The third war summit between President Bush and British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair resulted in a pledge by both leaders to give the United Nations a "vital role" but not a central role in a post-war Iraq.
Mr Bush also gave a commitment - for the first time - to focus his administration on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, promising to devote as much energy to the Middle East peace process as Mr Blair has given to Northern Ireland.
Mr Bush and Mr Blair appeared at a joint press conference at Hillsborough Castle after discussing Iraq, the Middle East and Northern Ireland at their summit which began on Monday evening and went on to yesterday afternoon.
Both Mr Bush and Mr Blair gave positive assessments of the progress of the war, but the US President warned that there was much fighting ahead.
However he said Saddam Hussein will be gone - "it might have been yesterday" after the bombing of a Baghdad restaurant where the Iraqi leader was believed to be meeting his leadership.
"The grip I used to describe that Saddam had around the throats of the Iraqi people is loosening," Mr Bush said. "I can't tell you if all 10 fingers are off their throats, but finger-by-finger it's coming off." Mr Blair said that "in all parts of the country our power is strengthening, the regime is weakening, the Iraqi people are turning towards us, the power of Saddam is ending."
Differences between the two leaders on the extent of UN involvement seemed to have been decided in favour of the American side. There was no suggestion, as London had once hoped, that the UN would set up the interim Iraqi authority to run the country after a period of military rule.
The UN could suggest the names of members to the committee, but the members would be picked by the Iraqis themselves, Mr Bush said.
"There will be a vital role for the UN in the reconstruction of Iraq," said Mr Blair, "but the key is that Iraq in the end will be run by the Iraqi people." Asked for details on the "vital role," Mr Bush said it would be important for providing food and medical aid and legitimising the interim Iraqi authority. "That means being a party to the progress being made in Iraq," he said.
Mr Blair could, however, chalk up a considerable achievement in getting Mr Bush to commit the US to the Middle East peace process.
"To those who can sometimes say that the process in the Middle East is hopeless," he said, "I say we can look at Northern Ireland and take some hope from that." Both leaders pointed to the publication of a "road map" to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians on a future Palestinian state and Mr Bush gave an endorsement to the incoming prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Mahmoud Abbas.
That plan, compiled by the UN, the EU, the US and Russia is to be released after Mr Abbas is confirmed.
Noting Mr Blair's hard work in getting the Northern Ireland peace process to work, Mr Bush said "I am willing to spend the same amount of energy in the Middle East." The US has been criticised by the EU and other countries for not intervening more fully in the conflict.
Both Mr Bush and Mr Blair went out of their way to reject suggestions that they were intent on occupying Iraq. Mr Bush said a number of times that Iraq would be governed by the Iraqi people.There was some suggestion in Europe that he didn't mean what he said, but Saddam Hussein "now knows I mean what I say," said Mr Bush.
"This was indeed a war of liberation and not conquest," Mr Blair said. "Our enemy in this conflict has always been Saddam and his regime, not the Iraqi people."
Much of the discussion, he said, had been on how to help the process of transition to a point where Iraq was governed by Iraqi people. They wanted to pave the way for a truly representative government that spent its wealth not on palaces and weapons of mass destruction but on the wellbeing of its people.