MOSCOW -- Russia's Foreign Ministry says the arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies in the United States is throwback to Cold War.

The ministry said in a statement Tuesday the U.S. actions are unfounded and pursued "unseemly" goals. It voiced regret that the arrests came even though President Barack Obama has moved to "reset" U.S. relations wth Russia.

The FBI has arrested 10 people who allegedly spied for Russia for up to a decade -- posing as civilians while trying to infiltrate U.S. policymaking circles. An 11th defendant -- a man accused of delivering money to the agents -- remains at large.

Medvedev met with Obama at the White House last week after the Russian leader visited high-tech firms in California's Silicon Valley. The two presidents made a jaunt for cheeseburgers to Ray's Hell Burger in Virginia, exchanged jokes and walked together in the park in a show of easy camaraderie underlining that efforts to "reset" ties have taken deep root.

The series of arrests of purported deep cover agents followed a multiyear FBI investigation.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Igor Lyakin-Frolov told The Associated Press that the information given by U.S. authorities looks "contradictory." He wouldn't comment further. The main Russian spy agency, the Foreign Intelligence Service, refused to comment on the arrests.

Alexander Torshin, a deputy speaker of the Russian parliament's upper house, sought to downplay the arrests and said they are unlikely to derail efforts to improve Russian-U.S. ties.

"It's not a return to the Cold War, and I'm sure that this incident won't develop into a large-scale spy scandal," Torshin said, according to the state RIA Novosti news agency.

He said agreements reached during Medvedev's visit to the United States last week signaled that relations between Moscow and Washington have reached a new higher level.

But another senior lawmaker, a deputy chairman of the security affairs committee in the lower house of parliament, Vladimir Kolesnikov, told RIA Novosti the arrests signaled that some quarters in the U.S. government oppose warmer ties with Russia.

"Regrettably, there are people in America burdened by the legacy of the Cold War, the legacy of double standards," he said. "And they react improperly to the warming of relations spearheaded by the presidents. It's a blow to President Obama."

Kolesnikov, a former deputy chief prosecutor general, said "U.S. secret agents are continuing to work" in Russia and suggested that Russia could respond tit-for-tat.

"Previously we have quietly evicted some of them," he said. "Now I think we should more actively apply criminal legislation against them."

Kolesnikov is not believed to have close ties to the Kremlin or knowledge of the government's plans.

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. war commander in Afghanistan told an interviewer he felt betrayed by the man the White House chose to be his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.

An article out this week in "Rolling Stone" magazine depicts Gen. Stanley McChrystal as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration and unable to convince even some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the war.

A band of McChrystal's profane, irreverent aides are quoted mocking Vice President Joe Biden and Richard Holbrooke, the special U.S. representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

McChrystal himself is described by an aide as "disappointed" in his first Oval Office meeting with an unprepared President Barack Obama. The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama called McChrystal on the carpet last fall for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops.

"I found that time painful," McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. "I was selling an unsellable position."

Obama agreed to dispatch an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan only after months of study that many in the military found frustrating. And the White House's troop commitment was coupled with a pledge to begin bringing them home in July 2011, in what counterinsurgency strategists advising McChrystal regarded as an arbitrary deadline.

The profile, titled "The Runaway General" emerged from several weeks of interviews and travel with McChrystal's tight circle of aides this spring.

It includes a list of administration figures said to back McChrystal, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and puts Biden at the top of a list of those who don't.

The article claims McChrystal has seized control of the war "by never taking his eye off the real enemy: The wimps in the White House."

Biden initially opposed McChrystal's proposal for additional forces last year. He favored a narrower focus on hunting terrorists.

If Eikenberry had the same doubts, McChrystal said he never expressed them until a leaked internal document threw a wild card into the debate over whether to add more troops last November. In the document, Eikenberry said Afghan President Hamid Karzai was not a reliable partner for the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal was hired to execute.

McChrystal said he felt "betrayed" and accused the ambassador of giving himself cover.

"Here's one that covers his flank for the history books," McChrystal told the magazine. "Now, if we fail, they can say 'I told you so."'

There was no immediate response from Eikenberry. The Associated Press requested comment through an aide after business hours on Monday in Kabul.

Eikenberry remains in his post in Kabul, and although both men publicly say they are friends, their rift is on full display.

McChrystal and Eikenberry, himself a retired Army general, stood as far apart as the speakers' platform would allow during a White House news conference last month.

"Rolling Stone" interviewed troops frustrated by McChrystal's strict rules for combat that are intended to reduce the number of civilian casualties.

At one outpost, a soldier McChrystal had met earlier was killed in a house that the local U.S. commander had repeatedly asked to destroy. The request was denied, apparently out of concern that razing the house would anger locals whose allegiance the U.S. is trying to win.

"Does that make any (expletive) sense?" Pfc. Jared Pautsch asks. "We should just drop a (expletive) bomb on this place. You sit and ask yourself, 'What are we doing here?"'

The White House Monday dismissed as "ludicrous" a report that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel plans to leave his post after becoming frustrated with the Obama administration.

Citing Washington insiders, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph said Emanuel was fed up with the "idealism" of President Barack Obama's closest advisers and was concerned about burning out and losing touch with his three children due to the pressure of the job.

In response to the report, a senior White House official told Fox News the "ludicrous" story was "not worth looking into."

The Telegraph, however, quoted a Democratic source as saying: "I would bet he will go after the midterms. Nobody thinks it's working, but they can't get rid of him -- that would look awful. He needs the right sort of job to go to, but the consensus is he'll go."

Congress veteran Emanuel, 50, is known as an abrasive pragmatist who has clashed with the optimistic inner circle around Obama.

Although he is believed to have a cordial working relationship with the president, The Telegraph reported Obama aides were frustrated that Emanuel "failed to deliver a smooth ride for the president's legislative program that his background promised."

The newspaper said Emanuel had told friends he envisaged the high-pressure White House role as an 18-month job. He is reportedly interested in running for mayor of Chicago, his home town.

President Obama went to the groundbreaking of a road project in Columbus, Ohio, Friday to show that his massive stimulus package is still churning out jobs -- a "good news" story that was anything but for some construction workers who were trying to figure out how to make up for the payday they lost due to the president's visit.

The workers were told not to report to their construction project at a nearby hospital Friday, because the Secret Service was shutting it down for security reasons. They also were told that they would not get paid for the forced day off.

"We always do our very best to balance the needs of security with the needs and requirements of the venues we're securing," Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said in a written statement of FoxNews.com. "Any interruption in activity that we request is not done arbitrarily and only if absolutely necessary."

"The bosses told us we weren't working because the president is coming, and we are wondering why," construction worker George Harrison told WBNS-10TV. "That's $200 we are missing out on. Everybody needs to eat, right?"

One construction worker told the local TV station that he's "glad the president's coming but I sure would like to make that money." 

The White House said the workers will get a chance to recoup their losses.

"While security concerns surrounding a presidential visit necessarily cause some disruption, we're heartened by our understanding that, even if delayed by a day, workers will have the opportunity to complete their scheduled work on these projects," White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

Some of the workers reportedly were used to build security barricades along the intersection that served as Obama's stage.

Turner Construction Company, which manages the site that was shut down for the day, didn't respond to requests for comment.

One construction worker focused on the bright side to the president's visit.

"Three-day weekend. I can't complain," Rob Devlin told the station.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer expressed outrage Thursday over Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments that the Obama administration will sue over Arizona's controversial immigration law -- and Brewer said she's ready for a fight.

Clinton said in an interview with a TV station in Ecuador that the Obama administration "will be bringing" suit against Arizona for its immigration law, though the Justice Department for weeks has said that the issue is still under review. 

"What a disappointment," Brewer told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on Thursday, saying she was shocked the administration would make such an announcement on foreign TV without giving Arizona officials the news first. Her office hadn't heard from the administration as of Thursday evening.

"We are not going to back away from this issue," Brewer said. "We are going to pursue it, we're going to be very aggressive," Brewer said. "We'll meet them in court ... And we will win."

She added: "The population of America agrees with Arizona."

In a clip of the interview posted on a conservative blog, Clinton was asked how the Obama administration was handling the debate over the law. 

"President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act," the secretary of state responded, before calling for comprehensive immigration reform. 

President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have both criticized the Arizona law, but the administration has maintained that its attorneys are reviewing the legislation to determine the next step. 

Clinton was in Latin America last week for the general assembly of the Organization of American States in Peru. 

Despite the release of the interview, a Justice spokesman said Thursday that the department "continues to review the law."

Another Justice official could not confirm whether the White House directed the department to sue, but said the White House would be within its rights to do so. 

"It would not be inappropriate for the White House to tell us to sue. It's not a criminal matter," the official said. 

On April 23, Brewer, a Republican, signed what is considered the toughest legislation in the nation targeting illegal immigrants. It is set to go into effect July 29 pending multiple legal challenges and the Justice Department's review.

The law requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.

The law's stated intention is to drive illegal immigrants out of Arizona and discourage them from coming in the first place. It has outraged civil rights groups, drawn criticism from Obama and led to marches and protests organized by people on both sides of the issue.

The law's backers say Congress isn't doing anything meaningful about illegal immigration, so it's the state's duty to address the issue.

A State Department spokesman said the department would defer to the Justice Department "on what legal steps are available."

"The president and Secretary (Clinton) have said clearly that the administration opposes the Arizona law," spokesman Andy Laine said. "A number of leaders in the region have raised the issue with the United States. It came up during her recent trip to South America. As the secretary said, a better solution is comprehensive immigration reform."

Fox News' Mike Levine and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

President Obama went to the groundbreaking of a road project in Columbus, Ohio, Friday to show that his massive stimulus package is still churning out jobs -- a "good news" story that was anything but for some construction workers who were trying to figure out how to make up for the payday they lost due to the president's visit.

The workers were told not to report to their construction project at a nearby hospital Friday, because the Secret Service was shutting it down for security reasons. They also were told that they would not get paid for the forced day off.

"We always do our very best to balance the needs of security with the needs and requirements of the venues we're securing," Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said in a written statement of FoxNews.com. "Any interruption in activity that we request is not done arbitrarily and only if absolutely necessary."

"The bosses told us we weren't working because the president is coming, and we are wondering why," construction worker George Harrison told WBNS-10TV. "That's $200 we are missing out on. Everybody needs to eat, right?"

One construction worker told the local TV station that he's "glad the president's coming but I sure would like to make that money." 

The White House said the workers will get a chance to recoup their losses.

"While security concerns surrounding a presidential visit necessarily cause some disruption, we're heartened by our understanding that, even if delayed by a day, workers will have the opportunity to complete their scheduled work on these projects," White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said in a written statement to FoxNews.com.

Some of the workers reportedly were used to build security barricades along the intersection that served as Obama's stage.

Turner Construction Company, which manages the site that was shut down for the day, didn't respond to requests for comment.

One construction worker focused on the bright side to the president's visit.

"Three-day weekend. I can't complain," Rob Devlin told the station.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. -- The Pentagon said Republican Senate candidate Mark Kirk has been cautioned twice for improperly mingling politics with his military service, but Kirk's campaign denied any improper conduct Tuesday.

The Defense Department said Monday night that Kirk, a commander in the Navy Reserve, was warned after two incidents of political activity while he was on active duty. Before being allowed to go on active duty again in Afghanistan, Kirk was required to sign a statement acknowledging he knew to avoid all political work.

"Commander Kirk was counseled about each of his violations after they occurred and signed a statement acknowledging the limitations on his ability to participate in campaign activities while on active duty. He was required to complete this acknowledgment before being allowed to begin active duty in December 2009," the Pentagon said.

Kirk's spokeswoman dismissed the issue, saying the questions have already been addressed by the campaign in the past.

"Had there been any issues documented in Congressman Kirk's military record, the Department of Defense would not have issued a second waiver for his deployment to Afghanistan," Kirk spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said in a statement Tuesday.

The Defense Department said one incident occurred late in 2008 when Kirk gave interviews about Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich being arrested.

And in July 2009, Kirk or a staff member wrote on the candidate's Twitter account that he was on duty at the Pentagon's National Military Command Center.

Kirk, a five-term member of Congress from Chicago's northern suburbs, is running against Democrat Alexi Giannoulias for the Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama.

Kirk already has dealt with revelations that he had exaggerated his military record, particularly by repeatedly saying he was named intelligence officer of the year. The award in question went to his entire unit.

Kirk has made his 21 years of service in the Navy Reserves a key part of his campaign, mentioning it in most speeches and news releases.

Politicians' military records are under particularly intense scrutiny after the recent revelation that a Senate candidate in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, had sometimes told audiences he served in the Vietnam War. Actually, he was in the Marine Reserves and never left the United States.

The issue of Kirk taking political action while on active duty was first raised when a blogger named Terry Welch disclosed a Defense Department memo on the issue.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is going back to the Gulf of Mexico, this time venturing on to new ground tainted by oil, before he speaks to the nation about what he's seen in the afflicted states and what to expect in the weeks ahead.

Before the start Monday of a two-day trip to Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the White House announced Obama would order BP to establish a major victims' compensation fund. When he returns to Washington on Tuesday evening Obama will use his first Oval Office speech as president to address the catastrophe.

Obama's first three trips to the Gulf took him to the hardest-hit state, Louisiana. On Monday, Day 56 since BP's leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and unleashed a fury of oil into the Gulf, he's flying to Gulfport, Miss. From there he'll travel along the coast to Alabama, where oil was washing up in heavy amounts along the shores Sunday in the eastern part of the state.

He'll be met by state and local officials eager for him to show command, provide manpower and supplies and also tell the public that despite the catastrophe that's crippling the fishing and tourist trades, many beaches are still open.

The day includes a speech and a ferry ride to view barrier islands in Alabama where oil has come ashore. Obama has not taken to the water in his previous Gulf visits.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley planned to ask the president for more leadership and coordination.

"Essentially we're trying to manage this through a committee form, and it's a committee where any one member has absolute veto power," Riley said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "I don't think you can do that." He said: "I think we're going to have to set priorities. We're going to have to implement a plan to achieve those goals if we're going to get through this."

Although BP is now siphoning off significant amounts of oil from its runaway well 5,000 feet below the ocean's surface, the leak won't be killed until relief wells are completed in August. At the same time more accurate estimates of the spill have brought the enormity of the disaster into focus. Already potentially more than 100 million gallons of crude expelled into the Gulf, far outstripping the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Now the nation may have to settle in for a long, hot summer of oil and gas spewing relentlessly from the ocean floor, driving residents to anger and despair, ruining precious marshlands, and poisoning pelicans, turtles and other wildlife.

BP deployed undersea sensors Sunday to better measure the flow of crude while drawing up new plans to meet a government demand that it speed up the containment effort ahead of Obama's visit.

BP is currently capturing about 630,000 gallons of oil a day, but hundreds of thousands more are still escaping into the Gulf. The company has said that it could begin siphoning an additional 400,000 gallons a day starting Tuesday by burning it using a specialized boom being installed on a rig.

For Obama, it is imperative that he try to help guide the country through what's to come. Obama will aim to accomplish that with his speech Tuesday and also detail specifics of the response to the oil spill, from cleanup to damages claims.

The next day, Wednesday, Obama will convene his first meeting with BP PLC executives, expected to include the company's much-criticized CEO, Tony Hayward. The president will tell company officials he expects them to establish a multibillion-dollar compensation fund for people and companies damaged by the spill, to be administered by an independent panel, and that he will use his legal authority to ensure BP complies, White House officials said.

The steps add up to Obama's most concerted efforts so far to assert leadership in face of the calamity, with the White House exercising every tool at its disposal -- an on-scene visit by the president, a speech from the Oval Office, the use of the power of the presidency to extract concessions from BP. The White House hopes it will be enough to win back the confidence of a skeptical public.

WASHINGTON -- In a boost for the president on global warming, the Senate on Thursday rejected a challenge to Obama administration rules aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and other big polluters.

The defeated resolution would have denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to move ahead with the rules, crafted under the federal Clean Air Act. With President Barack Obama's broader clean energy legislation struggling to gain a foothold in the Senate, the vote took on greater significance as a signal of where lawmakers stand on dealing with climate change.

"If ever there was a vote to find out whose side you are on, this is it," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.

The vote was 53-47 to stop the Senate from moving forward on the Republican-led effort to restrain the EPA.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., predicted the vote would "increase momentum to adopt comprehensive energy and climate legislation this year."

But Obama still needs 60 votes to advance his energy agenda, and Democrats don't have them yet. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., said the vote made clear that a majority in the Senate back either a delay or an outright ban on "the Obama EPA's job-killing, global warming agenda."

Republicans, and the six Democrats who voted with them to advance the resolution, said Congress, not bureaucrats, should be in charge of writing climate change policy. They said the EPA rules would drive up energy costs and kill jobs.

But Democrats, referring frequently to the Gulf oil spill, said it made no sense to undermine efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions and reduce dependence on oil and other fossil fuels.

The effort to block the rules "is an attempt to bury our heads in the sand and ignore reality," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.

Obama said the vote was another reminder of the need to pass legislation to reduce the country's reliance on oil. The White House had issued a veto threat this week, saying the resolution would block efforts to cut pollution that could harm people's health and well-being.

"Today the Senate chose to move America forward, towards that clean energy economy -- not backward to the same failed policies that have left our nation increasingly dependent on foreign oil," he said.

The EPA crafted standards on greenhouse gas emissions by big polluters after the Supreme Court ruled that those emissions could be considered a danger to human health and thus could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. The rules are to go into effect next January.

The poor chances of the anti-EPA measure overcoming a veto and becoming law did not deter fierce debate.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the new regulations a "blatant power grab by the administration and the EPA." With a broad energy bill unlikely to pass this year, "the administration has shifted course and is now trying to get done through the back door what they haven't been able to get done through the front door," he said.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the blocking measure, "a great big gift to big oil" that would "increase pollution, increase our dependence on foreign oil and stall our efforts to create jobs" in clean energy.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that he anticipated the Senate taking up a broader energy bill in the next several weeks "and hopefully we can get something done before Congress adjourns this year."

The sponsor of Thursday's resolution, Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of oil-rich Alaska, said her intent was to protect the authority of Congress, not the interests of the oil industry. "It should be up to us to set the policy of this country, not unelected bureaucrats within an agency," she said.

Her Democratic allies used similar arguments. "The regulatory approach is the wrong way to promote renewable energy and clean energy jobs in Arkansas and the rest of the country," said Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, who faces a difficult re-election campaign this summer.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who opposed the resolution, agreed that Congress should not cede its authority to the executive branch but expressed concern the measure would reverse progress made in such areas as vehicle emissions. He said he supported a bill that would suspend EPA's regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources for two years.

Murkowski, too, said Congress should be working harder to come up with an energy bill. The issue was whether a consensus was possible this year.

"Here's the real rub," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who has worked with Democrats on possible energy legislation. "If we stop them (the rules), are we going to do anything?"

"This is going to be the great hypocrisy test," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., cosponsor of a major clean energy proposal. He asked whether those demanding that Congress act first would actually vote for change.

There were other disputes about the consequences of the Murkowski resolution. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the White House said the resolution would force the EPA to rescind the standards for emissions from future-model cars and light trucks it came up with earlier this year with the Transportation Department. The result, she said, would be a need for the country to consume an extra 455 million barrels of oil.

Murkowski and others countered that Transportation has long been able to set fuel efficiency standards without the help of the EPA.

Jackson also denied the argument of critics that the EPA rules would impose devastating costs on small businesses and farmers, resulting in major job losses. The EPA added a provision that exempts small sources of pollution from the regulations for six years.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is offering condolences to relatives of the 11 workers who were killed when an oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

Obama wrote the families and invited them to visit the White House on Thursday.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama also wants to hear the families' thoughts on changes the government can make to ensure that future deepwater oil drilling is safe. Obama put a temporary halt to such drilling after the April 20 explosion off Louisiana's coast.

Asked whether Obama thought the families of the 11 men had been lost in the focus on efforts to stop the millions of gallons (liters) of crude that have been gushing from the broken underwater well for the past seven weeks, Gibbs said, "They are certainly not forgotten."

"They were the very first victims of what is a very long and sad tragedy," he said Wednesday.

Their bodies never were recovered.

The president's private meeting with the families in the State Dining Room is part of his effort to show a public unhappy with the handling of the catastrophe by the government and the well owner, BP PLC, that he is on top of the situation.

Obama met Monday with Cabinet officials involved in the oil spill response and reiterated his earlier warning to the British oil company to not shortchange business owners who are losing income because of the spill.

Obama has visited the Louisiana coast three times since the explosion, including stops there last Friday and on May 28. He plans to return for a two-day stay on Monday and Tuesday that will take him to affected areas in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.