New Relationship for Bush-Brown Summit

July 29, 2007 — -- Before leaving London for his Camp David talks Sunday night and Monday with President Bush, Prime Minister Gordon Brown promised to strengthen what he called "Britain's most important bilateral relationship."

Earlier this week, Brown said, "I believe relationships between a British prime minister and an American president will be strong, should be strong."

But another British official has said that Bush and Brown will "not be joined at the hip." That was a slap at the close relationship between Bush and Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, whom the British press ridiculed, perhaps unfairly, as "Bush's poodle" on the Iraq war.

Bush and the war are deeply unpopular in Britain. In a recent Ipsos/MORI poll for the London Observer, 85 percent disapproved of how Bush is handling the war.

David Gergen, a former advisor to three Republican presidents, said, "Gordon Brown is under enormous pressure to distance himself from Blair on the war. The war became Tony Blair's real albatross in British politics."

Brown has installed anti-war ministers in his cabinet, and Sunday's London Times reports he may be "considering an early British withdrawal from Iraq."

The prime minister's office downplayed the report, but there are already plans to withdraw British troops from Basra to a safer location outside the city.

The British military also believes it is more important for their troops to be in Afghanistan than Iraq.