Economía y Politica Internacionales

Bush en Londres con un mensaje para los críticos

Autor: Richard W. Stevenson

Fecha: 19/11/2003

Traductor: Celeste Murillo, especial para P.I.

Fuente: New York Times

Starting a trip that will combine high ceremony at Buckingham Palace with the likelihood of raucous antiwar demonstrations in the streets, President Bush arrived here on Tuesday night for a state visit to Britain, a nation deeply split by its decision to stand by the United States in confronting Iraq.
A senior administration official said aboard Air Force One during the flight from Washington that Mr. Bush was bringing with him a message that the United States retained a strong commitment to international institutions and alliances. That theme, which the official said would be delivered during a speech by Mr. Bush on Wednesday, is intended to reassure a skeptical public in Britain and throughout Europe that the president is not the cowboy unilateralist he is often made out to be on this side of the Atlantic.
The official suggested that Mr. Bush would use the trip to continue mending relations with traditional European allies. He would do so, the official suggested, by making a case that whatever differences had emerged over Iraq, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other countries shared a vision of promoting democracy as an end unto itself and as a way of fostering peace and prosperity in troubled regions like the Middle East.
"This is a great cause around which he believes we can all unite," the official said.
But Mr. Bush also plans to make what some of his critics may interpret as a defiant defense of the need to use military force in some circumstances.
"It is never the first choice," the administration official said, describing the position Mr. Bush would set out on the use of force. "It is, indeed, something to be pursued when diplomacy and other means have not produced results. But the use of force is sometimes necessary."
The visit is rife with political implications both for Mr. Bush and for Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose steadfast support of the United States over Iraq has divided his governing Labor Party and undermined his popular support.
Mr. Bush has said he views the protests as a symbol of democratic freedoms. But pictures of large-scale demonstrations against him are sure to be used by Democrats at home to buttress their case that Mr. Bush shattered international alliances and squandered good will toward the United States in leading the nation into a war in Iraq that much of the rest of the world thought was unnecessary or premature.
Mr. Bush, the current leader of what by American political standards passes for a family dynasty, was met at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday evening by Prince Charles, another dynastic first son who knows something about public ups and downs. The president then boarded his own helicopter for the ride to the back lawn of Buckingham Palace, a flight that kept him high above the streets through which as many as 100,000 protesters are expected to march Thursday against American foreign policy.
Palace officials said the president and his wife, Laura, were being greeted privately by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip before settling into their guest quarters in the ground floor Belgian Suite, which overlooks the elaborate palace garden.
Mr. Bush's schedule is dominated by the kind of pomp he typically disdains, most notably an official welcome ceremony with Queen Elizabeth on Wednesday morning and a state dinner on Wednesday night, where he will wear tails (which, he was quick to point out to several interviewers last week, he had to rent).
But his aides said he would also use the stage granted to him in the first full-scale state visit by an American president since Woodrow Wilson in 1918 to celebrate the ideals of the long partnership between the United States and Britain and apply them to the world today.
Mr. Bush will spend much of Thursday and Friday with Mr. Blair. The two leaders are scheduled to discuss how to move ahead in Iraq now that the United States has changed course and agreed to transfer a measure of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government by June, before Iraq drafts and adopts a constitution.
They are also expected to discuss a number of issues on which there is tension between their countries. Among them is the status of nine British citizens captured by American forces and held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
Mr. Blair is sure to press Mr. Bush to end tariffs on imported steel, a step that could cause political heartburn for the president in the electorally crucial states of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Mr. Blair is also likely to call on the United States to do more to revive talks between Israeli and Palestinian officials, reflecting a British view that the administration has sided too much with Israel.