President, British leader confer on Mideast peace prospects

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) _ On the eve of a high-stakes U.S. mission to the Middle East, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are huddling at the president's secluded ranch trying to find

Saturday, April 6th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) _ On the eve of a high-stakes U.S. mission to the Middle East, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are huddling at the president's secluded ranch trying to find a formula for peace _ with or without Yasser Arafat.

``He has let his people down and there are others in the region who can lead,'' Bush said of the Palestinian leader.

As he opened his Prairie Chapel Ranch to Blair, his most steadfast overseas ally, Bush also said he is confident he can build an international coalition to ``deal with'' Iraq's Saddam Hussein.

``I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go,'' Bush said in an interview with Britain's ITV network.

The president and Blair met _ over dinner Friday with first lady Laura Bush, a one-on-one Saturday breakfast and a joint top-secret CIA briefing _ as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to fly to the Middle East.

``The United States is strongly committed to finding a just settlement in the Middle East,'' Bush said in his weekly radio broadcast Saturday. ``That settlement must lead to two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security.''

Powell leaves Sunday night on his quest for a cease-fire that could draw both sides into long-term peacemaking. For now, he has no plans to meet with Arafat, another sign that the administration is seeking to marginalize the chairman of the Palestinian Authority in favor of other Arab leaders who might be more trustworthy in Bush's eyes.

``There are others in the region who can lead,'' Bush said, naming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan.

``And so Colin Powell is going to go to the region to gather those leaders up and to start a process hopefully that will lead to lasting peace,'' he said.

The administration sounded an anxious wait-and-see response to Israel's further movement into the West Bank, in defiance of his demand Thursday that Israel pull back from Palestinian areas as a precursor to a truce.

As Israeli tanks and troops rolled Friday into the West Bank town of Tubas, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that Bush's directions were just 24 hours old and Mideast nations needed time to digest what the president expected of them.

At the State Department, Powell said Israel should begin a withdrawal ``as soon as possible or without delay.''

Flying straight to Texas from funeral services for the Queen Mother Elizabeth in London, Blair arrived at the Bush ranch late in a black business suit to find his host in blue jeans and a scruffy jacket.

The prime minister rode in Bush's white pickup truck while the president drove the pair away from reporters. He said neither he nor Blair would have anything public to say until a news conference Saturday at Crawford High School.

In the ITV interview, Bush said he and Blair were discussing ``all options'' on Iraq. He chose his words carefully in talking about what course of action other nations might support.

``I think the coalition can be assembled to demand that Iraq let (U.N. weapons) inspectors back in,'' he said. ''... I'm confident that we can lead a coalition to pressure Saddam Hussein and to deal with Saddam Hussein.''

U.S. military action against Saddam risks the revolt of Arab nations currently supporting the war on terrorism.

Bush dismissed the ``silly notion'' of European critics who fault him for waiting too long to do something to stop bloodshed in the Middle East.

In a rare but veiled criticism of a predecessor, Bush suggested that Israel-Palestinian talks sponsored by President Clinton at Camp David, Md., in 2000 led to more violence.

``We've tried summits in the past, as you may remember,'' Bush said when asked why he was dispatching Powell instead of personally trying to organize a peace summit.

``It wasn't all that long ago where a summit was called and nothing happened, and as a result we had significant intefadeh (uprising) in the area,'' Bush said.

Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary to Clinton, replied: ``He'll learn at some point that you have to face problems rather than to blame others. And the only thing more glaring here than his lack of leadership is his lack of knowledge.''