HILLSBOROUGH, Northern Ireland April 8 —
President Bush said Tuesday that Saddam Hussein is losing his
grip on power "finger by finger" and he may even be dead after a
massive bombing strike. Looking beyond the war, Bush and Prime
Minister Tony Blair said the United Nations would play a vital role
in Iraq's reconstruction.
At a joint news conference with Blair, Bush said it was unclear
if Saddam were alive after a U.S. warplane dropped four-bunker
busting bombs Monday afternoon on a western Baghdad restaurant where
he was believed to be meeting with his sons. "I don't know whether
he survived," the president said.
"The only thing I know is that he's losing power," Bush said at a
joint news conference with the British prime minister after a
meeting at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast.
"The grip I used to describe that Saddam had around the throats
of the Iraqi people are loosening. I can't tell you if all ten
fingers are off their throats, but finger-by-finger it's coming
off."
And then, as if talking directly to the Iraqi people, Bush added:
"We will not stop until they are free. Saddam Hussein will be gone.
It might have been yesterday."
Holding their third meeting in three weeks, Blair and Bush
offered personal assessments all positive of the war. They also
sought to boost peace talks in Northern Ireland.
Blair said Saddam's regime is collapsing under the weight of
allied attacks in Iraq.
"In all parts of the country our power is strengthening, the
regime is weakening, the Iraqi people are turning towards us," Blair
said. "The power of Saddam is ending."
In addition to showcasing military progress in Iraq, the two
leaders looked ahead to the postwar period and sought to minimize
splits on who should govern and rebuild the country.
A key component of the talks was U.N. resolutions that would
define what role the international body would play in reconstruction
and governing. Blair sought to downplay the divide, in which the
British leader seems to want a more influential U.N. role than Bush
favors.
Bush has said he supports a U.N. role and the creation of an
interim governing authority for Iraq. But he has not provided key
details, such as the exact nature of the U.N.'s role and the makeup
of the authority.
"There will be a vital role for the U.N. in the reconstruction of
Iraq," Blair said. "But the key is that Iraq in the end will be run
by the Iraqi people."
Questioned for details on that "vital role," Bush provided few,
other than talking of the need for food and medical aid. "That means
being a party to the progress being made in Iraq," he said.
Bush added a complex set of issues by heeding Blair's call to
meet in Northern Ireland and by backing Blair's peace blueprint, due
out later this week. Blair has won political IOUs from Bush by
backing the president on Iraq in the face of fierce opposition at
home.
"I support and my government strongly supports their efforts,"
Bush said. "This is a historic moment. I ask all the communities of
Northern Ireland to seize this opportunity for peace."
Blair said progress being made toward peace in Northern Ireland
would have a positive impact on the Middle East peace process.
"To those who can sometimes say that the process in the Middle
East is hopeless," he said, "I say we can look at Northern Ireland
and take some hope from that."
Both leaders looked ahead to issuing a "roadmap" to restart peace
talks between Israel and the Palestinians. That plan is to be
released after the new prime minister for the Palestinian Authority
is confirmed.
The bombs targeting Saddam blasted a smoking crater several
stories deep and destroyed at least three buildings. U.S. officials
were sifting through the rubble to try to determine Saddam's
fate.
A U.S. official familiar with the latest military intelligence
said coalition forces were trying to confirm whether Saddam was
killed.
"There's lots of digging and DNA tests involved," the official
said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Talking of the Iraqi people, Bush said: "We will not stop until
they are free. Saddam Hussein will be gone. It might have been
yesterday."
Both leaders sought to rebuff comments that U.S.-led forces were
planning to occupy Iraq.
"This was indeed a war of liberation and not conquest," Blair
said. "Our enemy in this conflict has always been Saddam and his
regime, not the Iraqi people."
The Iraq war undercut support for Bush among some citizens in
Northern Ireland, particularly in the most hard-line Catholic
areas.
In the Bogside district of Londonderry, Northern Ireland's
second-largest city, a 50-foot-high wall that for more than three
decades has read "You are now entering Free Derry" was painted solid
black in a gesture of mourning for Iraqis killed in the war.
The area's veteran civil rights activist, Eamonn McCann, said
most Derry Roman Catholics considered Bush a hypocrite for telling
the Irish Republican Army that violence doesn't pay.
"Bush is saying to political leaders here: Give up the gun, don't
use violence to pursue political ends, follow the rule of law. He is
demanding that they do that even as he prosecutes the war in Iraq,"
McCann said. "I doubt if I've ever encountered anything as
grotesquely hypocritical as the exercise in Hillsborough."
photo credit
and caption:
President Bush and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair shake hands at the end of a news
conference at Hillsborough Castle outside Belfast, Northern
Ireland, Tuesday, April 8, 2003. (AP Photo/J. Scott
Applewhite)
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