In his speech delivered at the National Defense University in Washington, Biden said: “The spread of nuclear weapons is the greatest threat facing the country – and I would argue facing humanity – and that is why we are working both to stop their proliferation and eventually to eliminate them”.

According to him, the country’s nuclear laboratories that monitor the reliability of weapons had been underfunded and neglected in the last few years.

He said that this is the reason why the government had announced earlier a new budget that would reverse “the last decade of dangerous decline”. He said it will allocate $7 billion for the maintenance of the country’s nuclear stockpile as well as for the improvement of its nuclear infrastructure. Putting this in perspective, he said it is “$624 million more than Congress approved last year and an increase of $5 billion over the next five years”.

The Obama administration has laid out ambitious nuclear weapons agenda for the next few months, with the president himself planning to hold a nuclear proliferation conference at the White House this April.

The US failed to close a deal with Russia regarding a new agreement on nuclear arms reduction by late 2009, when the previous contract was dissolved, although negotiations are still ongoing. The US is hoping that the boost in funding to analyse and safeguard existing nuclear arms will convince Congress to support the nuclear test ban treaty, which has remained inactive since 1996.

The US missile defence strategy, covering Asia and Europe, has been going on for months but details have not been disclosed due to the diplomatic sensitivities of the countries in the Gulf.

A review of the ballistic missile scheme will be forwarded to Congress on Monday. The study will focus on areas including Persian Gulf region defence, Russian cooperation, and networks of weapons and sensors.

The US Central Command chief, Gen. David Petraeus, said that the defensive strategy includes the upgrading of the Patriot missile systems, which can destroy missiles in flight.

Petraeus stated that eight Patriot missile stations of the US are now in the Gulf region.

During a 22 January presentation, Petraeus explained that the move to strengthen US defence is a response to the concerns over Iran.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates also spoke of a new missile defence strategy in the Gulf and Europe.

“I don’t want to get into it in too much detail”, he said in September, “but the reality is we are working both on a bilateral and a multilateral basis in the Gulf to establish the same kind of regional missile defence that would protect our facilities out there as well as our friends and allies”.

“The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger,” Cheney said. “Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responded to Cheney’s verbal uproar saying, “What Vice President Cheney calls ‘dithering,’ President Obama calls his solemn responsibility to the men and women in uniform and to the American public. I think we’ve all seen what happens when someone doesn’t take that responsibility seriously.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi commented that it wasn’t constructive for the former vice president to make such comments. “He’s forgotten whose administration made matters worse in Afghanistan by their neglect,” she said.

Cheney also attacked Obama’s foreign policy, security measures, and the White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, claimed that the strategy of the Bush administration in Afghanistan wasn’t planned well.

“Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced,” Cheney said in response to Emanuel’s comments. “It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.”

In addition, Cheney said that Obama cutting ties with the Polish and Czech governments will not be advantageous to Europeans. Cheney also labelled Obama’s decision to eliminate enhanced security interrogation as unwise.

“In the fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground, and half-measures keep you half-exposed,” he said. “We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security and turning the guns on our own guys.”

The Treasury Department and National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers are heading the effort to give jobs to Americans before the midterm elections in 2010.

The White House is currently examining ideas that need to be enhanced including unemployment extension and health benefits, tax credit flexibility for small businesses, and temporary loan packages for states which are now considered to be voluntary unlike the previous stimulus package. The $8,000 tax credit extension for homebuyers which is slated to expire on November 30 is also being examined.

Though most of the ideas are beneficial, sources say that the price tag remains to be the biggest problem in enhancing tax incentives. Lack of financial backing has caused a strain in the process being undertaken by the Treasury Department to settle the plans. Support from Republican leaders in the Senate to improve tax incentives has also been minimal.

The Democrats have observed that people are in the midst of a “bailout fatigue” as the money being spent by the government has so far served only as a safety net but not as a means to improve employment rate.

Democratic officials also expressed the White House’s concern on the attack of the Republicans on a “second stimulus” bill. The latest effort being administered is not a “second stimulus” bill according to sources, as using such term may imply the failure of the first $787 billion stimulus effort. The White House is in fact attempting to release the safety measures as part of the small economic recovery plan to enhance the first stimulus.

President Obama promised that by the end of next year, his $787 billion stimulus plan will generate 3.5 million jobs.

The White House Council on Economic Advisers, in its first report to Congress about the stimulus, said that the country’s economy has improved and would have gotten worse if the stimulus was not applied.

Top White House economic adviser, Christina Romer, said they have seen an absolute change in trajectory.

Previous job estimates have been founded on an economic model which was never meant to count jobs. The White House has said in Thursday’s report that it has focused on an economic formula which tracks the relationship between employment and the overall economy.

According to the White House, since the economy has declined less than what was predicted in the previous months, this translated to around a million jobs which could have been lost in the absence of government efforts.

Based on the report, the stimulus is responsible for most of this, though they admit that it is hard to say conclusively which of the government economic policies have contributed to the estimate.

The report said that other policy actions like the Federal Reserve’s programme of buying agency debt and long-term US government bonds, monetary policy, and the Financial Stabilization Plan have surely contributed.

In time, the stimulus’ impact will be more visible. In the following month, states and businesses are to report a tally of workers involved in stimulus projects. This won’t reflect the effect of other programmes like tax cuts; however, it will show the first raw job figures tied to the stimulus.