Twin Summit Wins For Prez On Iraq

The United States and European Union offered support for Iraq's urgent request for NATO military help Saturday. "NATO has the capability and I believe the responsibility to help the Iraqi people defeat the terrorist threat that's facing their country," President Bush said.

"I think the bitter differences of the war are over," Mr. Bush said at the close of a U.S.-European Union summit in Ireland before heading to Turkey, NATO's only Muslim member, for another summit. "There is a common interest and a common goal to help the Iraqi people."

The United States and the EU agreed in a joint statement to back Iraq's request for NATO military help and support the training of Iraqi security forces, and to reduce Iraq's international debt, estimated at $120 billion.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said diplomats from the alliance had reached an initial agreement to respond positively to the request of the Iraqi Interim Government for assistance with the training of its security forces.

The agreement is expected to be sealed Monday and Tuesday when Mr. Bush meets the other alliance leaders at the summit in Istanbul.

The EU did not express support for more European troops in Iraq, as Mr. Bush had sought, but its expression of support for NATO training assistance was seen as an effort to bridge divisions between Western nations over the Iraq situation.

On the economic side, the United States and the EU signed an agreement Saturday to make the EU's planned satellite navigation system compatible with the existing U.S. Global Positioning System.

Turkish police fired tear gas at more than 150 left-wing demonstrators who hurled rocks and tried to smash through a barricade in Ankara on Saturday, just hours before Mr. Bush arrived.

Police used bomb-detecting dogs to comb the area around the hotel where Mr. Bush wasexpected to stay, and security officials closed streets throughout the capital, part of a massive operation following Thursday bombings in Ankara and Istanbul that killed four people and injured 17.

More than 23,000 police officers will be on duty during the NATO summit, which also will be attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac, among other leaders.

Mr. Bush meets with Turkish leaders early Sunday before heading to Istanbul for the summit.

The news conference where the U.S.-EU joint statement was announced was held outside the 16th-century castle where the brief summit took place. It was heavily guarded against security threats and from thousands of demonstrators protesting Mr. Bush's policies in Iraq.

Asked about his unpopularity in Europe, Mr. Bush said: "I must confess that the first polls I worry about are those that are going to take place in early November this year."

He brushed off criticism by Europeans. "As far as my own personal standing goes, my job is to do my job. I'm going to do it the way I think is necessary. I'm going to set a vision. I will lead, and we'll just let the chips fall where they may."

In fact, notes CBS News Correspondent Bill Plante, most of the European leaders meeting with the president probably don't want him to get re-eelcted, and are waiting to see what happens in November.

But, adds Plante, that doesn't seem to concern Mr. Bush. He's playing to public opinion back home, and is well aware that, there too, his handling of the Iraq war may be the biggest issue of the election.

About 5,000 protesters traveled by bus Saturday from all over Ireland and marched to barbed wire barricades set up a few miles from the castle. The demonstration was peaceful and there were no arrests.

"George Bush, No. 1 terrorist," chanted the crowd. One group of demonstrators held a white coffin to symbolize Iraqi civilians killed in the war.

Some 400 protesters gathered outside the airport in Shannon later as Mr. Bush's plane prepared to take off for Turkey.

"George Bush never should have come here and it's not a moment too soon that he leaves," said Richard Boyd Barrett, leader of a group called the Irish Anti-War movement, said as the engines of Air Force One revved nearby.

About 4,000 police officers and 2,000 soldiers - more than one-third of the security forces in the Irish Republic - were deployed to protect Bush. Weekend protests were expected in several European cities.

The joint EU statement also made a veiled criticism of abuse of prisoners by American soldiers. "We stress the need for full respect of the Geneva Conventions," the statement said, referring to international accords setting out guidelines for the humane treatment of prisoners. The single sentence was an unstated but obvious reference to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

EU leaders raised the topic with Mr. Bush in their private meetings Saturday, and also aired it publicly during a joint news conference.

"These things unfortunately happened, and of course we wish they didn't. But they do," Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said. "What's important is how they're dealt with."

Mr. Bush said, "It did harm. It did harm." But he said the American investigations will be done openly, as opposed to the secrecy of Saddam Hussein's atrocities. "I don't remember any international investigation of what took place in Iraq" under Saddam, Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Bush also described the threat posed by Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been linked to al Qaeda and is thought to be responsible for hundreds of deaths in Iraq. "He is a problem because he is willing to kill innocent people," the president said.

That threat is likely to be a key topic when Mr. Bush meets with Turkish leaders Sunday morning.

Supporters of al-Zarqawi said they have kidnapped three Turkish workers in Iraq, Arab TV station al-Jazeera reported Sunday. An al-Jazeera employee told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the group has threatened to behead them within 72 hours if Turkish companies don't withdraw from Iraq.

The Iraq war and Mr. Bush are deeply unpopular in Turkey. The deaths of the three hostages during the alliance meeting would further enflame passions already high because of opposition to the war.

Turkish leaders are also almost certain to press Mr. Bush to crack down on Turkish Kurdish guerrillas, who have bases and several thousand fighters in northern Iraq. The United States has been reluctant to move against guerrilla bases in northern Iraq, now one of the only stable regions in the country.

Mr. Bush will be looking for support from Muslim Turkey in Iraq and to showcase U.S. friendship with a key Muslim ally who is also secular and democratic.

"Turkey is a proud nation that successfully blends a European identity with the Islamic traditions," Mr. Bush said in Ireland.

Iraqi prime minister Iyad Allawi sent a letter to NATO this week pleading for "urgent help" from the alliance to build up Iraqi forces "to defeat the terrorist threat and reduce reliance on foreign forces."

The EU statement encouraged other international organizations - such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and others - to support Iraq's economic and political reconstruction, focusing on projects identified by the interim government.