Putin dishes tongue-lashing to Rice, Gates

MOSCOW -- President Bush's top two Cabinet officials, expecting a polite photo op, were ambushed by a Russian leader who fears Eastern Europe may be turned into a U.S. staging point for a new Cold War.

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.

In a series of meetings Friday, Rice and Gates failed to turn around Moscow's opposition to the system and other strategic arms issues and got little more than a pledge to meet again.

Putin set the tone early when he hosted the pair and their Russian counterparts at his country home outside Moscow and delivered a stern rebuff to U.S. plans to push ahead with establishing missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

In combative comments that took the U.S. side aback during a photo session, Putin criticized Bush's pet project and threatened to pull out of a Cold War-era treaty that limits intermediate-range missiles.

"We may decide someday to put missile defense systems on the moon, but before we get to that we may lose a chance for agreement because of you implementing your own plans," he told Rice and Gates in Russian, according to an Associated Press translation.

"We hope that in the process of such complex and multifaceted talks you will not be forcing forward your previous agreements with Eastern European countries," Putin said.