PRESIDENT BUSH risks sparking a new row with Europe this week when he calls for Europe’s support for expanding his War on Terror to include the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Police cars patrol in front of the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, Tuesday, May 21, 2002, the day before U.S. President George Bush's arrival to the German capital. Bush will stay in the Adlon Hotel. (AP Photo/Fritz Reiss)

On the eve of his six-day trip to Russia and Western Europe, the White House said that he would use his visit to Berlin, where he is due to make a keynote address to the Reichstag, to urge backing for the removal of the Iraqi dictator and his weapons of mass destruction.

Even before his speech, authorities in Berlin, Paris and Rome are preparing for the worst. Thousands of riot police have been mobilised to protect the US leader against expected demonstrations by leftwingers, environmentalists and other anti-American groups.

Paradoxically, the smoothest part of his tour will be three days in Russia as a guest of President Putin, where the two leaders will conclude an historic arms control treaty and finalise details for new co-operation between the Kremlin and Nato.

Condoleezza Rice, the US National Security Adviser, said in an interview that Mr Bush will use the German leg of his trip to tackle the thorniest issue: gaining European support for extending the War on Terror against Iraq. The first time he made the connection in his “Axis of Evil” speech earlier this year he provoked a furore that strained American ties with the Continent.

“He will consult with the Chancellor about how to address what is a growing problem, and that is the problem of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of really horrible regimes,” Ms Rice told ZDF television. “Sooner or later the free world will have to deal with this terrible threat.

“What he (Bush) has been trying to do is to raise awareness of all freedom-loving nations, that the status quo with Saddam Hussein . . . this status quo just cannot continue.”

Posters against the visit of President Bush are seen on a wall in Berlin Monday, May 20, 2002. Bush will start his European tour in Germany on Wednesday, May 22, before heading to Russia, France and Italy. Slogan on posters reads: " Mr. President!!! You are not a Berliner." (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

She said that Germany could help to prevent Iraq from procuring material that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. She also called on Berlin to help in the propaganda effort against Baghdad. “We also expect German support for the story that we are telling about this terrible man who has tried to acquire terrible weapons his entire life,” Ms Rice said.

The Germans, in common with other Europeans, expressed genuine sympathy for the United States after the September 11 attacks. Support melted, however, when President Bush announced that an 'Axis of Evil', Iran, Iraq and North Korea, was at work in the world during his State of the Union address to Congress in January. Germans became scared that they were being led into a global war.

'That is not the way we do politics,' said Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, who will greet Mr Bush at the Reichstag, but whose Green Party will take part in the anti-US demonstrations.

Opinion polls indicate that this fear is not confined to political extremists. According to a poll published by Der Spiegel magazine yesterday, 65 per cent of Germans believe that the United States is pursuing its own national interests by taking part in or planning wars around the world.

'America's right to self-defence, claimed after September 11, has become a pretext for making war,' says a leaflet circulated yesterday by the Axis of Peace, one of the left-wing groups organising the anti-Bush protests. The leaflets handed out on the streets of central Berlin were snapped up, and not only by the security men who are already scouting Berlin for signs of dissent.

There will be no conscious echoes of John Kennedy's 1963 'Ich bin ein Berliner' visit. Then, Kennedy drove around West Berlin in an open Lincoln and took flowers from young German women. The shops were closed for a day of celebrations.

This time Mr Bush will see virtually no Berliners. He will travel in closed convoys of armour-plated vehicles. The shops will be shuttered only because of fears of rioting. George Bush's model will rather be that of Ronald Reagan who, shielded by bulletproof plexiglass, stood at the Berlin Wall in 1987 and appealed to Mikhail Gorbachev to rip it down. More than 50,000 demonstrated against him.

Herr Fischer, then a Member of Parliament, denounced him as a 'gun-crazed celluloid cowboy'. Now, however, the Foreign Minister has been urging his colleagues in the Green Party not to take part in riots, although he says that they have a right to demonstrate.

The most energetic protesters from the mainstream parties will come from the ex-communist Party of Democratic Socialists, who form part of the ruling city council of Berlin. This represents a kind of historical continuity: its predecessor, the old East German Communist Party, funded demonstrations against the visits of previous US Presidents.

Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd

###