Britain greets President Bush with jeers

By Andrea Gerlin and William Douglas
Knight Ridder Newspapers

	BRUNO VINCENT / GETTY IMAGES Protesters arrange themselves to spell "Bush Go Home" in the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern gallery yesterday. President Bush is in London for a three-day state visit.
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The raucous Stop the War Coalition event provided a preview of what could be a public-relations disaster over Bush's visit, as Britons, angry over the war in Iraq, prepared to give the president an earful.

The first speaker, coalition Chairman Andrew Murray, told the 1,000 people seated inside that Bush was "the most unwelcome visitor to these shores since William the Conqueror," who landed here from France in 1066.

Earlier in the day, phones were ringing off the hook at the coalition's sparsely furnished headquarters in a warehouse district in London.

A coalition chapter in Scotland called to say three busloads of angry supporters were heading to London. Reporters requested interviews with Ron Kovic, the wheelchair-bound Vietnam veteran turned anti-war protester whose life was chronicled in the film "Born on the Fourth of July." Protesters wanted to buy "Stop Bush" T-shirts bearing black lettering and a bloodstain motif.

"We think there are going to be at least 100,000 protesters," said Carol Turner, one of the coalition's elected representatives. "There's a very large segment of British and European opinion that sees the world as a less safe place now."

But a poll published in the Guardian newspaper yesterday indicated many Britons favored Bush's visit.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair noted that 43 percent of Britons questioned supported the visit, while 36 percent did not. When pollsters at ICM, a London-based research firm, asked the 1,000 people surveyed if America was "a force for good, not evil, in the world," 62 percent said yes.

That was not a viewpoint shared by the roster of outspoken British and U.S. anti-war luminaries who spoke at last night's rally.

Author Harold Pinter called Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair "liars, God-fearing Christians and murderers." Under Bush's leadership, Pinter said, the United States resembled Nazi Germany in its ambitions. He compared the prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantánamo Bay to a concentration camp.

"The U.S. talks constantly about weapons of mass destruction and rogue states but, as we all know, it's the U.S. which is the rogue state par excellence," Pinter said. "It is by far the most dangerous state that has ever existed."

At the airport, Britain's Prince Charles greeted Bush with a handshake. Then Bush and his wife, Laura, were whisked off to Buckingham Palace in Marine One, the presidential helicopter. They will be staying in the Belgian suite at the palace.

Bush did not talk with reporters as Air Force One crossed the Atlantic Ocean. But a senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush intends to defend his decision to use force in Iraq in a speech today at the Banqueting House in Whitehall — the scene of the execution in 1649 of King Charles I. He also plans to challenge other nations to join the United States in spreading democracy throughout the world, the official said.

The Stop the War coalition has organized a demonstration every day of his visit, but it expects the one tomorrow, which will culminate with a toppling of a 20-foot papier-mâché statue of Bush in Trafalgar Square, to be the largest.

Bush is visiting at the personal invitation of the queen. But when detailed planning for the trip began more than a year ago, Bush had not committed to invading Iraq.

Now, the growing number of U.S. military personnel killed in Iraq exceeds 400.

Tomorrow, Bush plans to meet privately with the families of some British victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack two years ago in New York. Also tomorrow, he'll see families of some British troops killed in Iraq.

Information from The Dallas Morning News is included in this report.

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