So let me thank you again, Barack, for hosting me today.  While at the World Cup, our teams could only manage a score draw. I believe our relationship can be a win-win.  And, yes, I did enjoy drinking the 312 beer -- cold -- during the World Cup.  (Laughter.)  I enjoyed it so much that when I watched Germany beat Argentina, I actually cheered for Germany.  That's something that's a big admission for a British person to make, so the beer is obviously very effective.  (Laughter.)

But what you -- what you said, Barack, though, about British and America soldiers fighting together, sometimes dying together, serving together, is absolutely right.  And we should never forget that -- whether it’s on the beaches of Normandy, whether it’s in Korea, whether in Iraq, or whether now in Afghanistan.

Our relationship is on that has an incredibly rich history. It is based on ties of culture and history and, yes, emotion, too.  But for all those things, I think it has also an incredibly strong future that is based on results -- results of a positive partnership¹ of working together, agreeing where we agree; when we have disagreements, working through them and coming to a fair conclusion.  It’s a partnership that I profoundly want to make work as well as it possibly can in the years that I’m Prime Minister of Britain and with you as President of the United States.

So thank you again for welcoming me here today.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Thank you, David.

With that, we’re going to take a few questions.  And I’m going to start with Mimi Hall of USA Today.

Q    Thank you, Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister.  I wanted to ask you a little bit more about BP.  You mentioned, Mr. Prime Minister, your decision to cooperate, et cetera（等等，及其他） , but you said we shouldn’t confuse the two.  Have you flatly ruled out opening a government investigation² into the events around the release of the bomber³?

And, President Obama, how do you feel about a congressional investigation into this?  Would you like to see that happen, or do you think that confuses the two events?

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  Well, why don’t I start off and I’ll throw it over to David.  I think all of us here in the United States were surprised, disappointed, and angry about the release of the Lockerbie bomber.  And my administration expressed very clearly our objections prior to the decision being made and subsequent to the decision being made.  So we welcome any additional information that will give us insights and a better understanding of why the decision was made.

But I think that the key thing to understand here is that we’ve got a British Prime Minister who shares our anger over the decision, who also objects to how it played out.  And so I’m fully⁵ supportive of Prime Minister Cameron’s efforts to gain a better understanding of it, to clarify it.  But the bottom line is, is that we all disagreed with it.  It was a bad decision.  And going forward, that has to inform how we approach our relationship with respect to counterterrorism generally.

Now, one of the things that I want to emphasize that I think may get lost in this current debate is the extraordinarily⁶ strong ties between our two countries when it comes to fighting terrorism.  We probably have the best coordination⁷ and cooperation of any two countries in the world.  And those relationships are vital and they keep people safe on both sides of the Atlantic.

And I want to make sure that even as we may express concern about what happened with respect to the release of this particular individual, that we stay focused on the cooperation that currently exists and build on that cooperation, to make sure that there is no diminution⁸（减少，降低） of our joint⁹ efforts to make sure that the kinds of attacks that happened over Lockerbie do not happen again.

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  Well, I agree with actually what’s been said about the importance of the security cooperation -- something we discussed today.  On Megrahi, look, I'm not standing⁴ here today and saying it was a bad decision to release Megrahi because I'm here.  I said this a year ago, at the time, that it was a bad decision.  It shouldn’t have been made.  The British government, as well, should have been clear that it was a bad decision, rather than going along with it.  I took that very clear view.  This was the biggest mass murderer in British history and there was no business in letting him out of prison.

In terms of（依据，按照） an inquiry¹⁰, there has been an inquiry by the Scottish Parliament into the way the decision was made.  The British government -- the last British government -- released a whole heap of information about this decision.  But I've asked the Cabinet Secretary today to go back through all of the paperwork and see if more needs to be published about the background to this decision.

But in terms of an inquiry, I'm not currently minded that we need to have a U.K.-based inquiry on this -- partly for this reason:  I don't need an inquiry to tell me what was a bad decision.  It was a bad decision.  And if you like, the big fact that's changed over the year that makes it an even worse decision is the fact that, of course, Megrahi is still free, at liberty, in Libya, rather than serving the prison sentence in Scotland, as he should be doing.

So that's what we're going to do, is go back over this information, see if more needs to be published, and of course, in terms of the congressional hearing, make sure that proper cooperation is extended to it.

James Landale.

Q    Just to stay on that subject, if we may.  Mr. Prime Minister, first of all, would you be prepared to talk to your predecessors¹¹（前任） , Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, to get there agreements to release any documents if they are relevant to the paper search that the Cabinet Secretary will undergo?

And, Mr. President, can I ask you -- the Prime Minister says he opposes an inquiry.  Hillary Clinton has demanded an inquiry. Where do you stand?

PRIME MINISTER CAMERON:  Well, first of all, on the documents, the proper process here is that the Cabinet Secretary should look back over this decision and the circumstances surrounding it, should identify those documents that should be published.  It should be right that ministers in the previous government should be consulted about the publication of those documents.  And, of course, we will consult with（商量，协商） them over that.

But in my view, there is absolutely no harm to be done in giving the fullest possible explanation of the circumstances surrounding this decision.  I think the key thing, though, to remember is that in the end it was a decision by the Scottish Executive.

On the issue of an inquiry, as I said, I'm not currently minded to hold an inquiry because I think publishing this information, combined with the inquiry that has already been, will give people the certainty that they need about the circumstances surrounding this decision.  But the key thing is to get the information out there so people can see.  But I don't think there’s any great mystery here.  There was a decision taken by the Scottish Executive -- in my view, a wholly wrong and misguided decision, a bad decision, but the decision nonetheless. That's what happened.  And I don't think we need an extra inquiry to tell us that that's what happened.  But the information, as I said, will be gone over and published, as appropriate.  And of course, I'll be consulting with previous ministers and prime ministers, as you should do in the normal way.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:  I think the simple answer is we should have all the facts; they should be laid out there.  And I have confidence that Prime Minister Cameron’s government will be cooperative in making sure that the facts are there.  That will not negate¹² the fact that, as the Prime Minister indicated, it was a very poor decision and one that not only ran contrary to, I think, how we should be treating terrorists, but also didn’t reflect the incredible pain that the families who were affected¹³ still suffer to this day.  And my administration is in regular contact with these families, and this was a heartbreaking decision for them that reopened a whole host of new wounds.

So my expectation is, is that the facts will be out there and, as David indicated, with all the facts out, I think we're going to be back to where we are right now, which it was a decision that should not have been made and one that we should learn from going forward.