Clinton clash with Blair President tells PM he must halt rumours of rift over Kosovo
By Martin Kettle in Washington
An angry Bill Clinton has told Tony Blair this week that he should 'get control' of people who could be encouraging press reports of splits between London and Washington on the Kosovo campaign.
Reports of the unusually difficult 90-minute telephone call between the two allies surfaced yesterday in some US newspapers and have been confirmed by the Guardian.
The reports came as the foreign secretary, Robin Cook, began a 24-hour visit to Washington yesterday in which he was scheduled to meet the secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, the White House national security adviser Sandy Berger and US congressional leaders to discuss Kosovo.
The remarkably long conversation between the prime minister and the president on Tuesday night came after a succession of articles in British newspapers over the past few days which examined differences between the two governments over the future conduct of the campaign and, in particular, the issue of ground troops.
Weekend reports that Mr Cook was travelling to the US capital to press for the deployment of a ground force have helped to fuel Washington's growing sensitivity about British intentions.
Both governments have subsequently gone out of their way to stress that Mr Cook's visit is aimed at underlining British-American unity.
During the first few minutes of the conversation between the two leaders, Mr Clinton 'expressed his displeasure' at the stories, the New York Times reported yesterday.
According to unidentified White House officials, Mr Clinton told Mr Blair to 'please get control' of those who appeared to be speaking on his behalf. Mr Clinton was complaining about stories in which an apparent British willingness to send forces into Kosovo without Serbian acquiescence was contrasted with Washington's continued determination to rule out the possibility of ground troops except as a post-war peacekeeping force.
The US leader also chided Mr Blair over the way that the division played into the hands of his domestic political opponents.
Mr Clinton told Mr Blair that he was inadvertently allowing a comparison to be drawn between the Clinton administration's reticence over the ground troop option and the stance of his more hawkish critics such the Republican presidential hopeful, John McCain.
Mr McCain, a senator from Arizona, favours a ground operation and has harshly criticised Mr Clinton's failure to prosecute the war more ruthlessly. White House sources told the Guardian yesterday that Mr Blair assured Mr Clinton during their conversation that neither he nor any of his spokesmen was behind the stories.
'The president accepted the prime minister's explanation,' an official said. The source denied that the exchanges between the two men were angry and said that they occupied only the first few minutes of the conversation. 'They quickly moved on to business and planning,' he said. 'I think everyone has calmed down now.'
Washington's displeasure at the volume of stories about British-US disagreements and divisions was reflected publicly on the same day that the two leaders spoke. On Tuesday the US state department spokesman James Foley told reporters on the record that he had been told by his 'counterparts' in London that 'the British press is in a kind of frenzy on that issue.'