Security headaches mount ahead of Bush’ visit to Britain

US PRESIDENT George W Bush may be subjected to the humiliating sight of an effigy of himself being dragged to the ground by anti-war protesters in London’s Trafalgar Square next week.

But if police and White House officials have their way, the president, who had the staunch support of British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the Iraq war, will be spared the embarrassment.

British police have refused to comment on media reports of demands by White House security staff for vast central London exclusion zones for Mr Bush's trip, which starts next Wednesday and will be the first official visit to Britain by an American president since that of Ronald Reagan in 1982. But they are well aware that at the height of the global war on terror, the prospect of having Mr Bush, Mr Blair and Queen Elizabeth in the same place at the same time presents a tempting target for would-be attackers.

With all police leave cancelled, up to 100,000 protesters vowing to take to the streets and Mr Blair himself trying to quash anti-Bush rhetoric, London's Metropolitan Police commissioner admits the visit presents an "unprecedented" challenge.

"It's going to be a big test for the Met in terms of what we have to do to prevent an attack on the president, any member of the royal family and any member of the cabinet," said a Scotland Yard spokeswoman

Mr Blair has urged protesters to see both sides of the argument over Iraq. "Protest if you will. That is your democratic right," he said. "Attack the decision to go to war, but have the integrity to realise that without it, those Iraqis now tasting freedom would still be under the lash of Saddam Hussein."

But anti-Bush and anti-war campaigners are furious at what they fear are police plans to stop their protest slated for November 20 from marching through Whitehall and Parliament Square.