JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq would make it difficult to mount any attack on Iran, the Pentagon’s top officer said in remarks broadcast on Monday, adding that he would prefer to avoid a new regional war.

“I actually am very hopeful that we don’t get into a position where we have to get into a conflict,” Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Israel’s Channel Ten television when asked if he might recommend that U.S. forces strike Iranian nuclear facilities preemptively.

“It would be a very significant challenge for the United States right now to get into a third conflict in that part of the world,” Mullen added, referring to the Bush administration’s long-running military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Washington is leading efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear plans through U.N. Security Council sanctions, but has also hinted that war could be a last resort for denying Tehran — which insists it seeks atomic energy only — the means to make a bomb.

Jittery since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2005 call for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map,” Israeli officials have been lobbying for a tougher global stand against their arch-foe.

“I certainly share the concern about Iran and about the leadership, and I think it is very important that we increase as much as possible the financial pressure, the diplomatic pressure, the political pressure, and at the same time keep all the military options on the table,” Mullen said.

Believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981. Israeli war planes also destroyed a site in Syria last September which U.S. officials said was that of a secret nuclear program, though Damascus denied having any such facility.

“Certainly the situation with Syria is a troubling one and the development of this nuclear reactor was a troubling one indeed, and it is also indicative of what can be done out of the sight of people,” Mullen said.

“You just can’t be sure whether someone isn’t developing one somewhere else.”

Speculation that Israel could attack Iranian nuclear sites alone has been offset by assessments that its armed forces are too limited for the task. Iran is widely expected to retaliate for any such strike by targeting Israel and U.S. assets in the Gulf.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Sami Aboudi)

By Hossein Jaseb

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday dismissed any prospect of new talks with the United States on Iraq, accusing U.S.-led forces on Monday of a “massacre” of the Iraqi people.

The two foes last year held three rounds of ground-breaking discussions in Baghdad, easing a diplomatic freeze of almost three decades, but Iraqi officials have expressed frustration that a fourth round has failed to get off the ground.

Iraq says it does not want its soil to become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Iran, which are also at loggerheads over Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

“Right now, what we observe in Iraq is a massacre of the Iraqi nation by the occupying forces,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.

“Concerning this situation, talks with America will have no results and will be meaningless.”

Hosseini did not elaborate, but U.S. forces have been fighting daily battles with militiamen loyal to anti-American Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad for several weeks.

Washington accuses Iran of funding, arming and training “rogue” elements of Sadr’s Mehdi Army to attack U.S. and Iraqi forces, despite its public commitment to stabilizing Iraq.

Tehran blames the violence on the U.S. presence in Iraq.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Tom Casey criticized Iran for its latest statements and reiterated U.S. accusations of Iranian meddling in its neighbor’s affairs.

“It is meaningless to have talks on anything with Iran as long as they don’t change their behavior. That said, we have continued to be willing and ready, and are willing and ready, to have additional discussions with the Iranians through this tripartite channel,” Casey told reporters.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said there was no point in continuing the talks at this point.

“We see the value of the talks to be continued, but when the conditions are right and conducive,” he told the U.S. television news network CNN.

SHI’ITE MILITIAS

Despite the mutual accusations, U.S. and Iranian officials had launched talks in May last year aimed at easing bloodshed in Iraq. The fourth meeting has been postponed repeatedly.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also voiced support for Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in cracking down on “illegal” Shi’ite militias, after an Iraqi delegation urged Tehran to stop backing such groups.

The U.S. military said last week “very, very significant” amounts of Iranian arms had been found in Basra and Baghdad during an offensive against gunmen loyal to Sadr.

Maliki has ordered the formation of a committee to compile evidence of Iranian “interference” in Iraq that would then be presented to Tehran, Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh Dabbagh said on Sunday.

Hosseini said Tehran had always supported stability in Iraq.

“What Iran has repeatedly said … was its support for Mr Maliki’s government,” Hosseini said. “Iran believes that illegal armed groups that committed crimes should be legally confronted.”

Ties between Iran and Iraq have improved since Sunni Arab strongman Saddam Hussein was ousted in the U.S.-led invasion and a Shi’ite-led government came to power in Baghdad.

Analysts say Tehran wants to keep a friendly government in charge while ensuring that rival Iraqi Shi’ite factions look to Iran as a power broker.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Aseel Kami in Baghdad, and Sue Plemingin Washington; Writing by Fredrik Dahl, editing by Ross Colvin and Myra MacDonald)

YANGON, Myanmar - Almost 4,000 people were killed and nearly 3,000 others are unaccounted for after a devastating cyclone in Myanmar, a state radio station said Monday.

Foreign Minister Nyan Win told foreign diplomats at a briefing that the death toll could rise to more than 10,000, according to diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors.

Tropical Cyclone Nargis hit the Southeast Asian country, also known as Burma, early Saturday with winds of up to 120 mph. It knocked out electricity to the country’s largest city, Yangon, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

Some sought refuge at Buddhist monasteries while others lined up Monday to buy candles, which had doubled in price, and water since the lack of electricity-driven pumps had left most households dry.

Myanmar is not known to have an adequate disaster warning system and many rural buildings are constructed of thatch, bamboo and other materials easily destroyed by fierce storms.

“The government misled people. They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared,” said Thin Thin, a grocery store owner.

Myanmar’s ruling junta, which has spurned the international community for decades, appealed for aid on Monday. But the U.S. State Department said Myanmar’s government had not granted permission for a Disaster Assistance Response Team into the country.

Laura Blank, spokeswoman for World Vision, said two assessment teams have been sent to the hardest hit areas to determine the most urgent needs.

“This is probably the most devastating natural disaster in Southeast Asia since the tsunami,” Blank said, referring to the 2004 disaster that killed around 230,000 people in 12 Indian Ocean nations. “There are a lot of important needs, but the most important is clean water.”

Myanmar’s government had previously put the death toll countrywide at 351 before increasing it Monday to 3,939.

The radio station broadcasting from the country’s capital, Naypyitaw, said that 2,879 more people are unaccounted for in a single town, Bogalay, in the country’s low-lying Irrawaddy River delta area where the storm wreaked the most havoc.

“Our staff has heard that in eight townships, over 95 percent of the land has been severely affected,” Pamela Sitko, World Vision’s communication relief manager for the Asia-Pacific region, told The Associated Press from Bangkok.

The situation in the countryside remained unclear because of poor communications and roads left impassable by the storm.

“Widespread destruction is obviously making it more difficult to get aid to people who need it most,” said Michael Annear, regional disaster management coordinator for the International Federation of the Red Cross in Bangkok.

At a Monday meeting with foreign diplomats and representatives of U.N. and international aid agencies, Myanmar’s foreign ministry officials said they welcomed international humanitarian assistance and urgently need roofing materials, plastic sheets and temporary tents, medicine, water purifying tablets, blankets and mosquito nets.

In Washington, the State Department said the U.S. Embassy in Yangon had authorized an emergency contribution of $250,000 to help with relief efforts.

“We have a DART team that is standing by and ready to go into Burma to help try to assess needs there,” deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters. “As of this moment, the Burmese government has not given them permission, however, to go into the country so that is a barrier to us being able to move forward.”

Myanmar Red volunteers already were distributing some basic items, said Matthew Cochrane at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ Geneva headquarters.

The World Food Program has pre-positioned 500 tons of food in Yangon and plans to bring in more relief supplies, said Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

U.N. agencies were working with the Red Cross and other organizations to see how it can help those affected by the cyclone. UNICEF spokeswoman Veronique Taveau said the U.N. children’s agency alone has five teams assessing the situation in the country.

The cyclone blew roofs off hospitals and schools in Yangon. Older citizens said they had never seen the city of some 6.5 million so devastated in their lifetimes.

Many stayed away from their jobs, either because they could not find transportation or because they had to seek food and shelter for their families.

“Without my daily earning, just survival has become a big problem for us,” said Tin Hla, who normally repairs umbrellas at a roadside stand.

With his home destroyed by the storm, Tin Hla said he has had to place his family of five into one of the monasteries that have offered temporary shelter to those left homeless.

His entire morning was taken up with looking for water and some food to buy, ending up with three chicken eggs that cost double the normal price.

Despite the havoc wreaked by the cyclone across wide swaths of the country, the government indicated that a referendum on the country’s draft constitution would proceed as planned on May 10.

“It’s only a few days left before the coming referendum and people are eager to cast their vote,” the state-owned newspaper Myanma Ahlin said Monday.

At the meeting with diplomats, Relief Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Maung Swe said the vote could be postponed by “a few days” in the worst-affected areas. However, the foreign minister intervened to say the matter would be decided by the official referendum commission.

Pro-democracy groups in the country and many international critics have branded the proposed constitution as merely a tool for the military’s continued grip on power.

Should the junta be seen as failing disaster victims, voters who already blame the regime for ruining the economy and crushing democracy could take out their frustrations at the ballot box.

___

Associated Press writers Carley Petesch in New York and Alexander G. Higgins and Eliane Engeler in Geneva contributed to this report.

[Source: Yahoo News]

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS - Barack Obama likened Hillary Rodham Clinton to President Bush for threatening to “totally obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel and called her gas-tax holiday a gimmick as he tried to fend off her challenge ahead of two pivotal Democratic primaries.

Clinton, in turn, stood by both her comment on Iran and her tax proposal as she gave chase to the front-runner in Indiana and North Carolina.

The competitors squabbled over the issues — one foreign, one domestic — from a short distance, first during separate appearances on Sunday news shows and then as they courted voters for Tuesday’s primaries.

“This is the final push,” Clinton told a cheering crowd of volunteer canvassers in Fort Wayne, emboldened by her Pennsylvania victory two weeks ago as well as polls that show her in a close race in Indiana and narrowing Obama’s lead in North Carolina.

Obama, for his part, was hoping that wins Tuesday would stop the bleeding from a difficult campaign stretch. Maneuvering for advantage, he sought to portray Clinton as politically motivated on both Iran and her gas-tax plan.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama opened a new line of criticism and seized on an answer Clinton gave when asked last month what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons on her watch.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran,” Clinton said April 22 in an interview with ABC. “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”

Obama said, “It’s not the language we need right now, and I think it’s language reflective of George Bush.”

Suggesting that his rival was a political opportunist, Obama added: “Senator Clinton during the course of the campaign has said we shouldn’t speculate about Iran, we’ve got to be cautious when we’re running for president, she scolded me on a couple of occasions on this issue, yet a few days before an election, she’s willing to use that language.”

Clinton, asked on ABC’s “This Week” about Obama’s criticism, said she had no regrets about her comment.

“Why would I have any regrets? I’m asked a question about what I would do if Iran attacked our ally … and, yes, we would have massive retaliation against Iran,” Clinton said. “I don’t think they will do that, but I sure want to make it abundantly clear to them that they would face a tremendous cost if they did such a thing.”

Turning up the heat on an issue closer to home, Obama on NBC called Clinton’s proposal for a gas-tax holiday this summer a “classic Washington gimmick” that wouldn’t solve anything and would save only $28 for each person. He opposes the temporary suspension of the federal tax and argued that Clinton was pandering for votes.

To underscore that, Obama rolled out a new TV ad for Indiana and North Carolina that derided “Clinton gimmicks that help big oil.”

“More low-road attacks from Hillary Clinton. Now she’s pushing a bogus gas-tax gimmick. Experts say it’ll just boost oil industry profits,” the ad says. “Clinton aides admit it won’t do much for you — but would help her politically.”

Clinton dismissed the criticism and disputed Obama’s suggestions that she and Republican candidate John McCain were the same because they both support a gas-tax holiday.

“Senator McCain has said take off the gas tax, don’t pay for it, throw us further into deficit and debt. That is not what I’ve proposed,” Clinton told ABC, adding that she wants the oil companies to pay the gas tax instead of consumers this summer.

Many economists oppose the plan and Clinton demurred when asked to name one who supports it. “I’m not going to put my lot in with economists because I know if we did it right … it would be implemented effectively,” she said.

Focusing on Indiana, Clinton and Obama nearly tripped over each other throughout the day. They stayed overnight in Indianapolis hotels one block apart. They were greeting voters within miles of each other in Fort Wayne. By evening, they planned to return to the capital city for the Indiana Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Dinner.

North Carolina, too, was to get some last-minute attention. Both candidates shuffled their schedules to dart back to the state on Monday, reflecting the tightening contest there

Obama is ahead in the hunt for convention delegates — 1,742.5 to 1,607.5, according to an Associated Press count Sunday — but he has faced a spate of troubles over the past month. That has Clinton sensing an opening. Still, the delegate math works in Obama’s favor, and it will be difficult for Clinton to overtake him.

Nevertheless, Clinton suggested anew she had no intention of dropping out, saying on ABC, “When the process finishes in early June, people can look at all the various factors and decide who would be the strongest candidate” to go up against McCain in the fall.

By Nancy-Amelia Collins
Jakarta

he top nuclear negotiators for North Korea and the United States may meet next week to try to end the impasse over stalled multinational talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. VOA’s Nancy-Amelia Collins has more from the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State and chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill told reporters in Jakarta Friday he might meet with his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, in the coming days.

“I’m not in a position yet to confirm reports that you’ve all heard that we will be having meetings with my counterpart in the DPRK [Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea] except to say that we’re obviously looking to try to wrap up the declaration very soon,” he said.  “We don’t have a lot of time; we really need to move on to the next phase if we’re going to really achieve our goals.”

Hill, who was in Jakarta for a brief visit Friday, told reporters if he meets with Kim Kye Gwan, it will not take place until after his visit to East Timor on Sunday.

The Six Party Talks between North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia stalled last December when Washington accused North Korea of failing to keep to a deadline for declaring all of its nuclear programs.

Pyongyang was required to submit a full and accurate declaration of its nuclear programs and materials by the end of 2007.

North Korea maintains it has met its obligations under the terms of the six-party agreement.

The United States also wants Pyongyang to reveal any weapons-grade uranium enrichment programs, and whether it has shared nuclear technology with Syria.

Hill criticized North Korea for increasing tensions on the Korean peninsula recently by test firing missiles, ejecting South Koreans from a shared industrial zone, and threatening to attack the South after Seoul warned it would launch a pre-emptive strike in response to nuclear attack.

“We have made very clear that the comments that were made in some cases by anonymous spokesmen of the Korea central news agency, the so-called KCNA, that those comments were very, in many cases, very inappropriate, and very unhelpful to the situation,” he said.  “You know the DPRK needs to be reaching out to its neighbors and should not be engaged in that sort of comment.”

Hill also told journalists he did not know if the recent harsh rhetoric against South Korea by North Korea would have any effect on the six-party talks.

[Source: voanews.com]