[R-G] Russia, Georgia, Iraq, and Turkey

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWgZSCLsIpMM&refer=home>
Putin Says `War Has Started,' Georgia Claims Invasion (Update4)

By Torrey Clark and Greg Walters

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said ``war
has started'' over the breakaway region of South Ossetia as Georgian
President Mikheil Saakashvili accused its neighbor of a ``well-planned
invasion.''

Saakashvili said in a Bloomberg Television interview that his nation
of 4.6 million people is ``fighting to secure its borders'' amid a
``full-blown military aggression'' involving thousands of Russian
troops. Aerial bombings and wide-spread fighting in and around the
region killed an unknown number of civilians and wounded ``scores''
more, Saakashvili said.

Putin earlier today told U.S. President George W. Bush in Beijing that
``volunteers'' were pouring over the border to help defend South
Ossetia from Georgian forces, according to Putin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov. ``War started today in South Ossetia'' when Georgia attacked
Russian peacekeepers in the disputed region, Putin said. The Defense
Ministry later said it deployed ``reinforcements'' in the region.

The ruble dropped the most against the dollar in 8 1/2 years and
Russian stocks tumbled today on concern the conflict will worsen. The
U.K., European Union and NATO, which Georgia is seeking to join, all
called on both sides to end hostilities. The U.S. called for an
immediate cease-fire.

Bush supports the ``territorial integrity'' of Georgia, White House
spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

``We urge all parties, Georgians, South Ossetians and Russians, to
de-escalate the tension and avoid conflict,'' Perino said in a
statement from Beijing, where Bush and Putin attended the opening
ceremony of the Olympic Games. ``We are working on mediation efforts
to secure a cease fire and we are urging the parties to restart their
dialogue.''

`NATO Hopes'

``Georgia's immediate NATO hopes have all but evaporated,'' Dominic
Fean, a researcher at IFRI, the French Institute of International
Affairs, said by telephone. ``Countries like Germany and France were
already resistant to the idea of giving a NATO security guarantee to a
country with an open dispute with Russia. I can't see how they can get
the consensus of 26 states anytime soon.''

South Ossetia, which has a population of about 70,000 and is less than
half the size of Kosovo, broke away from U.S.-backed Georgia in the
early 1990s and now is a de facto independent state with Russian
peacekeepers and economic support. The peacekeepers are deployed under
a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate.

``We will not allow the deaths of our compatriots to go unpunished,''
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, 42, said on state television after
the Interfax news service said Russian troops were killed in Georgian
shelling of a barracks and checkpoint. ``The guilty will get the
punishment they deserve.''

Iraq Pullout

Georgia called today for an emergency meeting of the United Nations
Security Council on South Ossetia.

``We've been encouraging everyone involved and every international
party to engage in talks for years, months, days, hours,'' Georgian
Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze said by telephone. ``What we get is
another column of Russian tanks.''

Georgia, the third-largest member of the allied coalition in Iraq
after the U.S. and U.K., will bring home half of its 2,000 soldiers
from the Middle East country in the next few days, Kakha Lomaia, head
of Georgia's Security Council, said by telephone. The Georgian
contingent is stationed in Al-Khut, 185 kilometers (114 miles)
southeast of Baghdad.

Fighting escalated throughout the day, with Russian planes dropping
four bombs on the Vaziani military base, which the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization uses for training, Lomaia said. The base is about
15 kilometers from the Georgian capital.

Russian Tanks

Georgian forces have shot down three Russian planes since the fighting
began, Lomaia said. Russia earlier bombed two Georgian towns, Gori and
Kareli, he said. Russia's Foreign Ministry denied the bombing claim.
The Defense Ministry denied losing aircraft.

Russian troops occupied parts of the South Ossetian capital
Tskhinvali, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said
by telephone. Russian television showed tanks heading over the border
to South Ossetia from the Russian region of North Ossetia at about
3:30 p.m. Moscow time.

``We find ourselves in a situation similar to where the Czechs were in
1968, to where the Hungarians found themselves in 1956,'' Lomaia said.
``All we can do is defend our freedom.''

Georgia last month increased the size of its military to 37,000
soldiers and today Saakashvili called up reservists and urged the
nation to defend ``every meter'' of land. Russia has a standing army
of about 1.1 million.

`Energy Corridor'

``Fighting continues,'' Russian Major General Marat Kulakhmetov,
commander of Russia's peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia, said by
mobile phone. The peacekeepers have suffered casualties, although it's
too early to say how many, he said.

Georgia is a key link in a U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor''
that links the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing
Russia, the world's biggest energy producer. Two pipelines pass
through the country linking Azerbaijan and Turkey.

The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which has been closed
since Aug. 5 due to an explosion in Turkey, runs about 100 kilometers
south of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

The most recent violence in the region erupted on Aug. 1, when South
Ossetia said Georgian shelling of the regional capital Tskhinvali
claimed six lives. Georgia said South Ossetian forces sparked the
fighting.

``The conflict might be short and hot, but my sense is that neither
party wants a prolonged conflict,'' said Michael Denison, associate
fellow at London-based research group Chatham House and a professor of
international security at the University of Leeds.

The EU, in a statement today expressed ``grave concern'' about the
fighting and said it is ``working toward a cease fire.''

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Walters in Moscow
gwalters1 at bloomberg.net; Torrey Clark in Moscow at
tclark8 at bloomberg.net
Last Updated: August 8, 2008 13:02 EDT

<http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/did-us-military.html>
Georgia and Russia are careening towards war. And the U.S. isn't
exactly a detached observer in the fight. The American military has
been training and equipping Georgian troops for years.

The news thus far: Georgia, which has been locked in a drone war over
the separatist enclave of Abkhazia, has launched an offensive to
reclaim another breakaway territory, South Ossetia. Latest reports
indicate that Georgian forces are laying siege to Tskhinvali, the
South Ossetian capital. And Russia, which has backed the separatists,
is sending in the tanks.

So why should we care? Oh, just the prospect of a larger regional war
that could drag in Russia – and involve the United States as well.
Since early 2002, the U.S. government has given a healthy amount of
military aid to Georgia. When I last visited Tskhinvali, Georgian
troops patrolled the streets -- decked out in surplus U.S. Army
uniforms and new body armor.

The first U.S. aid came under the rubric of the Georgia Train and
Equip Program (ostensibly to counter alleged Al Qaeda influence in the
Pankisi Gorge); then, under the Sustainment and Stability Operations
Program. Georgia returned the favor, committing thousands of troops to
the multi-national coalition in Iraq. Last fall, the Georgians doubled
their contingent, making them the third-largest contributor to the
coalition. Not bad for a nation of 4.6 million people.

Leaving aside the question of Russian interference (see below), the
larger concern has been that Georgia might be tempted to use its
newfound military prowess to resolve domestic conflicts by force.

As Sergei Shamba, the foreign affairs minister of Abkhazia, told me in
2006: "The Georgians are euphoric because they have been equipped,
trained, that they have gained military experience in Iraq. It feeds
this revanchist mood. … How can South Ossetia be demilitarized, when
all of Georgia is bristling with weaponry, and it's only an hour's
ride by tank from Tbilisi to Tskhinvali?"

One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly.
"We're giving them the knife," he said. "Will they use it?"

<http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/detail/10318.html>
Security Council fails to agree on statement on hostilities in South Ossetia
08/08/2008

The UN Security Council on Friday expressed concern about the
worsening fighting in Georgia's breakaway enclave of South Ossetia,
but could not agree on a statement urging the warring sides to
renounce the use of force.

Russia called an emergency session of the 15-nation council that began
at 11.00 pm, Thursday, in New York with closed talks for two hours.
The session continued with an open meeting and public speeches by
Russia, Georgia and other council members for another hour. Russian
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin (photo), says the key sticking point was
"the reluctance" of some council members to accept a reference to the
need for the warring parties "to renounce the use of force":

"Some members of the Security Council were somehow reluctant to call
on the parties including Georgia of course, to refrain from the use of
force and we think that this is a very serious blunder of judgment,
error of judgment and political blunder."

The UN Security Council has scheduled consultations for Friday
afternoon to discuss the situation in Georgia. It's the second time in
the past 24 hours that the Council is meeting on that topic.

This is Donn Bobb reporting for United Nations Radio.

(duration: 1'03")