AP Photo by Charles Dharapak

by Mark Silva

President Bush and newly seated British Prime Minister Gordon Brown strove to present an unwavering common front today, amid growing pressure at home for both leaders to find a way out of the war in Iraq.

“There's no doubt in my mind that Gordon Brown understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our own countries,’’ Bush said today, following a series of meetings at Camp David. “There's no doubt in my mind, he understands the stakes of the struggle.’’

“We are at one in fighting the battle against terrorism,’’ said Brown, standing alongside Bush in the British leader’s first visit to the United States as prime minister, “and that struggle is one that we will fight with determination and with resilience and right across the world. ‘’

Since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Great Britain has been the staunchest ally of the U.S. Yet that alliance had taken a political toll on Brown’s predecessor, former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

As the British military scales back forces in Iraq, in the midst of a surge in U.S. forces, Brown suggests that the U.S. and Great Britain face a common challenge in handing full control of security to Iraqi forces. This is something that British forces already have achieved in three of the four Iraqi provinces under their supervision, Brown said – moving from “combat to overwatch’’ – and they hope to achieve the same in the fourth as well.

The strategic relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is unshaken, both leaders said today – with each calling the other nation the most important partner in bilateral relations.

“Call it the special relationship, call it, as Churchill did, the joint inheritance,’’ Brown said, standing with a lawn at Camp David as backdrop for a press conference. “The strength of this relationship is not just built on the shared problems we face, but is also built, as President Bush has said, on joint values... I do see this relationship strengthening in the years to come.’’

Bush, asked if Great Britain’s alliance is as important to the U.S. as American support is to the British, said: “I would say that the relationship between Great Britain and America is our most important bilateral relationship… Great Britain has been attacked, we’ve been attacked. We have important inteerests throughout the world.’’

The personal relationship that might be forged between these two leaders, at the start of Brown’s rule and near the end of Bush’s, is another question. Bush and Blair had established a close and warm relationship. And Bush appeared eager to dispel any suggestions about differences in style with a new British leader whom some have termed “a dour Scotsman.’’

“He is not the dour Scotsman that you described,’’ Bush said of Brown, following a breakfast meeting, dinner the night before and a long meeting in which the two had dispatched their aides to the bowling alley at Camp David. “He is actually the humorous Scotsman… I was impressed, and I am confident that we will be able to keep our relationship strong, constant and vibrant… He’s a glass-half-full man, not a glass-half-empty guy.

“So, everybody’s wondering whether or not the prime minister and I were able to find common ground, to get along, to have a meaningful discussion,’’ Bush said at the start, “and the answer is absolutely…He probably wasn’t too sure what to expect from me, and I kind of had a sense of the kind of person I’d be dealing with. I’d kind of describe Gordon Brown as a principled man who really wants to get something done.

“We had a really casual and good discussion,’’ said Bush.

“We have had full and frank discussions,’’ said Brown, invoking diplomatic terms that can often understate any tensions in the talks, and thanking Bush for a chance to “to discuss, person to person, some of the great issues of our time.’’

This included much more than the war in Iraq. It also included the question of climate change, Brown noted, an issue which European leaders have pressed with more urgency than the Bush administration.

At Bush’s urging, the most recent summit of the G-8 industrial nations, which includes Great Britain, produced a commitment to staging an international summit by the end of next year to agree on common goals for fighting global warming – still leaving each nation to its own strategy for carrying out those goals. This framework is different from the hard standards for reduction of carbon emissions which European leaders have sought.

But, most of all, perhaps as a way of paving over their many differences of detail on this and other policy questions, the two leaders stressed the common “values’’ which the U.S. and U.K. share.

“The historic partnership of shared interests between our two countries (is) driven forward by our shared values,’’ said Brown, citing Churchill’s words about a “ joint inheritance of liberty... and dignity for all,’’ These interests include the prevention of nuclear proliferation, climate change, peace in the Middle East and fighting poverty and terrorism.

“Terrorism is not a cause. It is a crime against humanity… and there should be no haven, no safe hiding place,’’ said Brown, stating that, in Iraq, the British have “have duties to discharge… Our aim, like the United States, is step by step, to move control to the Iraqi authorities…

“We have moved from combat to overwatch’’ in three of the four provinces that the British oversee in the South, around Basra, he said. “Our aim… is security for the Iraqi people, political reconcilation and that the Iraqi people have a stake in the future.’’

In the case of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Brown said, he British support the U.S. concern for ensuring that international sanctions are working and toughening those sanctions. In Afghanistan, he said, the British are committed to providing troops where necessary.

Asked about mistakes made in Iraq and what can be done to fix them, Brown spoke instead of challenges: “I think the difficulties include getting poltiical reconciliation within Iraq itself, moving forward with the reconstruction and the time it has taken to do so…

“It’s in that context where we can do what we want to, which is to pass security over to the Iraqis themselves,’’ he said.

Bush, facing growing pressure from Democratic leaders and some within his own party to change course in Iraq, asked again today for patience with a progress report that Gen. David Petraeus will deliver in September. He said that the U.S. shares the same goal which Brown has stated in seeking to move from combat to overwatch in all of the provinces.

“That's what we want to do,’’ Bush said. “We want to be able to be in a position where we can achieve results on the ground so that we can be in a different posture.’’