Global Policy Forum

With Iraqi troops dug in around Baghdad, President Bush pledged today to oust Saddam Hussein "however long it takes to win." Bush and British war ally Tony Blair said the U.N. should help rebuild Iraq later, though an exact role was left uncertain. Blair, standing alongside Bush at the president's mountaintop retreat, declared in words similar to Bush's that "Saddam Hussein and his hateful regime will be removed from power."

During their overnight meeting in Maryland's Catoctin Mountains, the leaders discussed conflicts in the Middle East as well as Iraq. Strategy sessions about the Iraq battle and postwar plans conjured up grainy images of a Camp David retreat 60 years ago, when President Roosevelt met Winston Churchill during World War II. "For nearly a century, the United States and Great Britain have been allies in the defense of liberty," Blair said. "We shared in a costly and heroic struggle against Nazism." Both leaders refused to put a timetable on war against Saddam, mindful that stiffer-than-expected resistance in southern Iraq and the looming battle for Baghdad could test the patience of their constituents and increase anti-war sentiment across the globe. The war will last "however long it takes to win," Bush said a day after declaring that fighting was far from over.

For months, the president avoided talk of how long and difficult the conflict could be as he tried to rally Americans against Saddam. Looking tired on today, the president bristled at news conference questions about the potential length of fighting. "However long it takes. That's the answer to your question, and that's what you got to know," he said. Thumping his lectern, the president added, "This isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory. And the Iraqi people have got to know that, see. They got to know that they will be liberated and Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long it takes."

Joining the president in front of a field of British and American flags, Blair said he and Bush had decided to seek new U.N. resolutions on humanitarian relief, postwar plans for Iraq and a promise to keep Iraq's territorial boundaries intact. Blair, under fire at home for backing war in Iraq, has advocated a far more aggressive role for the United Nations in administering postwar Iraq than has Bush. "No doubt, the United nations has got to be closely involved in this process," Blair said, adding that the U.N. should endorse any postwar plan. Signaling a difference on this issue, Blair said he and Bush agreed on "principles," but that there "are huge numbers of details to be discussed with our allies as to exactly how that is going to work."

While administration officials say Bush has not decided how to administer postwar Iraq, they also say many top advisers want to limit the U.N.'s participation to primarily humanitarian relief. The administration is inclined to leave political and military decisions to the wartime coalition partners. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said that while the U.N. should play a role, the burden of war entitled the United States "to have a significant dominating control" over the fate of Iraq. Blair sidestepped the question of whether such talk could further divide Bush from allies such as France and Russia who blocked a U.N. war resolution but want to play a major role in rebuilding oil-rich Iraq.

"The immediate focus has got to be on the oil-for-food program, because that is the thing we need to get sorted out with the United Nations literally in the next few days," said Blair, who left Camp David to discuss the issue with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. About 60 percent of Iraq's 22 million people are fed through the program, which was suspended with the onset of hostilities. The U.N. Security Council has been bitterly divided over the decision by the United States, Britain and Spain to attack Iraq, and that division has spilled over into negotiations to revise the program. While the leaders met, Annan told reporters the United Nations wants to resume the program and bring in additional aid from U.N. humanitarian agencies as soon as the military situation on the ground permits. The Security Council is trying to finalize a resolution that would give Annan interim authority to run the oil-for-food program for 45 days.

Bush and Blair were briefed on the progress of the war in Iraq after a week of fierce combat, meeting amid growing signs Iraqi forces have dug in for a prolonged fight. "Slowly but surely the grip of terror around the throats of the Iraqi people is being loosened," the president said. Blair listed coalition achievements, including pushing within 50 miles of Baghdad and securing oil fields. Both men accused the Iraqi government of atrocities. The prime minister said two British soldiers had been executed. "It is an act of cruelty beyond all human comprehension," Blair said.

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