Muriel: 'Enormous security' planned for Bush visit
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CNN correspondent Diana Muriel
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- President Bush will be treated to a state visit this week in Britain, where huge protests against his Iraq policy are expected.
CNN correspondent Diana Muriel in London spoke with correspondents Susan Candiotti and Suzanne Malveaux on Saturday about how Bush might face the protests upon his arrival.
MURIEL: Mr. Bush has said he doesn't expect everyone in the world to agree with his policies. And many Britons are preparing to make their disagreement very vocal and very visible. Perhaps the most visible element will be a 20-foot effigy that's being built, an effigy of President Bush, which will be taken to Trafalgar Square at the end of the huge rally that's expected to take place in the capital on Thursday. And he'll be ceremoniously toppled over, a sort of rather cynical echo of the pulling down of the statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
That's what's planned by the protesters. But, of course, there's an awful lot of security planned by the British police, as well.
CANDIOTTI: Diana, given the unpopularity of the war in Iraq there in Great Britain, as you talk to people, is there more a feeling of anti-Americanism because of it, or is it more anti-Bush?
MURIEL: Well, it seems that it is more anti-Bush. But there has been a growing sense -- and this is something that's been talked about in the British press, papers, and on television and radio, about a growing sense of anti-Americanism. That the longer this continues, the more these policies are pursued in places like Iraq, the more Americans themselves become identified with the president's policies, rather than being separated from them.
I've been speaking to various expatriates here in London. There are about 200,000 expatriate Americans living in the U.K. They say they've noticed a significant shift since the war in Iraq. They sense they have to defend themselves as much as their country, and, indeed, their president when they discuss politics with ordinary Britons. This hasn't spilled over into any overt hostility. They're not being yelled at in the street ... But they are seeing more anti-American graffiti in and around the capital and other cities ... and they think that will only get worse when the president himself arrives here next Tuesday night.
Also this morning, we understand from the intelligence services in Britain that they have changed their threat-alert level. They say that this is due to information they've received that an attack is imminent in the U.K., with al Qaeda working out of North Africa.
They aren't giving any details about a specific threat or a specific attack that might be planned. They do say it that is has nothing to do directly with President Bush's visit to this country. But nonetheless, they've gone to an internal threat alert state of severe general, which is one up from where they were yesterday.
So this, of course, all comes together. There's going to be enormous security for the president's visit. Five thousand policemen are going to be on the streets of the capital. All police leave has been canceled.
Bush will also be bringing, of course, his own security personnel. And even Buckingham Palace is not immune to this. We understand that there have been teams sweeping the palace, checking interior walls [for] possible explosive devices that may be hidden there, et cetera, et cetera. This is -- no chances are being taken with the president's visit ...
MALVEAUX: Diana, how do you think it will play for those there? I mean, how will this actually impact British Prime Minister Tony Blair's standing? I know that he has had a number of difficulties. And really, is it going to help to have this kind of one-on-one, this presence where you actually have President Bush there on the ground involved in these talks?
MURIEL: Well, the timing couldn't be worse, really. These things of course are planned months, if not years, in advance. But Tony Blair and his relationship with Bush is not particularly healthy in terms of the perceptions of the British electorate. He's perceived by many in Britain, not exclusively, but by many in Britain as being far too close to the president, as being his poodle, if you like. And, in fact, there have been many cartoons in European newspapers, particularly in French newspapers, about Blair being President Bush's poodle.
Blair has a very close relationship with President Bush, and he means to honor that. Although, I think he is keeping one eye on this -- how it may play out in the electorate here in the U.K. But having said that, Blair has planned to take the president to his own home constituency. And they'll be paying a visit up north to the prime minister's home constituency during the course of the visit.
So he seems to be quite relaxed about showing the president off to his direct voters. But there are many who say that he's looking uncomfortably close to very unpopular policies that the president, of course, is pursuing in Iraq and elsewhere.
