Bush Faces Italian Anger Over Iraq on Rome Visit

ROME (Reuters) - Italians greeted American soldiers as liberators when they marched into Rome 60 years ago but President Bush faces deep anger on his visit on Friday over the actions of a new generation of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.

Authorities fear violent demonstrations during Bush’s two days in Rome, and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, worried by the prospect of clashes in the streets, urged Italians to show "maturity and understanding of history."

While Berlusconi has been among Bush’s closest allies, most Italians opposed last year’s U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and there have been many calls for Rome to withdraw its some 2,700 troops.

During a three-day trip to Italy and France, Bush will seek international support for his Iraq mission and commemorate the June 1944 liberation of Rome and the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Bush, a born-again Christian, made a special adjustment to the schedule to fit in a meeting with Pope John Paul, who threw the weight of the Catholic Church against the Iraq war and who last month made clear his concern at the scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers.

A senior administration official said Bush would assure the pope of his "personal commitment" to ensuring such abuses would not happen again, while reiterating his conviction that war was justified because "there are times when force is necessary."

Anti-war demonstrators who gathered in Rome earlier this week recalled the prisoner abuse scandal, re-enacting scenes from the photos of Iraqis being humiliated in a Baghdad jail and covering the faces of statues with hoods. Italians are also concerned about the fate of three Italian hostages held in Iraq for nearly two months. Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera aired a tape of the three on Wednesday with a message from the kidnappers urging the Italian people to demonstrate against Bush during his 36-hour visit.

TIGHT SECURITY

Some 10,000 police will be on duty to protect against the kind of violence that marred a G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001, when one protester was killed by police and hundreds were wounded. Sharpshooters will be deployed.

"The information that we have worries us about the kind of demonstrations that could take place tomorrow," Berlusconi said.

About a dozen protesters gathered on Thursday evening in a central Rome square, pretending to be dead as one of them read the names of Iraqis killed in recent months by U.S.-led forces.

"We are not violent," said protester Manuele Massineou. "We just want to say what we think. We don’t want this war."

The senior U.S. official, speaking to reporters on the flight to Rome, urged those demonstrating to "remember that now the people in Baghdad can actually also go out into the street and protest."

At the start of the trip, Bush will lay a wreath at Fosse Ardeatine, site of one of the worst World War II massacres in Italy.

"There is great gratitude to the American soldiers who liberated Rome and Italy," said Alfonso Morselli, a 71-year-old obstetrician, part of an older generation that remembers the liberation of Rome from Nazi occupation on June 4, 1944.

"It is a different generation (now)," he said. "Today most Italians don’t know what a war is. They don’t know about the pain, hunger, misery."

Italy was allied to Germany in World War II under Benito Mussolini who was eventually squeezed from power as Allied forces helped partisans drive the Nazis out.

Politically Bush’s biggest goal on his weekend trip to Rome, Paris and the Normandy coast will be to try to overcome differences on a new U.N. resolution endorsing Iraq’s caretaker government and establishing a U.S.-led multinational force.

On Saturday Bush meets French President Jacques Chirac, hoping to warm up relations strained over Iraq before Sunday’s anniversary ceremonies in Normandy. (Additional reporting by Rachel Sanderson, Antonio Denti)

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