The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, reviewed Allied plans with President Bush by telephone yesterday as American and British troops assumed forward battle positions for the assault on Iraq, Frank Millar, London Editor
He pledged that the Allied forces would do everything possible to ensure the war was swift and casualties were kept to a minimum.
These were among a series of assurances Mr Blair gave MPs during question time in the Commons yesterday on the morning after victory in Tuesday night's historic vote authorising military action.
Having seen-off a second record Labour rebellion - though in significantly less numbers than had been forecast - Mr Blair sought to rally dissenters and the public as he voiced admiration for the "dedication and commitment" of the British forces in the Gulf.
The Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, wished them "God speed and safe return". But while the latest opinion poll again showed public opinion starting to move behind Mr Blair, there was a sharp reminder of the depth of hostility still to war as thousands of college and school students joined demonstrations across the country.
Young protesters in Parliament Square ensured a noisy reception for Mr Blair when he arrived at Westminster, while in Edinburgh thousands more protested, first at the Scottish Parliament and later at the US consulate.
The day of action started in the famous Princes Street where, as the traditional gun sounded from the nearby Edinburgh Castle at 1 p.m., protesters lay down in the middle of the road to symbolise death caused by war.
Around 700 people marched through Manchester city centre, while peace protesters in Cambridge and other university cities and towns vowed to take to the streets as soon as war was confirmed. With parliament and, crucially, the clear majority of the Labour Party, now decidedly behind the prime minister, much of the Westminster focus yesterday was already on the proposed post-Saddam reconstruction of Iraq.
Mr Blair told Mr Duncan Smith that any post-conflict authority for Iraq would have to have UN endorsement and that he had already discussed with President Bush the terms of a possible new UN resolution on Iraq's reconstruction.
Side-stepping the detail of questions about necessary UN reform following the failure of Security Council diplomacy, Mr Blair said the key issue was to construct a sufficiently strong partnership around a global policy.
And significantly - his eye also on the need for eventual rapprochement inside the councils of the EU - Mr Blair rejected one Tory suggestion that recent events showed the danger of enmeshing Britain in proposals for a Common European Foreign and Defence Policy.
Mr Blair said he would not leave "the empty chair", arguing it was important for Britain to participate fully in any debate about European defence and to ensure it was "compatible with our position in Europe".
The first test of compatibility in Europe will come later today when Mr Blair meets President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder at the EU summit in Brussels.
Asked if Mr Blair's plan to stay overnight in Brussels had any implications for the commencement of hostilities in Iraq, Downing Street sources would only observe that Mr Blair had been similarly out of the country at the start of the Kosovo campaign.
In the Commons, Mr Blair suggested that Saddam Hussein, by refusing to go into exile, had lost any opportunity of gaining immunity for his crimes and warned that those in senior positions of responsibility in the Iraqi regime "will be held accountable for what they have done."