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• Georgia: Saakashvili — A Political Corpse?
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1. Onnik 09.16.08 / 12pm

   Some questions are now starting to be raised about Tbilsi’s account of what started the war (and people on the streets are asking such things, but firmly behind the government while Russia continues to play silly buggers).

   However, as this article indicates, nobody is still quite sure, but it does seem as though consensus is that Saakashvili miscalculated, behaved recklessly, and the Russians were waiting for the chance to march into South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

   Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvili. Some Western intelligence reports have undermined Tbilisi’s version of events, and there are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for an independent investigation.

   […]

   But now, five weeks after the end of the war in the Caucasus, the winds have shifted in America. Even Washington is beginning to suspect that Saakashvili, a friend and ally, could in fact be a gambler — someone who triggered the bloody five-day war and then told the West bold-faced lies. “The concerns about Russia have remained,” says Paul Sanders, an expert on Russia and the director of the conservative Nixon Center in Washington. His words reflect the continuing Western assessment that Russia’s military act of revenge against the tiny Caucasus nation Georgia was disproportionate, that Moscow violated international law by recognizing the separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and, finally, that it used Georgia as a vehicle to showcase its imperial renaissance.

   […]

   But then Saunders qualifies his statement: “More and more people are realizing that there are two sides in this conflict, and that Georgia was not as much a victim as a willing participant.” Members of US President George W. Bush’s administration, too, are reconsidering their position. Georgia “marched into the South Ossetian capital” after a series of provocations, says Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Daniel Fried.

   […]

   But now the volume is being turned down on the anti-Moscow rhetoric. Last week German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier publicly called for clarification on the question of who is to blame for the Caucasus war. “We do need to know more about who bears what portion of the responsibility for the military escalation and to what extent,” Steinmeier told a meeting of Germany’s more than 200 ambassadors in Berlin. The European Union, he said, must now “define our relations with the parties to the conflict for the medium and long term,” and that the time has come to have concrete information.

   […]

   Is Saakashvili, who only five weeks ago had gained the West’s sympathy as the victim of a Russian invasion, already dead politically? Last week he received support from an unexpected source, the Red Star, a newspaper published by the Russian Defense Ministry. The paper published remarks by an officer of the 58th Army, which Moscow has since denied. Nevertheless, the officer, ironically enough, fueled doubts as to the conclusion, by Western intelligence agencies and NATO, that Russian army units had not reached Tskhinvali until Aug. 9.
   In the Red Star account, Captain Denis Sidristy, the commander of a company of the 135th Motorized Infantry Regiment, describes how he and his unit were already in the Roki Tunnel, on their way to Tskhinvali, in the night preceding Aug. 8. Did Moscow’s invasion begin earlier than the Russians have admitted, after all?

   Last week, Moscow investigators also conceded, for the first time, that the number of civilian casualties of the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali was not 2,000, as Russian officials have repeatedly claimed, but 134.

   When asked about the account in the Red Star, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry told SPIEGEL that it was the result of a technical error. Moreover, the spokesman said, the official in question had been wounded and therefore “could no longer remember the situation clearly.”

   Last Friday Captain Sidristy, since decorated with the Russian defense ministry’s order of bravery, was given a second opportunity to describe his version of the events to the Red Star. His unit, he said in his revised version, had advanced on Tskhinvali somewhat later than he had told the paper the first time.

   As it appears, it is still difficult to separate truth and lies about the brief war in the Caucasus.

   http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,578273,00.html
2. Onnik 09.16.08 / 7pm

   In a series of interviews with EurasiaNet, senior defense and national security officials have repeated earlier assertions that the possibility of a large-scale, direct engagement with Russia was never entertained. Similarly, soldiers who fought in South Ossetia suggest that decisions about Georgian army movements were made on the fly.

   At worst, a proxy confrontation with Russian forces — akin to the first South Ossetian conflict in 1991-1992 — was considered, said Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia. After the debacle of Russia’s two wars in Chechnya, no one thought that Moscow would further risk its international reputation by invading a sovereign country, said Deputy Defense Minister Batu Kutelia.

   “We expected that the Russians would fight with the hands of the separatists,” Lomaia told EurasiaNet.

   Georgian soldiers who fought in South Ossetia told EurasiaNet that they thought their initial mission in the breakaway region was to stop separatist attacks on Georgian villages in the area. On the morning of August 8, the Georgian government cited shelling on two Georgian villages as the reason for its decision to move on Tskhinvali.

   “Our goal was to put an end to fighting in the area ? and take control,” said one senior lieutenant from Georgia’s 3,500-strong 4th Brigade, a unit that bore the brunt of the fighting on August 8. “Nobody in the army expected a war with Russia.”

   The realization that Georgian forces were not up against South Ossetian militia, but an opponent who could vastly outnumber the Georgian army in numbers and firepower came as a shock, sources say. “The main thing is that the scope of the threat was underestimated, while our own combat capabilities were overestimated,” commented one defense ministry source, who asked not to be named.

   […]

   Kutelia claimed that 13,000 Georgian troops took part in the initial combat. Ultimately, they confronted a Russian force almost five times greater in numbers, Kutelia added.

   Articles published in two Russian publications suggest that regular Russian army forces may have been in the vicinity of Tskhinvali as early as August 7.

   On August 15, Permskiye Novosti (Perm News), a regional newspaper, quoted one private as saying that his unit, Russia’s 58th Army, was in South Ossetia on August 7, prior to the Georgian attack. The Russian Defense Ministry’s Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) newspaper ran an interview with a captain from the 58th Army who stated that an order was received on August 7 “to move toward Tskhinvali” from positions in North Ossetia.

   […]

   More than a month after the war’s conclusion, the government is now trying to make amends for the organizational, planning and intelligence deficiencies within the Georgian army that the campaign laid bare. One Defense Ministry source tells EurasiaNet that the presidential administration is “outraged” at the ministry for mistakes made at the commander level and for information leaks, in addition to the campaign’s disorganization.

   A reshuffle among the armed forces brass followed, along with prosecution of deserters. The reservists’ commander, David Aptsiauri, the deputy chief of staff of the armed forces, Alexander Osepaishvili, and the commander of Georgian land forces, Mamuka Balukhadze, have been cashiered.

   http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav091508.shtml

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