Wednesday, December 23, 2009 WASHINGTON: The United States warned Iran Tuesday that December is "a very real deadline" after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed an international ultimatum over its nuclear program. The United States and France have explicitly said Tehran must accept a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel by the end of the year or face the threat of further sanctions. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the so-called P5+1, which gathers UN Security Council veto-wielding permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany, were all on board with the deadline. "I think that the international community is united in this. This is not (just) something that the (US) president has said... This is something that the members of the P5+1 have said," Gibbs said. "That's why we are at the point where we are now with the international community waiting to see and have been waiting to see for months whether Iran will live up to its responsibilities." Ahmadinejad earlier rejected once again the year-end deadline and delivered another broadside against Western pressure over its nuclear activities, considered suspect because of Tehran's refusal to suspend enrichment or agree to full inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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