Bush, in Berlin, Urges Unity in Terror War

BERLIN--President Bush began a weeklong trip to Europe on Wednesday with a blunt reminder to the allies he will visit that they too are potential targets of terrorists.

His message was aimed at a Europe where, allegiances among officials not withstanding, there is a growing popular wariness about his leadership of the West.

But even as European populations show anxiety that the Bush administration is leading their nations into a wider war on terrorism, their governments have rarely been more closely aligned with American policy.

“Our alliance must remain tough in the war against global terror,” the president said as he left the White House.

Singling out each country he will visit, he added: “Even though we’ve had some initial successes, there’s still danger for countries which embrace freedom, countries such as ours or Germany, France, Russia or Italy.”

Bush arrived at Tegel International Airport at dusk, strode a red carpet, reviewed a small military honor guard and was driven to the center of Germany’s capital for apple strudel, ice cream and coffee with Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder at a cafe adjacent to the Brandenburg Gate. They planned a formal meeting today.

Cooperation

and Differences

The president’s remarks set the tone for his eighth foreign trip as president and his first to Germany: Among officials on both sides of the Atlantic, there is a new level of cooperation on such pressing issues as arms control and the war in Afghanistan.

But just below the surface, differences percolate over what are seen as protectionist U.S. trade sanctions, nuclear proliferation--in particular Washington’s concerns that Russia is not maintaining a tight grip on its nuclear technology--and the Bush administration’s rejection of international treaties, among them the Kyoto Protocol against global warming.

In addition, Bush administration officials are privately pressing Germany to do more to block terrorist financial assets, after it failed, in the U.S. view, to uncover the extent of the Islamic terrorist network that was well established in the country before the Sept. 11 attacks.

During the Cold War, Berlin welcomed U.S. presidents with open arms, most notably John F. Kennedy, who made his impassioned 1963 pledge of “Ich bin ein Berliner.” On Wednesday, Bush encountered a cold shoulder.

Thousands hit the streets of the German capital to protest his menacing hints of an imminent attack on Iraq, as well as his trade and environmental policies.

Two hours before the president arrived, antiwar demonstrators and globalization critics staged a nationwide beating of Bush-Trommeln, a play on the German for jungle drums. That protest and an earlier march through central Berlin by a new alliance that calls itself the “Axis of Peace” were orderly, but a number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators clashed with police. Windows at a McDonald’s restaurant and a department store were smashed, and some arrests and injuries were reported.

Before arriving in Germany, Bush said he expected to encounter some disenchantment. “That’s democracy,” Bush said Tuesday in an interview with the German television network ARD. “I know there’s some reluctance about some of the positions I take.”

On Tuesday evening, nearly 20,000 protesters marched along Unter den Linden to Alexanderplatz in one of the biggest anti-American demonstrations in Berlin in recent decades. A smaller crowd turned out Wednesday. But both posed a jarring contrast to the sympathy expressed for Americans during a vigil at the Brandenburg Gate by 200,000 Germans after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“The political elites” are in close communication, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said in an interview with a small group of reporters Wednesday afternoon. “The big problem will be the broader public opinion.”

Fischer, the senior member of the pacifist Greens party in Schroeder’s coalition government, said he was “in constant debate with the demonstrators,” seeking to convince them that negotiations with Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network would be fruitless.

But, reflecting the divisions within German politics, he said the successors to the Communist Party “think they can catch a lot of votes for the left” by opposing cooperation with the United States.

Objections to

Expanding the War

Schroeder has pledged Germany’s “unreserved solidarity” in the fight against terror. But objections to spreading the anti-terror battle to Iraq are even more vehement than the dissatisfaction with the campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and extend to the highest political levels.

“As long as it is unproven that Saddam [Hussein] belongs to the group that provides shelter or support for terrorists such as Al Qaeda, there is no reason to take action against Iraq,” Peter Struck, the parliamentary leader of Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party, told ARD television on the eve of Bush’s visit.

“It would be completely wrong if the American president would now attempt to do what his father failed to do,” Struck said, implying an attempt to settle former President George Bush’s score with the Iraqi leader, who survived the 1991 Persian Gulf War in power.

Antje Vollmer, Struck’s counterpart in the Greens party, criticized Bush’s “almost missionary approach against evil,” which, she told Stern magazine, risked inflaming religious passions throughout the Islamic world.

A senior German government official who briefed reporters on condition he not be identified said Schroeder would press Bush for a candid assessment of the war on terrorism’s next missions and would urge him to consider “actions other than military” to persuade hostile governments to renounce terror.

This week’s edition of Der Spiegel magazine published a poll showing respondents more critical of U.S. policy than are citizens of the other countries Bush will visit on his European tour. Of those queried, 19% gave Bush a positive rating, compared with 50% who said they had negative attitudes toward the president.

Though the demonstrators and other critics of Washington were drawing the most attention, some prominent German media insisted that the vast majority in this country remained steadfast U.S. allies.

“We are with you in the sober realization that it is our duty to combat tyranny and terrorism with courage and clarity of purpose, even though this is no easy task,” the Sueddeutsche Zeitung asserted in an editorial, recalling the 1948-49 Berlin airlift and the strong Cold War presence that saved this city from encroachment by the Communist empire.

“The free city of Berlin knows full well what it owes America,” the newspaper continued. “In Berlin, America drew a clear line between the free world and Communist tyranny. The American ideal of liberty is engraved in our hearts.”

More than 10,000 police were deployed to seal off a 14-block area of the capital around the sites of Bush’s 19-hour visit.

Employees of the new office buildings around the Chancellery and Reichstag buildings were told to leave their cars at home for the duration of the visit and rely on public transportation.

Divers plunged into the Spree River in search of explosives, and pedestrians were prohibited from approaching the Adlon Hotel, where the president was staying. The hotel overlooks the Brandenburg Gate, which is undergoing renovation. The gate is covered with a scaffolding shroud that depicts the White House.

Times staff writer Josh Meyer in Washington contributed to this report.