Obama cavalcade will deal with much more than G20 summit

Barack Obama. Photo / AP

Britain will get its first chance to see President Barack Obama this week when a White House cavalcade - complete with armoured limousines, helicopters, 200 United States secret service staff and a six-doctor medical team - sweeps into the country.

Obama will fly into London for his first visit to Britain as President on Wednesday to take part in the G20 summit in the capital's Docklands area. He will not be travelling light.

More than 500 officials and staff will accompany the President on his tour this week - with a mass of high-tech security equipment, including the US$300,000 ($526,000) presidential limousine, known as The Beast. Fitted with night-vision camera, reinforced steel plating, tear-gas cannon and oxygen tanks, the vehicle is the ultimate in heavy armoured transport.

In addition, a team from the White House kitchen will travel with the President to prepare his food. As one official put it: "When the President travels, the White House travels with him, right down to the car he drives, the water he drinks, the gasoline he uses, the food he eats. America is still the sole superpower and the President must have the ability to handle any crisis, anywhere, any time."

US security teams have already had three visits to prepare for Obama's first official visit to Britain. The first was a "site survey", the second a "pre-advance visit" which was done to pick sites that the President would visit. Finally there was the "advance trip", which took place last week. Its purpose was to set up equipment, sweep venues for electronic bugs, test food for poison and measure air quality for bacteria.

Obama will start his first presidential visit to Europe when he steps down from the US presidential jet, Air Force One, at Stansted Airport. The Boeing 747-200B is fitted with its own gym, electronic defence units and shielding to protect its complex communication devices from radiation from nuclear blasts. Among the officials on the flight will be a military officer carrying America's nuclear missile launch codes.

Obama will then be flown to central London in a VH-3D helicopter known as Marine One. Again, high-tech security will dominate his journey. Marine One is fitted with flares that can be fired to confuse heat-seeking missiles and always flies in groups containing several identical helicopters.

While in town, the President will be guarded by more than 200 US secret servicemen - easily identifiable by their shirt-cuff radios and Ray-Ban sunglasses. Obama has already had some time to get used their attention. It was decided 18 months ago, when he was still a presidential candidate, that his African-American background put him at particular risk of an assassination attempt and he was provided with his security guards.

And should anything befall the President, a White House medical unit will be at hand to provide emergency care. The team consists of surgeons, nurses and other medical personnel and carries supplies of blood of the type AB, the President's blood group. At the same time, Obama will be constantly minded by his personal aide Reggie Love, who dials his BlackBerry, fetches his jacket and tie and supplies him with snacks.

First lady Michelle Obama will also have a coterie of assistants, including a secretary, a press officer and several bodyguards.

It is a striking presence and shows that, for the next few days, London, not Washington, will be the beating heart of American foreign policy. At the end of the week Obama and his retinue will head off for meetings in France, Germany and the Czech Republic, although not before he has indulged in an unprecedented whirlwind of diplomatic activity - he and his advisers will not just be involved in complex summit negotiations, but will also be camped out in London conducting a series of individual high-level mini-summits with the most powerful leaders in the world.

Indeed, despite all the heat and fury over this week's G20, the most important work might actually emerge from the meetings that Obama and his team have scheduled on the side, far away from the debate over the economic crisis. In effect, if the G20 were a party with a guest list, then Obama's series of mini-summits would be a VIP room,open only to a select few powerful players and conducted behind closed doors.

The schedule is hectic and the subjects are weighty.

Obama will hold his first bilateral talks with President Hu Jintao of China. The meeting comes at a time when China has been asserting its international role and taking on the US by talking of replacing the dollar as the main international currency and having a recent naval showdown with a US spy ship in the South China Sea.

Obama will also meet Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, again in the first face-to-face talks between the two. Subjects up for discussion will include ways to co-operate to limit Iran's nuclear ambitions and debate over plans for a US missile shield that Russia views as a hostile act.

Obama will then hold his first personal meeting with India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. Their discussions will be crucial, given the fact that the explosive situation in India's neighbour, Pakistan, is the most pressing foreign policy concern of Obama's Administration.

Then, just to add another complex problem, Obama will hold bilateral talks with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. That chat comes against the backdrop of an increasingly erratic North Korea, which is threatening to attack the South and is moving to launch a long-range missile which Japan has said it might try to shoot down.

"He does have a huge amount of challenges to try to tackle," said Larry Haas, a political commentator and former aide in the Clinton White House.

Holding high-powered meetings with world leaders will allow Obama to remind Americans how much the rest of the world still admires him. It will also be good for the leaders who meet him as they play to domestic audiences.

"Personally, I think every one of those leaders wants to sit down and get a photo opportunity with Obama," said Dan Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

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