Bush and Blair aim to show united front on Iraq

President George Bush and Tony Blair are looking to show a united front on Iraq today, hoping to boost public support and bolster a wobbly military coalition.

The two leaders meet at the White House for 90 minutes today, hold a joint news conference, and then return for an hour-long private lunch.

They last met face-to-face five months ago.

The meeting comes amid rising casualty numbers in Iraq and an increasingly violent resistance among some Iraqi factions to the American and British military presence in the country.

The two leaders are looking at a June 30 deadline for handing over political power to an Iraqi interim government.

And they are trying to forge a strategy to get the United Nations to issue a new resolution on Iraq, hoping that might persuade more countries to send troops into the country and ease the US and British burden.

Nearly 60 British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and nearly 700 Americans, including 88 killed this month. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed surprise at the number of recent casualties.

Key to the Bush-Blair meeting will be to show continued unity on Iraq, said Sir Christopher Meyer, British ambassador in Washington until last year.

“One of the key public messages that they will wish to give at the end of this visit is that they stand absolutely shoulder-to-shoulder on what needs to be done next,” said Sir Christopher.

“The question is, can this faltering operation be saved, be turned around, or is it too late?” said James Dobbins, a former senior State Department official in the Clinton and first Bush administrations. “This is a joint enterprise, and it’s not going well.”

Blair arrives in Washington fresh from talks last night with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in New York.

Among issues on the table is a proposal by Annan’s special envoy to Iraq, to create a caretaker government to succeed the US administration in Baghdad.

Secretary of State Colin Powell called UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi’s proposal “very sound” but a State Department spokesman said it was premature to say that the administration was endorsing it.

UN Security Council members want to wait to hear from Brahimi before acting on a new resolution.

Bush earlier this week said he would like to get a new UN resolution “that will help other nations to decide to participate” in Iraq.

The United States has about 130,000 troops in Iraq, followed by Britain’s 12,000.

White House officials said Bush and Blair also planned to discuss Mideast peace efforts. Bush this week expressed support for Jewish settlements on the West Bank and opposition to Palestinian refugees returning to Israel.

Also on the agenda was a UN plan to reunify Cyprus. In parallel referendums April 24 in both the Greek and Turkish parts of the Mediterranean island, voters will be asked whether to accept the UN blueprint.