New British Prime Minister Affirms Support for Iraq War

Read the Full Transcript

• JIM LEHRER:

  Gordon Brown calls on President Bush. Ray Suarez has our story.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  The leaders briefly interrupted two days of meetings with a news conference this morning set against the backdrop of Camp David.

  GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States: Everybody's wondering whether or not the prime minister and I were able to find common ground, to get along, to have a meaningful discussion, and the answer is absolutely.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  It was their first official meeting since British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took office last month, and they carefully presented a united front.

• GEORGE W. BUSH:

  The notion of America and Britain sharing values is very important and that we have an obligation, it seems to me, to work for freedom and justice around the world. And I found a person who shares that vision and who understands the call.

  GORDON BROWN, Prime Minister of Britain: Call it the special relationship. Call it, as Churchill did, the joint inheritance. Call it, when we meet, as a form of homecoming, as President Reagan did. Then you see the strength of this relationship, as I've said, is not just built on the shared problems that we have to deal with together or on the shared history, but is built, as President Bush has just said, on shared values.

• RAY SUAREZ:

  Brown, who faced a terror attack at home days after he took office, said the U.K. was at one with the U.S. in the fight against terrorism.

  But much of the news conference was taken up by the war in Iraq. About 5,500 British troops remain in southern Iraq, where they support local security forces. More than 160 British troops have died since the 2003 invasion. The prime minister faces mounting pressure at home to break with the U.S. and quickly withdraw from Iraq.

  Yesterday, London's Sunday Times reported Brown wanted an early British pullout, but today he emphasized shared goals there.

• GORDON BROWN:

  Our aim, like the United States, is step by step to move control to the Iraqi authorities, to the Iraqi government, and to its security forces, as progress is made.

• JOURNALIST:

  You trusted Tony Blair not, in your phrase, to cut and run from Iraq. After your talks, do you believe you can trust Gordon Brown in the same way?

• GEORGE W. BUSH:

  There's no doubt in my mind that Gordon Brown understands that failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the security of our own countries, that failure in Iraq would embolden extremist movements throughout the Middle East, that failure in Iraq would basically say to, you know, people sitting on the fence around the region that al-Qaida is powerful enough to drive great countries like Great Britain and America out of Iraq before the mission is done.

• JOURNALIST:

  Prime Minister, you talked of Afghanistan being a front line in the struggle against terror, not Iraq. Do you believe that British troops in Iraq are part of the struggle against terrorism or, as many people now believe, making that harder, not easier, to win?

• GORDON BROWN:

  I think I described Afghanistan as the first line in the battle against the Taliban. And, of course, the Taliban in Afghanistan is what we are dealing with in the provinces for which we've got responsibility and doing so with some success.

  There is no doubt, therefore, that al-Qaida is operating in Iraq. There is no doubt that we've had to take very strong measures against them. And there is no doubt that the Iraqi security forces have got to be strong enough to be able to withstand not just the violence that has been between the Sunni and the Shia population and the Sunni insurgency, but also al-Qaida itself.