The shape of post-war Iraq will be clearer after today's summit in Hillsborough Castle. Conor O'Clery, travelling with the Bush entourage, reports
Summit meetings are often choreographed in advance, but at the meeting of the British and American leaders in Hillsborough Castle today decisions may take shape from the exchanges that will influence the future of Iraq and the Middle East for decades to come.
Mr Tony Blair and Mr George Bush have something to celebrate, at least for now, after the fall of Basra and the humiliation of the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad. It is not known, however, if Mr Bush has fully made up his mind yet on the key issue on the table at Hillsborough Castle, the involvement of the United Nations in restoring a government to the shattered country.
Many forces are pulling at Mr Bush, who is accompanied on this trip by his Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell. In Washington the hawkish Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, seems to have the upper hand in deciding what comes next.
But Mr Bush is deeply indebted to Mr Blair for sharing the blood and cost and internation opprobrium of waging war against Saddam Hussein. The British Prime Minister wants the UN to give legitimacy to the now apparently inevitable US-British defeat of the Iraqi regime, and will be pressing home this point today. Most world governments feel the same, including France, Germany and Russia, China and Japan.
From New York the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, sought to influence the outcome of the summit yesterday by saying that a significant UN role in Iraq would bring international legitimacy to any new government, "which is necessary for the country, for the region and for the peoples around the world". He also named Mr Rafeeuddin Ahmed of Pakistan as his special adviser on Iraq.
Even Mr Bush's father, the first President George Bush, is widely reported to be unhappy with the way Mr Rumsfeld has influenced the President over Iraq and the Middle East. There is history there: the elder Mr Bush always disliked Mr Rumsfeld, who long ago tried to spike his presidential ambitions, and he reveres Mr Powell, his former military chief.
A former State Department official, Mr Strobe Talbott, has termed the President's father, along with Mr Blair and Mr Powell, the "axis of virtue", a trio espousing internationalism rather than acting outside the UN to pursue American national interests.
The Pentagon is, however, moving fast now to set up an interim authority without any UN involvement.
Even as fighting continues, the US military has flown the controversial leader of Iraqi's opposition groups, Mr Ahmad Chalabi, along with hundreds of his Iraqi troops, to the southern city of Nassiriya.
Mr Chalabi is widely believed to want to become prime minister of a democratic Iraq, even though on Sunday he said in an interview: "I'm not a candidate for any position in Iraq, and I don't seek an office. I think my role ends with the liberation of the country."
Mr Chalabi, the scion of a wealthy Shia Muslim family who was sentenced to 22 years' hard labour in Jordan for bank fraud and embezzlement (he maintains the case was politically motivated), says the US military might have to remain in Iraq for at least six months after the overthrow of President Saddam.
He is regarded with undisguised distaste by the CIA and the State Department, but is championed by the Deputy Defence Secretary, Mr Paul Wolfowitz.
The presence of Mr Chalabi, a leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), indicates that for now the Defence Department has the leading role in establishing the interim administration that will run the oil-rich country for at least six months.
It would be wrong to assume, however, that Mr Powell is seeking a role for the UN as central as that envisaged by Mr Blair, and he has yet to indicate how the US sees international involvement other than paying for humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
There is still fury among senior US officials at the State Department at the way the French defeated US and British pre-war efforts at the UN to get Security Council endorsement for the war. Mr Wolfowitz insisted on Sunday that the United States will not dictate the names of the leaders of a new Iraqi government, and that the process will take into account the wishes of over 20 million Iraqis.
The Bush-Blair meeting, the third face-to-face war summit in just over three weeks, will also focus on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and here, too, there is everything to play for. Mr Blair wants to lock the Americans into the peace process outlined in the "road map" compiled by the US, the EU, Russia and the UN.
The White House spokesman, Mr Ari Fleischer, said there were no plans to release the road map during the meeting, and the prospect of it getting anywhere without Washington taking on the Israeli government seem remote: at the weekend Israel listed over a dozen objections to the plan, which envisages a peaceful Palestinian state at the end of 2005 and a secure Israel, and said it would walk away from the negotiating table if its concerns were not met.
The US and Britain have said the guidelines would be unveiled after the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mr Mahmoud Abbas, and his cabinet were sworn in some time this month.
Mr Blair will be arguing to Mr Bush that only by the US acting as a peace-maker in the Middle East - with as much commitment as he and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, have shown in Northern Ireland - will the anger in the Arab world over Iraq begin to subside.