Bush,Blair should have prayed on Iraq-Anglican head

LONDON, Apr 26 (Reuters) US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair should have prayed together before going to war in Iraq, according to the spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, however, told the BBC in an interview broadcast late yesterday that praying would not necessarily have granted the men what they wanted.

Asked if Blair was right not to have said prayers with Bush, Williams said: ''I'm sure he should have prayed and I think perhaps he should have prayed with George Bush.

''Praying doesn't mean you get the answer you want. It doesn't mean you get the answer the other person wants either.'' Bush, a Methodist, has credited television evangelist Billy Graham with inspiring him to return to Christianity and get his life back on track after years of drifting and excessive drinking.

Blair once told the BBC that he and Bush did not pray together in the run up to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

Williams also said he disagreed with Blair's belief that the US-led war to topple Saddam Hussein was morally correct.

''I fully respect his conviction and sincerity about that, though I don't agree with his conclusion,'' the Archbishop told ''Newsnight'', the BBC's flagship nightly political programme.

Williams said he thought prime ministers, as individuals, should ''do God'' because ''everyone ought to''.

He continued: ''But I don't expect government to be talking religion. I do expect government to be giving space and opportunity for the kind of moral discussion informed by religion, as by many other strands of humanistic thought.'' The religious leader said he did not think the British public was put off by Blair's Christianity, except in the context of the Iraq war. He said -- though he disagreed -- some people thought the prime minister had been ''echoing Bush's rather crusading attitude'' over Iraq.

''Suddenly, his religious convictions became awkward and embarrassing for him and embarrassing for everybody,'' Williams added.

REUTERS DKS BST0740