US: British prime minister Tony Blair has called for swift reform of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank and urged the international community to offer more support to Iraq.
Speaking at Georgetown University in Washington, Mr Blair said that, regardless of the rights or wrongs of the US-led invasion, the democratic process in Iraq deserved the support of all democratic nations. "This should be a moment of reconciliation, not only in Iraq but in the international community. The war split the world. The struggle of Iraqis for democracy should unite it."
In a wide-ranging foreign policy speech, Mr Blair said the EU should join the US in a concerted strategy across the Middle East, identifying a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians as a key to promoting democracy throughout the region.
He suggested that finding a resolution between Israel and Palestine ought to be easier than reconciling the two sides in the North.
"The problem we have had in Northern Ireland is that there has never been agreement on the basic nature of the final outcome, one part wanting union with the UK, the other with the Republic of Ireland. Nonetheless, we have achieved extraordinary progress, by relentless working at it through every stop and start.
"In the case of Israel and Palestine, we do now have agreement as to the basic nature of the settlement: two states," he said. Mr Blair said Hamas must accept that a two-state solution is the only option, renounce all violence and move back into the road map, with a speeded-up pathway to final status negotiations.
He praised UN secretary general Kofi Annan's reform proposals but said more must be done to make the UN Security Council more representative and effective. "A security council which has France as a permanent member but not Germany; Britain but not Japan; China but not India; to say nothing of the absence of proper representation from Latin America or Africa, cannot be legitimate in the modern world.
"I used to think this problem was intractable. The competing interests are so strong. But I am now sure we need reform.
"If necessary, let us agree some form of interim change that can be a bridge to a future settlement. But we need to get it done."
He said the IMF should focus on economic surveillance and become more representative of emerging economic powers and developing countries and that the World Bank should remain focused on fighting world poverty.
Earlier, Mr Blair and President Bush both acknowledged mistakes they had made since the invasion of Iraq. Mr Bush said he regretted some of the rhetoric he used. "Saying, 'Bring it on' - kind of tough talk, you know - that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner, you know. 'Wanted, dead or alive' - that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted. And so I learned from that." He said, however, that the greatest mistake the US had made had been the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
"We've been paying for that for a long period of time."
Mr Blair said it had been a mistake to drive almost all Saddam-era officials out of office, leaving Iraq without an administrative class. "I think inevitably some of the things that we thought were going to be the biggest challenge proved not to be, and some of the things we didn't expect to be challenges at all have proved to be immense. I think that probably in retrospect, though at the time it was very difficult to argue this, we could have done de-Baathification in a more differentiated way than we did."