Murdoch
Bush
MILAN -- News Corp. boss Rupert Murdoch said he backs President George W. Bush's tough stance against Iraq and that British Prime Minister Tony Blair has "guts.''
Murdoch, who will arrive in Rome today to discuss his planned acquisition of Vivendi Universal's cash-strapped Italo paybox Telepiu with politicos and industry watchdogs, added: "I think Bush is acting very morally, very correctly.
"We can't back down now, where you hand over the whole of the Middle East to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein."
The greatest economic outcome of any U.S.-led war against Iraq would be to slash oil prices to $20 a barrel, he said.
"That's bigger than any tax cut in any country,'' said Murdoch, adding Bush would be re-elected if the U.S. won a war with Iraq.
"He will either go down in history as a very great president, or he'll crash and burn. I'm optimistic it will be the former by a ratio of 2-to-1,'' he said in an interview with the Australian Bulletin magazine, to be published today.
On Blair, he added: "Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong on what his stance is in the Middle East.
"It's not easy to do that living in a Labor party which is largely composed of people who have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist.''
However, whether Murdoch raises these matters when he meets Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri is a moot point. Gasparri described the meeting as "a courtesy call."
Murdoch intends to roll Telepiu into his Italo paybox Stream to create Sky Italia. The European Union's antitrust authority will rule on the merger on April 14 and is expected to slap severe conditions on Sky Italia, which will have a virtual monopoly.
News Corp. agreed in October to pay Viv U $895 million, including $417 million in debt, for Telepiu, which has about 1.6 million subscribers.
(Reuters contributed to this report.)
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