US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday defended the attack on Iraq and condemned the ghastly bombings on British targets in Turkey, even as thousands of protestors marched through Central
London in a show of anti-American and Anti-war feeling.
A large contingent of US expatriates, led by maimed Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, led the march through the West End
behind a banner declaring, 'Proud of my country, ashamed of its President.'
They were joined by hundreds of Britishers, including school children, who defied education authorities to take a day off for the protest, claimed an activist of the Stop The War Coalition, which organised the march along with the 'Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament' and the 'Muslim Association of Britain.'
Blair, meanwhile, speaking after a meeting with Bush, called the Istanbul bombings on the British consulate and London based HSBC Bank as the "latest terrorist outrage" and added that it would in no way lessen the two countries' commitment in Iraq.
"Once again we must affirm that in the face of this terrorism, there must be no holding back, no compromise, no hesitation in confronting this menace, in attacking it whenever and wherever we can in defeating it utterly," he said.
But anti-war protests raged in Britain, where a series of small demonstrations culminated on Wednesday night in a mass
gathering outside the Buckingham Palace. Police made 31 arrests on minor offences.
Around 1500 protesters gathered outside the Palace during a state banquet hosted by the Queen for Bush. The protesters, many of them dressed either as Bush or Blair, blew horns, banged drums and played loud music.
Earlier on Thursday, President Bush, who is on a three-day visit to Britain, laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown
Warrior in Westminster Abbey before holding talks with Blair at 10 Downing Street and addressing a joint press conference at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Blair is hoping for a breakthrough over the nine British terror suspects held in Guntanamo Bay, Cuba. US Secretary of State Colin Powell hinted a deal was on the way when he said: "We expect to be resolving this in the near future."
