She noted that Mason City’s National Guard unit, the 1133rd Transportation Co., has been put on alert for a possible call-up next year.

“Our young men and women should not be referees for an Iraqi civil war,” she said. “It is heartbreaking that President Bush continues with this policy. His policies have alienated our friends and emboldened our enemies.”

She said America has to abandon the “cowboy diplomacy” of the Bush administration and get back to a bi-partisan foreign policy.

“He’s allergic to diplomacy,” Clinton said. “He has one diplomat — Condoleeza Rice. She’s a capable woman but he sends her everywhere.”

She said other countries have lost trust and respect for the U.S.

A team of U.S. experts has begun disabling North Korea's nuclear weapons-making facilities, a U.S. official said, the first time Pyongyang has ever moved to scale back its development of atomic bombs.

U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Monday in Washington that the disabling of the North's nuclear reactor at Yongbyon "is a positive first step in this process, and we certainly hope to see it continue."

The United States and China agreed to work together to steer Iran away from its nuclear ambitions in talks that Chinese President Hu Jintao described early today as "very candid and friendly."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates agreed with Hu's assessment. The two men spoke briefly with reporters before they met for a discussion that was closed to the press.

After a 90-minute meeting Monday with Chinese Defense Minister Cao Gangchuan, Gates said the two "agreed that it is important to pursue efforts to persuade the Iranian government to change their behavior and their policies peacefully, through diplomatic means."

Israeli and Palestinian officials hope to reach a comprehensive peace agreement before the end of President Bush's term, Israeli, Palestinian and American officials said Monday.

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said that they would use the coming Middle East peace conference in Annapolis, Md., to begin substantive talks on contentious final status issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979.

President Bush and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey sought Monday to resolve serious differences over the fight against Iraq-based Kurdish guerrillas, agreeing on the need to share intelligence to end their deadly raids.

"Good, sound intelligence delivered on a real-time basis, using modern technology, will make it much easier to deal effectively with people who are using murder as a weapon to achieve political objectives," Bush said after the two met in the Oval Office.