DESCENDANTS of Genghis Khan, the man who conquered half the world in the 13th century, rolled out the red carpet yesterday for the most powerful man of the 21st century.

George Bush stood to attention in the biting cold before an honour guard of Mongolian soldiers in blue and red uniforms and with sabres at the ready as the United States national anthem played to welcome the first serving American President to set foot in Ulan Bator.

Mr Bush chose to wrap up a four-nation Asian trip in this young democracy, where fewer than three million people, mostly nomads, live in a land three times the size of France. It was an opportunity to showcase Asia’s first communist country to adopt democracy, after his visit to China, where tougher issues such as freedom of religion, China’s yawning trade surplus and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions topped his agenda.

Buffeted by fierce criticism at home over his Iraq policies, Mr Bush saluted Mongolia’s troops taking part in the military coalition there. He paid tribute to two soldiers who shot a suicide lorry bomber before he could strike a mess tent in Iraq.

Mongolia’s force of 130 in Iraq makes it, with its population of 2.8 million, the third-largest contributor per capita to the coalition. “US armed forces are proud to serve beside such fearless warriors,” Mr Bush said.

Mongolia’s soldiers in Iraq serve within the Polish-led division and their work is confined largely to construction and logistics outside the town of Hilla. The last Mongolian forces to go to Iraq, led by a grandson of Genghis Khan in 1258, sacked Baghdad and killed an estimated 800,000 people.

Mr Bush spent about four hours in Mongolia — time enough for a brief speech in which he drew comparisons between his homeland and the country on the Central Asia steppes.

“Americans and Mongolians have much in common. Both our nations were settled by pioneers on horseback who tamed the rugged plains.

“Both our nations shook the yoke of colonial rule, and built successful free societies,” he said.

He proclaimed solidarity with Mongolia, and the crowd cheered when Mr Bush said that the US was Mongolia’s “third neighbour” — after China and Russia.

He met Nambaryn Enkhbayar, the Mongolian President, inside a ger — a white felt tent — in a courtyard of the government building. There he sat beneath a towering white statue of Genghis Khan, the legendary horseman warrior whose empire once stretched as far south as South-East Asia and west to Hungary.

Mr Bush hailed Mongolia’s vibrant democracy as an example to the region. Then the Texan rancher had his own close encounter with Mongolia’s horses, venturing outside the capital to sip fermented mare’s milk. “Really special,” he said.

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