US President George W Bush musters top world leaders at a tightly secured island retreat today, with a long-awaited breakthrough in sight which could ease lingering rifts over Iraq.
Bush will host the Group of Eight summit on secluded Sea Island, a millionaire's ghetto on the US southeast coast, hoping to finally smooth rifts opened by his decision to invade Iraq last year.
And there were signs yesterday that the leading powers had hammered out a deal on Iraqi sovereignty, as diplomats haggled at the United Nations over a draft resolution. A vote was scheduled for later today.
"There's general sense that this is going in a very positive direction and should reach conclusion very soon," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said in Georgia.
Diplomats at the UN were also optimistic over a draft resolution which endorses the new interim government in Iraq and authorises US-led forces to stay in the country after self-rule begins.
As Bush prepared to welcome the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia, the US Secret Service clamped a fearsome security blanket over the island, and surrounding coast. Gunboats prowled inshore waters, while Navy SEAL commandos bobbed on rafts in the breakers, opposite idyllic cottages where the leaders were due to stay.
Bush has invited leaders from Afghanistan, Bahrain, Jordan, Turkey, and Yemen as well as Algeria, Ghana, Senegal, South Africa, Nigeria and Uganda, to meet with G8 leaders, said Rice. The summit will also serve as a coming-out party of sorts for Iraqi interim President Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar.
The US Secret Service, fearing a new al-Qaeda strike on the US mainland, designated the summit a National Security Special Event.
Some 10,000 local and federal law enforcement officers were involved, as well as detachments from all branches of the US military. Flight bans were in place over Sea Island and Savannah, and jet fighters had orders to fire warning flares at any aircraft veering too close.
The massive anti-terror operation swung into action as a statement attributed to Osama bin Laden's network warned of attacks on Western airliners and sites where Westerners gather in the Arabian peninsula. Top US officials warned last month they had "credible intelligence" that al-Qaeda planned an attack on the United States soon, and the summit and this year's political conventions were deemed prime targets.
AFP
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