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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 8, 2001
WASHINGTON -- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, allies in the war on terrorism, confidently offered back-to-back pledges of victory on Wednesday, no matter how long it takes.
At their joint White House news conference, Bush again cautioned patience, saying the antiterror fight "is not one of these Kodak moments" but was steadily making progress.
"We're patient and our close friends are patient, which is bad news for the Taliban and the people they harbor," Bush said, referring to Afghanistan's ruling militia.
Blair, who crossed the Atlantic on the supersonic Concorde and arrived barely two hours before the White House meeting, repeated his allegiance to Bush's cause. "The determination to see that justice is done is every bit as strong today as it was on Sept. 11," he said.
He said the objectives were to shut down the al-Qaida terror network, oust the Taliban and replace it with "a new regime that is broad-based" and that offers the people of Afghanistan a stable, progressive future. "I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will achieve them in full, and we will not let up until we do," Blair said.
Even as they predicted victory over al-Qaida, Bush and Blair said they were working to achieve peace in the Middle East. "There's no doubt in my mind. We'll bring al-Qaida to justice, peace or no peace in the Middle East," the president said.
Blair, seconding that, accused al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden of trying to "hijack the Palestinian cause" for his purposes, and vowed "we will strain every sinew we possibly can" to make progress on an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Neither the president nor the prime minister offered any specifics to support their optimism on terrorism, and there was no mention of calls for a bombing halt in the monthlong air war over Afghanistan.
Speaking of bin Laden, Bush said, "We know he hides in caves and we are shutting down caves. We know he moves around at night and we're looking for him."
Bin Laden is the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks that killed thousands in Washington, New York and Pennsylvania. The attacks prompted Bush to declare war on terrorism and led to a series of financial, military and diplomatic steps to achieve victory.
Blair's visit to the White House was the latest step in the campaign against terrorism, a war the British have backed rhetorically and with the commitment of military resources.
The British leader sped to Washington aboard a chartered Concorde for his second meeting with Bush since the Sept. 11 attacks. After their meeting and dinner, Blair was flying back to London to greet Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the leader of Pakistan.
Back home, Blair has troubles of his own. An ICM poll for the Guardian newspaper, published Nov. 1, said support in Britain for the Afghanistan campaign had fallen by 12 percentage points over two weeks to 62 percent.
Calls were growing louder for a halt to the bombings. Lord Denis Healey, a Vietnam-era defense minister from Blair's Labor Party, argued Wednesday that the assault was alienating Arabs and Muslims and helping bin Laden find more recruits for al-Qaida. Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democratic party, urged Blair to press Bush to stop his forces from dropping cluster bombs, which humanitarian groups say heighten the risk of civilian casualties.
Britain is the only country to join the United States in the bombing campaign. Five other European nations -- France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Turkey -- have committed military forces to the coalition, as have Canada and Australia.