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  Updated at: 0917 PST,  Monday, January 04, 2010
 WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama's plan to begin phasing out nuclear weapons has run up against powerful resistance from officials in the Pentagon and other US agencies, a US newspaper reported late Sunday.

Obama laid out his vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague last April. But citing unnamed officials, the newspaper said the Obama administration is now locked in internal debate over a top-secret policy blueprint for shrinking the US nuclear arsenal and reducing the role of such weapons in country's military strategy.

The Pentagon has stressed the importance of continued US deterrence, an objective Obama has said he agrees with, the report said. But a senior Defense official, who described the debate as "spirited," acknowledged that some officials are concerned that the administration may be going too far, the paper pointed out.