SUMMITS Bush hopes to gain allies' approval

Allied leaders are expressing a new willingness to help in Iraq.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Criticized for his go-it-alone approach in Iraq, President Bush is trying to build a new consensus among allies wary of a U.S. leader whose policies are widely unpopular in Europe.
The next five days are all about summitry -- the U.S.-European Union summit this weekend in Ireland and the NATO summit in Turkey next week. Allied leaders are expressing a new willingness to help in Iraq, although not at the levels once anticipated.
Still, they risk their own political capital back home if they appear too cozy with Bush.
"America has never been at a lower point in the minds of citizens around the world," says Thomas Mann, a political analyst at Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think tank. "Our relations with other countries, including natural allies, have seldom been as strained. To be associated with President Bush and current American policy is a political liability around the world right now."
Hotel security
Bush leaves today for Ireland, where about 4,000 police and 2,000 soldiers -- more than a third of security forces in the Irish Republic -- have deployed around Dromoland Castle, a luxury hotel in the west of Ireland that is hosting Saturday's summit.
Left-wing activists planned protests in Dublin tonight and the summit venue Saturday. The protesters want Ireland to stop allowing U.S. military planes to land at Shannon airport, a strategic refueling point en route to Iraq. Protests are expected in several European cities this weekend.
Topics at both summits will range from Afghanistan to counterterrorism, from trade to curbing the spread of nuclear weapons. But Iraq will be at the forefront.
Bush, who is seeking allies' help in Iraq, will be holding out one hand and carrying what he believes is a persuasive argument in his pocket -- one that asks NATO members to look in their own history books.
"This is about the spread of freedom and liberty," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said Thursday in explaining the message Bush will carry to Europe.
Interviewed about CIA leak
Amid Bush's travel preparations, the probe into who leaked the name of a CIA operative to a journalist moved to the highest level of government as federal investigators spent more than an hour with President Bush.
Bush was interviewed for 70 minutes Thursday by U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the head of the Justice Department investigation, and by members of his team.
Investigators want to know who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak last July. Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime.