Subject: Two U.S. soldiers dead and five wounded in a mortar attack Wednesday

From: "Jolene Babcock" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:55:37 +0200

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.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.Turkey has threatened such action after congressional moves to declare that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in World War I was "genocide."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."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 wounded troops were transported to a military medical facility for "emergency treatment and further evaluation," the military said, adding the incident is under investigation.The attack comes a day after a security official in Iraq's Salaheddin province said that a U.S. military operation Thursday night killed 20 civilians, most of them women and children. Full storyU.S. forces have searched the affected area and are trying to track down the suspects, the military said."I know that we don't always see eye to eye on every element of the solutions to these issues," Rice said. "Nonetheless, I believe we will do this in a constructive spirit, that we will make progress during these talks as we continue to pursue cooperation.""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.