Bush, Blair tell Israel to halt attacks

CRAWFORD, Texas -- President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted Saturday that Israel halt its escalating offensive in the West Bank and immediately withdraw its troops, but Israel's leader vowed to fight on for now.

"Israel should halt incursions in the Palestinian-controlled areas and begin to withdraw without delay from those cities it has recently occupied," Bush said during a news conference with Blair, who said he agreed entirely with Bush's views toward Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Afterward, with the three allies mired in an uncomfortable stalemate, Bush placed a 20-minute telephone call to Sharon that aides described as tense. Seeking to turn up the pressure on the Israeli, Bush expressed "deep concerns" for the attacks into Palestinian cities that intensified Saturday. He asked Sharon defuse the Mideast crisis and pull back his troops, U.S. officials said.

Sharon expressed sympathy with Bush's position, according to accounts issued by both countries, but did not promise to bow to U.S. demands. Indeed, a statement issued by Sharon's office seemed to justify continued attacks by saying Israel is operating in difficult conditions in the West Bank towns and villages where "there are a great deal of weapons, explosives and armed terrorists."

The statement did not say when the offensive would end, though Sharon pledged to expedite the operation.

Urgent action

Bush is not interested in promises of future action; he wants Israeli troops urgently pulled out, U.S. officials said.

A senior Bush administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the conversation as "pretty brutal" but said there was some hope in the fact that Sharon had not ruled out a quick withdrawal. The president hopes that by turning up pressure on Sharon, he will force the Israeli's hand -- or give him political cover to back down.

The terse exchange of official statements followed shortly after the news conference in which Bush and Blair agreed the world would be better off without Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

However, they said they have not settled on a way to deal with the Iraqi president.

"I can't imagine people not seeing the threat and not holding Saddam Hussein accountable for what he said he would do," Bush said of Saddam's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. "And we're going to do that."

Bush was answering critics, including European allies and even members of Blair's own Labor Party, who do not want the U.S. military to try to overthrow Saddam.

As storm clouds blew across Bush's secluded ranch, the leaders discussed grim news from the Middle East: Israeli assaults, aimed at Palestinian militants, spread deeper into West Bank refugee camps despite Bush's call Thursday for Israel to withdraw its troops.