Prime Minister Tony Blair began his last trip here as British
leader Wednesday, armed with a parting shot to global opinion that
US isolation would make a restive world far more dangerous.
President George W. Bush greeted his closest foreign ally warmly
before the two headed into a private dinner that aides said would be
dominated by talks about the US-led "war on terror."
Blair looked startled by a barrage of flashes from photographers
chronicling his last White House meetings with Bush before he steps
down on June 27, after a decade in power. "You're a famous person,"
his host quipped.
The two leaders were due to hold a press conference in the White
House Rose Garden Thursday, heralding the end to a tumultuous
partnership forged in the heat of the September 11 attacks of 2001
and the war in Iraq.
Despite the crippling cost that his support of Bush inflicted on
his popularity at home, Blair insists that he did the right thing.
"I believe our country should be a strong ally of America, and
I've never had any problem with that," he said in an interview with
US network NBC Tuesday.
"I think it will be a very dark day for my country when we do
have a problem with it," Blair said.
"The biggest danger is if America disengages, if it decides to
pull up the drawbridge and say to the rest of the world, 'Well you
go and sort it out.' We need America engaged."
After famously discovering a shared taste for Colgate toothpaste
at their first meeting, the Republican president and the British
Labour leader marched in lock-step through many of the world's
hot-spots over the past six years.
Blair said he had learned to live
with taunts of being Bush's "poodle" or "lapdog."
"I've found him immensely straightforward to deal with, someone
always true to his word
and someone who's a very strong leader," he said.
The blood-soaked insurgency in Iraq and enduring threat from the
Taliban in Afghanistan form part of a "broader global struggle,"
Blair added.
"And if we back away, if we give up on it, if we show any signs
of retreat at all, then the enemy we face worldwide will be
strengthened."
Bush paid his own fulsome tribute to Blair last Friday,
after the British leader announced his departure.
"I'm going
to miss him. He's a remarkable person. And I consider him a good
friend," Bush said.
