Schroeder tries to revive ties with Bush

BERLIN -- Rebuffed with an icy response from Washington to his narrow re-election victory, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder looked for help from his European partners Tuesday to get back into President Bush's good graces.

In a two-pronged diplomatic effort, Schroeder traveled to London to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair, the United States' most reliable ally on Iraq, as his defense minister, meeting NATO counterparts in Poland, offered that Germany take command of international security forces in Afghanistan.

Schroeder's trip to London was the first step on a longer diplomatic journey toward normalizing relations with the United States, one of Germany's closest allies. So far, President Bush has dismissed Schroeder's overtures, and has broken protocol by not sending the standard congratulations on the chancellor's re-election.

The leaders will get their first chance to meet face-to-face since the tensions erupted at a NATO summit Nov. 21 and 22. But Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer could prepare the ground with a visit to the United States planned in the next 10 days, a State Department official said Tuesday.

Schroeder's defense minister, Peter Struck, made a first gesture at a NATO meeting in Warsaw. He proposed that Germany, along with the Dutch, take command of the international security force in Afghanistan -- the sort of military burden the United States has long prodded its European allies to shoulder.

The changeover could come later this year, and Struck expressed hope his offer would help repair U.S.-German ties.

The two allies have split over Bush's doctrine that allies "are either with us or with the enemy" in the war on terrorism -- which extends to Iraq. Schroeder says a war on Iraq is a mistake that would alienate moderate Arab states.

The rift widened after one of Schroeder's ministers was quoted as comparing Bush to Hitler for threatening war to distract from domestic issues.