New Iraq policy prompts angry words at the State

As part of that plan, experts from all nations covered by the system would be based at missile defense facilities to try to improve coordination and transparency.U.S. military planners quietly have stepped up a review of alternatives in case the Turkish government restricts U.S. access to Turkish airspace or cuts off access to the air base at Incirlik, Turkey, CNN has learned.MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- President Bush's top two Cabinet officials, expecting a polite photo op, were ambushed by a Russian leader who fears Eastern Europe may be turned into a U.S. staging point for a new Cold War."If we are unable to obtain such a goal ... it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation where other countries do develop such weapon systems, and among those are countries located in our near vicinity," he said.The U.S. proposals are intended to ease fears that its missile defense plans threaten Russia's nuclear deterrent and include the creation of a s
o-called joint regional missile defense architecture to protect the United States, NATO allies in Europe and Russia.Turkey has threatened such action after congressional moves to declare that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in World War I was "genocide.""We hope that in the process of such complex and multifaceted talks you will not be forcing forward your previous agreements with Eastern European countries," Putin said.Despite U.S. pledges of cooperation and new ideas on missile defense, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were warned by President Vladimir Putin to back off on missile defense plans for the former Soviet sphere.Turkey -- now a NATO member and a key U.S. ally in the war on terror -- accepts Armenians were killed but calls it a massacre during a chaotic time, not an organized campaign of genocide.In a series of meetings Friday, Rice and Gates failed to turn around Moscow's opposition to the system and other strategi
c arms issues and got little more than a pledge to meet again.The recent rise in tensions between Turkey and the United States has led the military to increase its planning for alternatives, two military officials with direct knowledge of the ongoing assessment said."Events have triggered more detailed planning for the curtailment or closure" of access to Turkey, one official said. The key issue is to find ways to ship supplies and other critical equipment into Iraq.The U.S. military already had been considering alternatives to Turkey because of the growing dependence on that country after the cutback of U.S. forces in central Asia in recent years.U.S. forces have searched the affected area and are trying to track down the suspects, the military said.A spokesman for Putin, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in a conference call that "some of them are quite interesting and the Russian side will start examining this proposal."But he stressed: "It will take some time before we are a
ble to make public our estimation."