Bush intends to punish Moscow for invading Georgia – US navy ship steams into port where Russian troops stationed
Bush intends to punish Moscow for invading Georgia
By JENNIFER LOVEN,
President Bush is poised to punish Moscow for its invasion of Georgia by canceling a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation between the U.S. and Russia.
With relations between the two nations in a nearly Cold Warlike freeze over Russia’s actions against its neighbor last month, planning is under way at the White House for the largely symbolic move by Bush, according to senior administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the decision was not yet final. Action could come quickly, within days at the most, and officials see no need to wait until Vice President Dick Cheney returns next Wednesday from an overseas trip that includes stops in three former Soviet republics.
Withdrawing the agreement from Capitol Hill would have little actual impact, as the deal very likely would not gain approval during Bush’s presidency.
But taking the overt and public step of pulling it would be intended to send a message to Russia and the world that its actions in Georgia last month are not acceptable and will not go unanswered.
It would require a statement by Bush to Congress that the deal is “no longer in the national security interests” of the United States. A future president could reverse that and send the agreement back to Congress.
Signed in May by the two nations, the administration originally presented the deal as a landmark breakthrough.
It represented a significant reversal in policy for the U.S. on cooperation with Russia on nuclear issues. It would give the U.S. access to state-of-the-art Russian nuclear technology and clear the way for Russia to establish itself as a lucrative center for the import and storage of spent nuclear fuel from American-supplied reactors around the world. Such a deal was seen as crucial to boosting relations with Russia, and to fulfilling Bush’s vision of increasing civilian nuclear energy use worldwide as a way to combat rising energy demands and climate change.
But key lawmakers were suspicious of it even before the disastrous Russia-Georgia war.
Some feared it would undermine efforts to rein in Iran’s nuclear program, because of Russia’s extensive business and energy — including nuclear — ties with Tehran. That has so far prevented a move to approve the deal, and now there isn’t enough time left in the fall legislative calendar for the required review period to run out and have the agreement take effect without congressional action.
After years of tensions between Russia and Georgia, the recent fighting began Aug. 7 when Georgia’s military tried to re-establish control over its breakaway province of South Ossetia. Russia joined the battle, brutally repelled the Georgian offensive and then pushed deep into Georgia proper, where many of its forces remain.
Both sides signed a cease-fire, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.
Administration officials determined almost immediately that Russia must suffer some consequences for its actions and wanted to take punitive measures in concert with Europe. But they have been frustrated at the lack of similar resolve among allies, who have offered condemnation of Russia but little else.
If Bush decides against pulling the deal, there are other penalty options available.
The administration could insist that Russia continue to be quietly left out of any discussions among the elite Group of Eight nations, essentially denying Russia membership in the club of major industrialized democracies without actually kicking it out.
The United States also could sell sophisticated anti-aircraft and anti-tank military hardware to Georgia.
A $1 billion economic recovery package for Georgia that Bush announced Wednesday — and which puts the tiny, impoverished nation in the top tier of U.S foreign aid recipients — does not include any military aid. But the U.S. had been helping the Georgian military modernize and U.S. officials have said it is likely that more military assistance will be forthcoming at some point to help the badly routed Georgian forces rebuild again.
Moscow has greeted such talk with anger, already accusing the U.S. of instigating or even helping Georgia make its ill-fated incursion into South Ossetia.
Among the most aggressive moves in Washington’s potential arsenal are withdrawing its support for Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization or trying to strip Russia of the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, now scheduled to be held in the Black Sea town of Sochi, near the border with Georgia. These options have been all but rejected as too harsh.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080904/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_russia
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US navy ship steams into port where Russian troops stationed
The USS Mount Whitney, today made a controversial landing at the port of Poti
James Hider in Tbilisi
A US navy flagship has steamed into a Georgian port where Russian troops are still stationed, stoking tensions once again in the tinderbox Caucasus region.
A previous trip by American warships was cancelled at the last minute a week ago amid fears that an armed stand off could erupt in the Black Sea port of Poti.
The arrival of the USS Mount Whitney came as Moscow accused Dick Cheney, the hawkish US vice-president, of stoking tensions during a visit to Tbilisi yesterday, in which he vowed to bring Georgia into the Nato alliance. Russia sees any such move as a blatant Western encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence.
Russia’s leadership has already questioned whether previous US warships that docked at the port of Batumi, to the south, were delivering weapons to rearm the smashed Georgian military, something Washington has denied.
While Russia again questioned the deployment of what it described as “the number one ship of its type in the US navy” on the Black Sea, it said it planned no military action in response. The Russian Army has kept a small number of soldiers in Poti, where local Georgian officials accuse them of looting port authority buildings.
“Naval ships of that class can hardly deliver a large amount of aid,” said Andrei Nesterenko, a Russian foreign ministry spokesman. “Such ships of course have a hold for keeping provisions for the crew and items needed for sailing. How many dozens of tonnes of aid can a ship of that type deliver?”
He said the presence of US warships could contravene international conventions governing shipping on the Black Sea, and – in particular – restricting the entry of naval ships from countries that do not share a Black Sea coastline.
Militarily, the small Russian garrison in Poti would pose almost no threat to a vessel like the Mount Whitney, but the proximity of two hostile forces in such a fraught setting set the political temperature rising again in the Caucasus, a month after Russia’s five day war with Georgia.
The American warship is too large to actually enter the port, where Russia sunk several Georgian navy vessels in its offensive last month. Instead, it is expected anchor offshore and unload its cargo of blankets, hygiene kits, baby food and infant care supplies on to smaller boats.
“I can confirm it has arrived in Poti. Anchoring procedures are still ongoing but it has arrived,” said a US naval official.
Moscow, which followed up its crushing military defeat of Georgia by unilaterally recognising the independence of two of its breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, was fuming that Mr Cheney still insisted on Georgia’s entrance into the Atlantic alliance – something several key NATO members are wary of.
“The new promises to Tbilisi relating to the speedy membership of NATO simply strengthen the Saakashvili regime’s dangerous feeling of impunity and encourages its dangerous ambitions,” said Mr Nesterenko.
Washington has also pledged one billion dollars in aid to help Georgia rebuild after Russia pounded many of its military bases to dust and targeted important infrastructure.
The brief conflict has left thousands of Georgians homeless, including many driven from South Ossetia and the surrounding Russian buffer zone inside Georgia itself.
Georgian officials have accused the Russian-backed Ossetian militias of “ethnically cleansing” remote villages, while Moscow has charged Tbilisi with “genocide” for its heavy handed attack on the breakaway region last month.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4682003.ece
