British PM Backs Bush On Afghanistan, Iran

President Bush won much-needed support Monday from his British counterpart on the biggest challenges looming over his last seven months as the American leader.

Standing next to Mr. Bush after a two-hour meeting in London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave his ally welcome news on the two key theaters of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, and the push to reign in Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Brown said his military chief would announce later in the day "a reconfiguration of our troops" in Afghanistan that would result in "the highest number" of British soldiers there to date.

The British leader said his government would freeze all assets of Iran's largest bank in a further move to discourage the country from developing nuclear weapons, and that Britain would also urge Europe to impose further sanctions.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown's spokesman, Michael Ellam, confirmed Monday that an agreement is in place over the assets of the Bank Melli and that following the talks in London between Brown and President Bush, all EU member states had agreed they should freeze the bank's assets.

Foreign ministers were meeting in Luxembourg on Monday and Iran was high on the agenda. European Union officials could not immediately confirm the plans.

Winning strong European backing for new sanctions against Iran was one of Mr. Bush's key goals for this, his last scheduled trip to Europe as president.

The prime minister said Britain would take any necessary action to impress on Iran that it needs to abandon any ambitions of developing nuclear weapons.

The British leader also said his country had work to do in Iraq, and vowed to "continue the job," but, "not at the cost of more troops to Afghanistan."

Brown's pledge for more troops came in the wake of increasing attacks by Taliban militants in Afghanistan and a mass jailbreak that set free hundreds of Taliban fighters.

It also followed a threat by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to send troops across the border into Pakistan to chase militants who seek refuge in the neighboring country.

Mr. Bush said Monday that the United States can help calm the "testy situation" between Afghanistan and Pakistan, but he refused to endorse Karzai's threat to send troops across the border.

The president called for the leaders of both countries to hold talks and share intelligence as they confront notorious Taliban leaders.

"There's a lot of common ground," Mr. Bush said. "It's in no one's interest that extremists have a safe haven from which operate. Obviously, it's a testy situation there."

Mr. Bush said, though, that he understands Karzai's concerns. "We can help," he said. "We can help calm the situation down."

The news conference by President Bush and Prime Minister Brown - both highly unpopular with their respective constituencies - came after a longer-than-scheduled closed door meeting at which Afghanistan and Iran were expected to be the key issues.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports that demonstrators clashed with police in London on Sunday night, but Mr. Bush's presence has "largely been greeted by indifference in Europe" as people await his departure from office.

The EU and other nations are seeking new ways of persuading Iran to shut down its uranium enrichment program, which they suspect will be used to make nuclear weapons. Three sets of U.N. sanctions have failed to bring any change and Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful, civilian use only.

Both leaders on Monday vowed to "further isolate" Iran if it rejected the latest package of incentives offered by the U.S. and its allies.

Even before EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented Iran with a modified package of incentives Saturday to suspend its uranium enrichment program, a spokesman for Iran's government said his country would reject it.

Iran said it would turn down any offer that Solana presented - on behalf of the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China - if it required Iran to stop the sensitive nuclear work.

Brown said Monday it was clear that if Iran continues to ignore the international community's demands to halt enrichment, it would leave "no choice but to intensify sanctions."

Mr. Bush took Iran's leadership to task over its insistence that it needed to move ahead with uranium enrichment to produce enough energy for the country. He reiterated his backing for a Russian proposal that would see uranium enriched outside Iranian territory for use in energy production in Iran.

In an apparent return of favor for the support lent to his administration, Mr. Bush voiced strong support for the British leader's campaign to end the tyrannical rule of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe.

Mr. Bush backed Brown's call for Mugabe to allow a United Nations envoy and international observers into the African nation to oversee an upcoming runoff vote. Opposition candidates have been jailed and their supporters threatened in the run up to the election, leading aid groups to voice serious concerns over the likelihood of a free and fair election.

Mr. Bush, capping his European trip in London and Belfast, will return home having further smoothed trans-Atlantic ties frayed over the war, but with only seven months left to advance his goals in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

The president and Brown said they also discussed issues ranging from climate change, international food prices, global trade negotiations, and the Mideast peace process and the crisis in Darfur.

Brown did not give any specific details on his government's plans for troop levels in Iraq during the news conference, but Mr. Bush repeatedly praised his leadership in the conflict.

The president dismissed questions about the widely reported gap between the British and American governments' stance on troop levels, saying "there's no surprises" from his most crucial ally in the war.

"I have no problem with how Gordon Brown is dealing with Iraq," Mr. Bush said. Britain has 4,000 troops remaining in Iraq on the outskirts of Basra.

British forces withdrew from their base in Basra's city center last year and began to focus only on training Iraqi security forces. British troops, however, did aid Iraqi and U.S. forces in late March during their crackdown on Shiite militiamen in largely successful sweeps to curb violence in the oil-rich city.

Mr. Bush also met during his short stay in London with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the U.N. envoy to Middle East peace negotiations, and Britain's conservative opposition leader, David Cameron.

The last stop on Mr. Bush's trip is Belfast where he, as well as Brown, will visit with Northern Ireland officials. Hadley said the president will urge Britain to transfer police and justice responsibilities to the Northern Ireland authorities.

The president also is visiting an elementary school for Catholic and Protestant students.