. Edmund's Parish Church.

"Bush go home!" they shouted. One sign read: "Bush is not very nice." But there were people waving American and British flags as well and one man waving a sign that read, "Good Job, George."

For Bush, who places a high premium on personal relationships in managing global politics, the trip to Sedgefield and neighboring Trimdon to have tea and lunch with Blair and their wives was a chance to reinforce not only a personal friendship but also a decades-old trans-Atlantic alliance that both have taken to calling "a special relationship."

"This country is fortunate to have a prime minister who is clear-sighted about the threats of the 21st century," Bush said. "And America is lucky to have a friend as strong as Tony Blair."

Yet, even as the two men were bonding over a traditional pub lunch and exchanging small talk with soccer-playing schoolchildren, they were shadowed by the same question that dogged them in London: What is Britain getting in exchange for standing staunchly with Bush in a war about which so many other world leaders had doubts?

That question took on a more ominous tone Thursday when two suicide bombers attacked British interests in Turkey, killing 30 and wounding 500 in Istanbul.

"The last two or three days have been an interesting time, I think, to reflect," Blair said. "With some fairly tragic things going on in the world, it's been an opportunity for us to reflect and know that amongst the tragedy, the alliance between Great Britain (and) the United States of America is an alliance that is strong and enduring, of immense importance to our two countries.

"And we've got to continue that alliance now."

Still, Bush left for Washington last night having given the prime minister little to bolster his political standing with a British public deeply divided over Blair's alliance with Bush in Iraq.

Blair pressed Bush to release British detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but the president only restated his opinion that the men were being fairly held and humanely treated without a hint of how he may resolve the issue.

When Blair pressed him repeatedly to lift tariffs on steel imported to the United States now that the World Trade Organization has ruled that the tariffs violated international trade rules, Bush talked vaguely about making a decision soon.

When the prime minister urged Bush to help restart the Middle East peace process, Bush spoke of the need for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to make concessions but gave no indication that he would become more actively involved in the process.

The terrorist attacks that overshadowed Bush and Blair's summit offered them their clearest opportunity to demonstrate mutual support and a shared resolve to fight terrorism on a global basis.

Bush, speaking at a school in Sedgefield, said that it was the joint responsibility of Britain and the United States to help other nations under siege by terrorists, including Turkey.

Bush talked with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan by phone from Air Force One and offered assistance in protecting Turkey from similar attacks in the future.

The extraordinary cost of Bush's visit — nearly $2 million — raised complaints from Blair's constituency, which, a local paper reported, dubbed the affair the "1 million-pound lunch."

Material from Knight Ridder Newspapers is included in this report.

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