British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday ruled out an inquiry into the release of the Lockerbie bomber, delicately navigating US fury over the move as he met President Barack Obama.
Mr Cameron, however, did order his top civil servant to review documents on the release of terminally ill Libyan Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, who was freed last year by Scotland on compassionate grounds, but is still alive.
"I don't need an inquiry to tell me what was a bad decision," Mr Cameron said, but pledged to ask Britain's Cabinet Secretary to review whether more information about the release needs to be published.
Mr Obama and his visitor carefully picked through raw political sensitivities surrounding the release of Mr Megrahi, and over British-based BP's pariah role in the US following the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
And both leaders insisted that war strategy in Afghanistan was correct, and said plans to hand over the country largely to Afghan forces by 2014, endorsed by an international Kabul conference yesterday, were realistic.
In their first White House meeting, they also both pledged fealty to the US-British "special relationship" as Mr Obama attempted to stamp out suggestions he did not value the long alliance in the same way as his predecessors.
The two men held three hours of talks in the Oval Office, shared a lunch of Wild Striped Bass, and the president gave his guest a tour of the White House living quarter - Mr Cameron remarked on Mr Obama's daughters' tidy bedrooms.
Mr Cameron forcibly condemned the decision by Scotland's devolved government to free Mr Megrahi, who was the only person convicted in the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie in 1988 that killed 270 people, mostly Americans.
"I said this a year ago... it was a bad decision, it shouldn't have been made," said Mr Cameron who was in opposition last year, and had no control over the decision.
"He showed his victims no compassion. They were not allowed to die in their beds at home, surrounded by their families; so, in my view, neither should that callous killer have been given that luxury."
In return, Mr Obama stopped short of calling for an official government inquiry into the affair, stating his own personal anger at the Megrahi release, and placing confidence in Mr Cameron over the fallout.
"We've got a British prime minister who shares our anger over the decision," Mr Obama said.
"So I'm fully supportive of Prime Minister Cameron's efforts to gain a better understanding of it, to clarify it."
In a last-minute U-turn, Downing Street announced Mr Cameron would see four US senators furious about the Scottish government's release of Mr Megrahi, who are demanding action by the London government.
The senators are demanding transparency, having seized on reports - denied by BP and the British government - that the firm pushed for Mr Megrahi's release to safeguard a lucrative oil exploration deal with Libya.
Mr Cameron reiterated during his press conference with Mr Obama that he believed BP had nothing to do with the release.