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The George W Bush administration plans to launch an air strike against Iran within the next two months, an informed source tell, echoing other reports that have surfaced in the media in the United States recently. Two key US senators briefed on the attack planned to go public with their opposition to the move, according to the source, but their projected New York Times op-ed piece has yet to appear. The source, a retired US career diplomat and former assistant secretary of state still active in the foreign affairs community, speaking anonymously, said last week that the US plans an...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior Republican senator who has worked with Russia on disposing nuclear materials questioned Tuesday whether NATO was right to invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to its summit meeting next month. Speaking at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on NATO, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., pointed to a recent threat by Putin to target Ukraine with nuclear missiles if the former Soviet republic joins NATO and accepts the deployment of anti-missile defenses on its territory. At its summit in Bucharest, the alliance will consider whether to invite Ukraine and Georgia to join a program to prepare them...

That would be Mark Pryor, first-term Democratic incumbent, running in a reliably red state. [T]he Republicans’ inability to field any Senate candidate in a Southern state that twice favored Republican George W. Bush for president this decade is yet another blow for a party that lost six seats and its Senate majority in 2006, and is mainly playing defense against further Democratic gains this year.Having missed the filing deadline, any Republican who might belatedly decide to run against Pryor would have to do so as a write-in candidate…Pryor becomes the first senator to draw no opponent from the other major...

Snip..... In what could be the biggest State Department scandal since State Department official and United Nations founder Alger Hiss was exposed as a Soviet spy, a top Clinton State Department official and former Time magazine journalist has been identified as having been a trusted contact of the Russian intelligence service. Snip... The sensational charge against Strobe Talbott is made in a new book based on interviews with a Russian defector. Snip... Talbott has been and continues to be a major foreign policy thinker. Back in 2000, when he was named head of the Yale Center for the Study of...

Sen. Barack Obama is already plotting the makeup of his Cabinet, and it includes two prominent Republicans. According to the Sunday Times of London, Obama has his sights set on Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard Lugar of Indiana. Hagel has been an outspoken opponent of the Iraq war, and Lugar is the ranking GOP member on the Senate foreign relations committee. Senior advisers told the Times that Hagel is being considered for the secretary of defense post, and Lugar as secretary of state. Obama would only say to the Times: “Chuck Hagel is a great friend of mine...

AS Barack Obama enters the final stages of the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, he is preparing to detach the core voters of John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, with the same ruthless determination with which he has peeled off Hillary Clinton’s supporters. The scene is set for a tussle between the two candidates for the support of some of the sharpest and most independent minds in politics. Obama is hoping to appoint cross-party figures to his cabinet such as Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator for Nebraska and an opponent of the Iraq war, and Richard Lugar, leader of...

Why are Republicans in Congress trying to help Barack Obama?Republicans allowed a bill that carries his name, among nine others, to pass the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by voice vote last week – without any hearings. That means there was no roll-call vote so no member can be held accountable. The same bill passed the House by voice vote last year.The Obama bill passed out of committee with the cooperation of the co-sponsor, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. A Rhodes scholar like former President Bill Clinton, Lugar has never seen a United Nations enhancement he didn't like.Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether...

Senator Dick Lugar, Ranking Member of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Wednesday issued a statement in response to threats made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to halt oil shipments to the United States and the declaration last Tuesday that Venezuela would discontinue oil sales to Exxon refineries. "I urge the government of Venezuela to maintain this discussion within the legal framework that ExxonMobil and Venezuela's state-run oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA (Pdvsa) chose to resolve their differences," Lugar said in a communiqué published on his official website. Lugar urged the parties to resolve their dispute without creating further...

WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans sharply challenged President Bush's top military general and ambassador in Iraq on Tuesday in a blatant demonstration of misgivings within the GOP about the protracted war. "Are we going to continue to invest blood and treasure at the same rate we're doing now? For what?" asked Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who supports legislation setting a deadline to bring troops home. The deep-seated doubt expressed at the hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee reflected just how far Congress had come since the war began over four years ago. And Republican senators raised tough questions that rivaled...

Hadley: Bush Will Not Accept Mission Change Offered by Warner, Lugar Sunday , July 15, 2007 AP WASHINGTON — The White House is rejecting as premature a plan by two senior Republican senators to restrict the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq President Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, said Sunday the administration has a "very orderly process" set out for reviewing whether its Iraq strategy is working and that should be allowed to play out. Asked in a broadcast interview whether Bush could live with the plan offered by Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Richard Lugar of Indiana,...

2 top Republicans propose own Iraq billBy ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer Two top Republicans cast aside President Bush's pleas for patience on Iraq Friday and proposed legislation demanding a new strategy by mid-October to restrict the mission of U.S. troops. The proposal, by veteran GOP Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Richard Lugar of Indiana, came as the Pentagon conceded that a decreasing number of Iraqi battalions are able to operate on their own. "American military and diplomatic strategy in Iraq must adjust to the reality that sectarian factionalism is not likely to abate anytime soon and probably cannot...

WASHINGTON - Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush to come up with a plan by mid-October to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq. The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar, and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops. "Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq's factions, the optimal outcome in Iraq of a unified,...

WASHINGTON — Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush by mid-October to come up with a plan to dramatically narrow the mission of U.S. troops in Iraq. The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward Friday by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar and it came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops. "Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq's factions, the optimal outcome in Iraq of a unified,...

WASHINGTON - Two prominent Senate Republicans have drafted legislation that would require President Bush by the end of the year to dramatically narrows the mission of U.S. troops. The legislation, which represents a sharp challenge to Bush, was put forward by Sens. John Warner and Richard Lugar, the ranking members of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations. It came as the Pentagon acknowledged that a decreasing number of Iraqi army battalions are able to operate independently of U.S. troops. "Given continuing high levels of violence in Iraq and few manifestations of political compromise among Iraq's factions, the optimal outcome in...

WASHINGTON — Top Republicans on the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees will offer a resolution as early as Friday, calling on President Bush to develop detailed contingency plans for getting the U.S. out of Iraq, a move that could attract support from more in the GOP. The proposal by Sens. John Warner of Virginia and Richard Lugar of Indiana includes a gradual reduction of U.S. forces and a change of mission. Warner and Lugar are not waiting until the September report from the top generals and U.S. ambassador in Iraq before calling for a change, but their nonbinding...

The soldiers think they can win. Some Senators lose their nerve. Richard Lugar of Indiana, George Voinovich of Ohio, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, and John Warner of Virginia have together served more than a century in the world's greatest deliberative body. Historians will remember their time in public office for Reagan's challenge to the Soviet Union, for the success of pro-growth economic policies, for welfare reform, for the reinvigoration of a constitutionalist approach to the courts, for the framing of a foreign policy for the post-9/11 world. None of these men played a leading role in any of these...

WASHINGTON Some Senate Republicans are suddenly pushing the White House to begin withdrawing most U.S. troops from Iraq, apparently deciding that they can't wait for a September report to call for changing course. A day after Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, bluntly declared that President Bush's Iraq plan isn't working and called for withdrawing most American forces, Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said he was writing a letter to Bush on Tuesday to urge him to embrace a Plan E (for exit). Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Lugar's comments...

One of America's most influential Republicans rounded on George Bush over Iraq yesterday, saying the "surge" begun in February had little chance of success. Richard Lugar, senior Republican on the Senate's foreign relations committee, said the war put vital US interests in the Middle East at risk and could end in disaster unless a coherent withdrawal plan for US forces was agreed "very soon". Mr Lugar had previously been a supporter of the action. In a sign of spreading rebellion another Republican senator, George Voinovich, backed him last night. "We must not abandon our mission, but we must begin a...

Following up on comments by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Republican Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) called today for President Bush to begin planning for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq. In a letter to President Bush, the Ohio Republican said the president should adopt a policy of "responsible military disengagement with a corresponding increase [in] non-military support" to help the United States achieve a stable and democratic Iraq, although Voinovich warned that the window of opportunity for enacting such a plan is limited. "However, I am also concerned that we are running out of time," Voinovich added.

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), whose comments on Iraq have caused a huge ruckus in the Capitol today just told reporters that the White House called him to ask for a meeting. Lugar would not say who he is meeting with or when it would happen, but all indications are that it will be National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and it will take place later in the week. Lugar said that he had been working on his floor speech, which he delivered Monday night, for the last three weeks, and had shown other senators copies of the statement, although he did...