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Amid royal pageantry and anti-war protests, U.S. President Bush is defending the invasion of Iraq as a necessary use of military power while likening reconstruction efforts to rebuilding a shattered Europe after two world wars.

Queen Elizabeth II was greeting Bush on Wednesday at Buckingham Palace to open a state visit, giving an official welcome to the American leader.

US President George W. Bush with his wife Laura are greeted by Britain's Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, left, after arriving Tuesday Nov.18, 2003 at London's Heathrow Airport, for their four day state visit to the UK.  [AP]

Buckingham Palace, the queen's London residence, also was a focal point for demonstrators bitterly opposed to the Iraq war. They shouted "Murderer!" and "You are not welcome!" as Bush's helicopter ferried him to the palace Tuesday night.

In a speech at Whitehall Palace, Bush was seeking to puncture what he views as misconceptions on this side of the Atlantic about America's use of force. He was subtly invoking Europe's history of appeasement of dictators, and the price Europeans paid for their governments' inaction, aides said.

Bush was explicitly reminding Europeans about the critical work the Allies did to set postwar Germany on the path to democracy, a process the Bush administration and the British are trying to accelerate today in Iraq.

As many as 100,000 people were preparing to march through London to protest the Iraq war and occupation, a fresh sign of the opposition that swept through much of Europe in the run-up to invasion and has deepened for many Europeans since.

Bush's visit to Britain dominated broadsheet newspapers in the country Wednesday morning. Headlines concentrated on the unprecedented level of security surrounding the visit, with The Times of London's front page leading with "President strolls into Fortress Britain." Inside, many newspapers carried pictures of policemen carrying submachine guns, a rare sight in Britain.

Anti-war protesters march through London, Tuesday Nov. 18, 2003, on the night that US President Bush arrived for his state visit. While in London Bush will be a guest of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.  [AP]

On the first full day of a 3 1/2-day trip to England, Bush was trying to reframe Europeans' perceptions of American military might. He wants to sway Britons like Ann Butler, 63, who compared Bush to the gunslinging lawmen of the Old West.

"This country's lost enough men in war," Butler said outside Buckingham Palace, where she was one of about 100 protesters who berated Bush as his helicopter touched down Tuesday night. "You Americans had Sept. 11. Maybe you had to get Saddam, but it's got nothing to do with us British."

Bush argues that all free countries are at risk from terrorism, and that Iraq is a central front in the battle against terrorists.

Wednesday, he was broadening his argument by offering what his senior aides called a "three-pillared" argument for war as a last resort.

Bush was noting Europe's long history of wars, which in the White House view has created the Europeans' tendency to embrace international cooperative organizations like the United Nations.

The president was saying that he too respected such groupings, so long as they are "strong, international institutions and alliances that are effective." He was praising the spread of democracy, while saying that "history has shown that there are times when countries must use force to defend the peace and to defend values."

Bush did not plan to define which values he was referring to, nor when, exactly, war is necessary.

Bush's speech was the centerpiece of a visit designed to win over Europeans. Prime Minister Tony Blair has been America's staunchest allies in the Iraq war, even as doubts have grown among the British public and in Blair's own Labor Party.

Britain has sent more troops to Iraq than any country aside from America, about 9,000, and the British have lost more than any other American ally — 52 deaths since the start of the war.

The war was hardly the only point of contention between the British and Americans.

Blair was angered by Bush's decision last year to slap tariffs on imported steel, duties that the World Trade Organization has declared illegal. Bush is close to deciding whether to repeal the tariffs, but senior administration officials would make no promises to Blair on Tuesday.

Bush received good news in a new British poll this week. Forty-three percent of those questioned in an ICM survey said Bush should visit Britain, while 36 percent said he should not. Some 62 percent agreed that America was "generally speaking, a force for good," while 15 percent believed it was "an evil empire."

The poll also had good news for Blair: 47 percent of those questioned said they supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, up from 38 percent in September. Opposition to the war was down 12 points to 41 percent.

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