Blair and Bush meet for talks

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on a visit to the US for talks with President George W Bush, today warned that "the policy of inaction" with regard to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction was "not something we can responsibly adhere to".

Mr Blair, talking to reporters before opening about three hours of talks at President Bush's Camp David retreat in the Maryland mountains, said Saddam was not just developing chemical and biological weapons ``but we know that they were trying to develop nuclear weapons capability''.

Meanwhile, Mr Bush said: "A tyrant like Saddam Hussein not only threatens his neighbourhood and his region, but the US and Great Britain."

Referring to Wednesday's first anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks, Mr Bush said: "There was no way I could have known what we were going to have to deal with.

"We had two vast oceans protecting us and people could not come and attack us, or so we thought.

"We could not have envisioned that the battlefield would change but it has."