Space station troubles delay spacewalks

"I agree that we did not agree on anything today," one official told reporters. He added quickly that neither Washington nor Moscow had expected significant breakthroughs.The day got off to a rocky start when Putin kept Rice and Gates waiting for 40 minutes before meeting them and then began the session with a lengthy monologue detailing Russian complaints.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.All seven soldiers were serving under the Fort Hood, Texas-based 15th Sustainment Brigade as part of the 1st Cavalry Division.In addition to the problems with missile defense, Putin warned that Russia might abandon its obligations under a 1987 missile treaty with the United States if it is not expanded to constrain other missile-armed countries.But he stressed: "It will take some time before we are able to make public our estimation."The U.S. military estimated Thu
rsday that 15 civilians were killed by coalition forces in the operation targeting senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq. The military said the terrorist group put the victims in harm's way."The principal thing to which we did not agree today is the deployment of anti-missile elements which have an anti-Russian character and which are to be placed in Europe," he said.Turkey has threatened such action after congressional moves to declare that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in World War I was "genocide."The U.S. military said terrorists on Friday fired three mortar rounds into the southern Baghdad district of Dora, killing one civilian and wounding eight others -- including four children under 10 years old.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."In combative comments that took the U.S. side aback during a photo session, Putin criticized Bu
sh's pet project and threatened to pull out of a Cold War-era treaty that limits intermediate-range missiles.The United States has repeatedly rejected Russian demands to freeze U.S. negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic, and Rice did so again Friday, said three senior U.S. officials present at the sessions with Rice, Gates, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov.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."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.In a series of meetings Friday, Rice and Gates failed to turn around Moscow's opposition to the system and other strategic a
rms issues and got little more than a pledge to meet again.