LONDON -- U.S. President George W. Bush's state visit to Britain ended Nov. 21 with a carefully stage-managed call on British Prime Minister Tony Blair's constituency in the North East of England. The visit went well despite generally peaceful protests. Although there was some of the usual pageantry, the customary drive in an open carriage with the queen was cut because of fears for the president's safety.
Bush was screened from contacts with the British public by a "security bubble" provided by the more than 700 U.S. Secret Service agents who accompanied him, and by a record number of British police mustered at considerable expense. Traffic and life in the capital were disrupted as streets were shut and helicopters buzzed around. This inevitably reduced trade in London shops in the runup to Christmas.
Bush and Blair were regarded by the protesters as responsible for waging war in Iraq in defiance of the United Nations. Many of the protesters, particularly those who toppled an image of Bush in imitation of the way in which a statue of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was toppled in Baghdad, were silly and insensitive. Bush, whether we like him personally and whether we think that he and Blair made the right decisions over Iraq, was our guest and deserved to be treated with the courtesy that the majority of British people showed him. It is impossible to regret the end of Hussein's rule of tyranny -- even if this was not the reason adduced for the attack on Iraq.