World Owes US a Debt, Says Brown

Hardly the words to get yourself re-elected, but let's never forget Brown has his dirty hands all over the Iraq war, he owns it just as much as poodle boy.

The world owes a debt to the United States for its leadership in the fight against international terrorism, Gordon Brown has said.

The prime minister described the link with the US as the UK's "most important bilateral relationship" ahead of his first talks with President George Bush...........

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said Mr Brown was "walking a tightrope" in his dealings with America.

He needed to reassure Mr Bush of his commitment to the Atlantic relationship as well as convince British voters that links between the US and the UK would be different to those maintained by former prime minister Tony Blair, our correspondent said. more

For what it's worth I have never been impressed with Nick Robinson's viewpoint, I would be more inclined to look to the Times for a better analysis.

Behind the scenes, however, American officials are picking up what they believe are signals that a change of British policy on Iraq is imminent.

McDonald, a senior diplomat who formerly ran the Iraq desk at the Foreign Office, was in Washington this month to prepare for the summit. He asked a select group of US foreign policy experts what they believed the effect would be of a British pull-out from Iraq.

“The general feeling was that he was doing the groundwork for a Brown conversation,” said a source. Most of the experts felt it was a question of when, not if, Britain would leave.

“The view is Britain feels it can’t fight two wars, and Afghanistan is more worth fighting for,” added the source. Yesterday a British soldier was killed during a rocket attack in Afghanistan, bringing to 67 the number of British fatalities there. more