George Bush's plans to meet families of British soldiers killed in Iraq were dismissed last night as a selfish stunt by two angry fathers.

The US President wants to meet relatives during his visit to the UK next week to tell them their loved ones died in a ''noble cause''. During his three-day trip, he will be calling in on Tony Blair's County Durham constituency.

But grieving fathers Robert Kelly and Reg Keys said the meeting would only benefit Mr Bush.

Mr Kelly's 18-year-old son, Private Andrew Kelly, of 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, died in a shooting accident in Basra on May 6.

The 53-year-old father said: ''For these people to meet families, it is only for their own gain.

"They are not sympathetic towards people like me. They don't really care that my son lost his life."

Falklands veteran Mr Kelly, a former Royal Navy Chief Artificer, from Saltash in Cornwall, said he had not been invited to meet the president, and did not want to.

''It would not mean anything to me,'' he said.

Mr Keys, 51, said he opposed Mr Bush's visit, but wanted to meet him to tell him he was responsible for his son's death.

Lance Corporal Thomas Keys was one of six Royal Military Policemen killed by a mob as they defended a police station in the southern town of Al Majar al-Kabir in June. He was four days short of his 21st birthday.

Of Mr Bush he said yesterday: ''I am totally against his visit. I don't know how he has the nerve to show his face in this country after costing the lives of 54 British soldiers for his own glory.

''I do not see a noble cause. I looked at my son's bullet-riddled body and that did not seem very noble to me. He did not die for a noble cause. He was just killed by a mob."

But there was support for Mr Bush's move from the widow of the first British soldier killed in Iraq.

Samantha Roberts, from Bradford, whose husband Sergeant Steven Roberts was shot while trying to quell a riot, said it was ironic that it was the US President, and not Tony Blair, who had agreed to see UK war widows.

But she added: "I would like to know if the actions that they used were absolutely necessary - I'd like to know if there was another way they could have done it."

Last night the family of North-East soldier Company Sergeant Major Colin Wall said they had not been asked to meet President Bush.

His father, Barry, of Crook, near Bishop Auckland, said: "We have been told we'll not be meeting George Bush. We would have liked to see him."

Sgt Maj Wall, 34, of Middleton One Row, near Darlington, was killed during an ambush in Basra.

He is the only known fatality from Mr Blair's Sedgefield constituency.

The family of Royal Marine Captain Philip Guy, of Bishopsdale in the Yorkshire Dales, said they too had no plans to meet President Bush.

Capt Guy died in a helicopter crash in the Kuwaiti desert in March - one of the first victims of the conflict.

Mr Bush, when asked about the families of the 54 British soldiers killed in Iraq, said: "The actions we have taken will make the world more secure and the world more peaceful in the long-run.

"I view this as a historic moment and I will share with them - just like I share with our own families here - a deep grief, my sorrow for the sacrifice, but the fact that what is taking place today is a noble cause."