But one senior Administration official today described the date as "an artificial deadline, not necessarily a turning point."

"We cannot hold ourselves to any artificial deadlines," she said.

"We should not be funding an expensive rush to failure in order to meet an artificial deadline set by the president."

The word from his camp is that no artificial deadlines will be set this time.

"But I don't want to create any artificial deadline."

In addition, American officials said that such a move would create an "artificial deadline" for completing the arms talks.

I refuse to risk a child's life to meet an artificial deadline.

The president, he added, "will not be guided by any artificial deadline."

"Because, as I told you before, this is an artificial deadline in my mind," he said.

Calling today's deadline artificial, he said efforts to get the talks going would continue.