Humble pie not on menu for Chirac, Bush dinner

President George Bush will host a dinner for one of his leading international critics, French President Jacques Chirac, during a visit to Brussels next month.

The two leaders are expected to try to overcome differences that were exacerbated by the US war in Iraq. Bush is heading to Europe next month on a fence-mending trip with US allies.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said last year that the ”values that pull France and the United States together are far more powerful that any problems that come along and will be surmounted”.

But Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed France as “old Europe” when Chirac opposed the Iraq war.

Without ruling out war as a final option, France preferred extending UN searches in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration said posed a threat. France, with support from Germany and Russia, undercut US efforts to rally backing for the war in the Security Council.

The searches have never turned up the weapons, France, meanwhile, continues to refuse to contribute troops to a US led peacekeeping operation in Iraq that is under fire from insurgents.