The nation’s top military officer said on Sunday that a U.S. strike against Iran would go “a long way” to delaying its nuclear program but that he considered doing so his “last option” right now.
“Military options would go a long way to delaying it,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters after speaking at a forum at Columbia University in New York.
“That’s not my call. That’s going to be the president’s call,” he added. “But from my perspective … the last option is to strike right now.”
Iran said 60 countries were represented, including “seven or eight” foreign ministers and the deputy foreign ministers of China and Russia — the two major powers the West is pushing to accept new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.
U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to the leaders of both countries at his Washington summit on Monday and Tuesday where Iran’s nuclear program was not on the official agenda but dominated talks on the sidelines.
With new sanctions looking ever more likely, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his address to the conference to hit back at the “bullies” who were trying to prevent Iran gaining the nuclear knowhow it says is for purely peaceful purposes.
A long-awaited compromise bill to reduce U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming will be unveiled by a group of senators on April 26, sources said on Thursday.
The legislative language to be sketched out in 11 days, according to government and environmental sources, is being drafted by Democratic Senator John Kerry, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and independent Senator Joseph Lieberman.
Backers of the environmental bill hope the unveiling will pave the way for the full Senate to debate and pass a measure in June or July if the compromise attracts enough support from a group of moderate Republicans and Democrats.
Republican Senator Judd Gregg told Reuters he was “committed to getting something that addresses our energy needs in a constructive and comprehensive way.” He added he did not know yet whether he would support the bill being developed.
A reactor being built by Russia at Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant is scheduled to open in August, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation said on Wednesday.
“The launch is scheduled for August. We’re on schedule,” Sergei Kiriyenko told reporters in Argentina during a visit. “Bushehr doesn’t threaten the regime of nonproliferation in any way. No one has any concerns about Bushehr.”
Iran will lodge a complaint with the United Nations about what it sees as U.S. President Barack Obama’s threat to attack it with nuclear weapons, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
Obama made clear last week that Iran and North Korea were excluded from new limits on the use of U.S. atomic weapons — something Tehran interpreted as a threat from a long-standing adversary to attack it with nuclear bombs.
“The recent statement by the U.S. president … implicitly intimidates the Iranian nation with the deployment of nuclear arms,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a televised meeting with military and security officials.
WikiLeaks, the self-proclaimed “whistle-blowing” investigative Web site, released a classified military video Monday that it says shows the “indiscriminate slaying” of innocent Iraqis. Two days later, questions linger about just how much of the story WikiLeaks decided to tell.
At a press conference in Washington, D.C., WikiLeaks accused U.S. soldiers of killing 25 civilians, including two Reuters journalists, during a July 12, 2007, attack in New Baghdad. The Web site titled the video “Collateral Murder,” and said the killings represented “another day at the office” for the U.S. Army.
The military has always maintained the attacks near Baghdad were justified, saying investigations conducted after the incident showed 11 people were killed during a “continuation of hostile activity.” The military also admits two misidentified Reuters cameramen were among the dead.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited Venezuela on Friday to discuss oil, defense and nuclear energy cooperation with Latin America’s main leftist foe of the United States, President Hugo Chavez.
They were to launch a $20 billion venture between Russian firms and Venezuelan state company PDVSA to pump 450,000 barrels a day — almost a fifth of the OPEC member’s current output — from the vast Orinoco heavy oil belt.
Putin’s 12-hour visit provides a welcome lift for Chavez, who is facing domestic and international criticism for failing to solve Venezuela’s economic woes and attempting to silence opposition to his 11-year rule.
Russia has delivered 15 batteries of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to China, Interfax news agency reported on Friday, under a contract analysts said could be worth as much as $2.25 billion.
China is a major buyer of Russian weapons, and the two countries say they are trying to forge a strategic partnership, though senior Russian officials are privately concerned about an increasingly assertive China.
Russia has delivered 15 S-300 batteries to China, Interfax news agency quoted Igor Ashurbeili, director general of Almaz Antei which makes the missiles, as saying.
The plan could pave the way for a significant new domestic source of energy, helping to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports and boost supplies of natural gas used to displace coal in power plants as the country works to reduce emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases.
Last month, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he wanted to release the updated drilling plan by the end of March.
Two industry sources said on Monday President Barack Obama was expected to give a speech about energy security on Wednesday, which could include his views on expansion of offshore drilling.
The Interior Department and White House declined comment on Monday on whether Obama would speak to the issue in a speech slated for mid-morning on Wednesday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
On a narrow and hard-fought 219-212 vote late on Sunday, House Democrats approved the most dramatic health policy changes in four decades. The vote sends the bill, already approved by the Senate, to Obama to sign into law.
The overhaul expands the government health plan for the poor, imposes new taxes on the wealthy and bars insurance practices such as refusing to cover people with pre-existing medical conditions.
Its passage caps a year-long political battle with Republicans that consumed the U.S. Congress and dented Obama’s approval ratings, and fulfills a goal that has eluded Democrats since former President Bill Clinton’s failed attempt in 1994.
Attorney General Eric Holder failed to tell the Senate about seven legal briefs he signed when lawmakers considered his nomination to his current job, according to a letter released on Friday.
Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an “enemy combatant.”
Padilla was held in a military brig for three years before his case was moved to a criminal court in Miami, where he was convicted on charges of offering his services to militants.
The House of Representatives Budget Committee on Monday will consider a reconciliation bill that Democrats hope clears the way for final congressional approval of an overhaul of U.S. healthcare, House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer said on Friday.
Representative Jim Clyburn, a member of the House Democratic leadership, said he hopes a vote by the full chamber could be held on the measure within the next 10 days.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday she was confident of satisfying Democratic concerns about a Senate-approved healthcare bill and passing the measure.
Pelosi made the comment at her weekly news conference — just hours after one lawmaker said a dozen House Democrats opposed to abortion were willing to kill the legislation unless it satisfies their demand for language barring federal funding of the procedure.
Their threat to kill healthcare reform came a day after President Barack Obama launched a final push to pass the overhaul, a top domestic priority, and urged Democrats in Congress to vote on the bill this month, even without Republican support.
On vote of 315-97, the House of Representatives approved the bill, a day after it cleared the Senate. It now heads to President Barack Obama to sign into law.
The Obama administration wanted to extend the measure because of provisions it says are important in tracking suspected terrorists, including roving wiretaps to track multiple communications devices. But some lawmakers wanted additional privacy measures to protect against abuses.
With the Patriot Act provisions set to expire on Sunday, lawmakers agreed to extend them for a year, and effectively put off a showdown on efforts to bolster safeguards.
Democrat Charles Rangel, the top tax writer in the U.S. Congress, was admonished on Thursday by a congressional ethics committee for taking corporate-funded trips to the Caribbean, a finding he said defied “common sense.”
The House of Representatives ethics committee concluded that Rangel broke the chamber’s gift rules in taking the trips but it did not immediately release its report. Rangel called a news conference after news accounts disclosed the findings.
Quoting from his copy of the report, Rangel said it found he did not know the trips in 2007 and 2008 were underwritten by corporations, but that two of his staffers did.
China’s military warned the United States on Thursday to “speak and act cautiously” to avoid reigniting tensions between the two powers, denying the People’s Liberation Army played a part in Internet hacking.
Huang Xueping, spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Defense, said his government would not reverse its decision to suspend “bilateral military plans” with Washington after it said in late January that it would sell $6.4 billion of arms to Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.
In January, the giant Internet search company Google Inc threatened to pull back from China after complaining of censorship and hacking attacks on it and other companies.
