President Bush gave warning last night that Iran’s pursuit of the atomic bomb could lead to a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East, and promised to confront Tehran “before it is too late”.

Mr Bush’s remarks, the starkest warning that he has made about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, came hours after President Ahmadinejad of Iran said that a power vacuum was imminent in Iraq and that Tehran was ready to fill it.

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

President Bush charged Thursday that Iran continues to arm and train insurgents who are killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and he threatened action if that continues.

At a news conference Thursday, Bush said Iran had been warned of unspecified consequences if it continued its alleged support for anti-American forces in Iraq. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had conveyed the warning in meetings with his Iranian counterpart in Baghdad, the president said.

A former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney is briefing lawmakers on Pentagon plans for secret military intervention in Turkey, Robert Novak reported Monday.

The Bush administration is considering covert military activity by U.S. Special Forces to help Turkish troops quash Kurdish guerilla fighters, who are believed to be using northern Iraq as safe-haven, according to the syndicated columnist.

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.