RUSSIA: Rights groups are urging Mr Bush to press his guest on Chechnya, writes Daniel McLaughlin in Moscow.
When they first met as US and Russian Presidents in June 2001, George W. Bush was effusive in his praise for Vladimir Putin.
"I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy," he said of the diminutive former KGB spy. "He is an honest, straightforward man who loves his country. He loves his family. We share a lot of values."
Three months later Mr Putin was among the first world leaders to offer sympathy to Mr Bush after the September 11th attacks, and he made an unprecedented offer to the Pentagon of former Soviet bases to help oust Afghanistan's Taliban regime.
Two years later Moscow and Washington are exchanging diplomatic blows over the US-led war in Iraq and Russia's contract to build an atomic power plant in Iran, but Mr Bush is still likely to welcome Mr Putin with open arms to Camp David today, when the men meet for their latest tete-à-tete.
"He is a good partner . . . an open and decent man, and I enjoy his company," Mr Putin said this week of his US host.
"Our relationship is such nowadays that we can say anything to each other, even on a complex issue such as Iraq. We will be seeking and we will find solutions."
Mr Putin fiercely opposed the war to oust President Saddam Hussein, with whose regime Russian firms had hoped to develop Iraq's vast oil reserves.
The Kremlin leader forged an anti-war alliance with France and Germany, but when US-led forces overran Iraq, it was Berlin and especially Paris that drew Washington's ire.
Moscow emerged relatively unscathed, and the Russian President warmly welcomed Mr Bush to his hometown of St Petersburg less than two months after Baghdad fell.
As security in Iraq has unravelled, so the anti-war troika has revived its criticism of US policy in the Gulf.
"The situation which is currently unfolding in Iraq, clearly, is the best proof that the Russian Federation's position was correct," Mr Putin said ahead of his US trip.
As elections loom in Russia - with a parliamentary vote in December and a presidential poll in March - taking a swipe at the old enemy Washington is a sure-fire vote-winner here.
But Mr Putin insists that differences over Iraq can be resolved - even clearing the way for Russian troops to join a possible UN-mandated, US-led peacekeeping force there - and should not hinder US-Russian relations in other fields.
Washington needs and welcomes Moscow's help in dealing with Iran and North Korea, where the White House is wary of suspected nuclear weapons programmes but has little diplomatic leverage with hostile regimes.
Mr Putin said this week that he was as worried as Mr Bush about nuclear proliferation, and Moscow is gradually cranking up the pressure on Tehran to sign protocols on the return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia from the Bushehr plant that Russian engineers are helping build.
For US industry, keen to diversify its energy supplies away from the volatile Middle East, Mr Putin's visit offers a chance to get a little closer to tapping into Russian oil and gas, just days after hundreds of US and Russian oil executives and senior energy officials met in St Petersburg to discuss joint projects.
But amid much fine talk on both sides of the Atlantic regarding co-operation, rights groups at home and abroad have urged Mr Bush to press his guest on the guerrilla war in Chechnya and the gradual squeezing of independent media here.