US raps official for UK comments

BBC

A US official who said Britain got nothing back from its "one-sided" relationship with the US has been summoned by his superiors.
Kendall Myers, a senior analyst at the state department, said he was "ashamed" that Prime Minister Tony Blair was often ignored by President George Bush.

But a State Department spokesman said: "We repudiate and disassociate ourselves from these comments."

He said the department was considering what action to take against Mr Myers.

"The comments, frankly, I think, could be described as ill-informed, and I think from our perspective, just plain wrong," said the spokesman, Tom Casey.

He said the analyst had no policy-making role and was not authorised to speak for the department.

Mr Myers made the comments at an academic forum at a university in Washington.

He said he believed the war in Iraq, in which Mr Blair has stood solidly behind the US line, had "greatly strained" the relationship between the two countries and he feared that it would break down.