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US concedes Kremlin’s first military response in Georgia was “legitimate”

DEBKAfile Special Report

August 22, 2008, 5:15 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Ambassador John Beyrle in Moscow

The US ambassador to Moscow, endorsing Russia's initial moves in Georgia, described the Kremlin's first military response as legitimate after Russian troops came under attack.

This was the first positive statement by an American official about Moscow’s first response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, after a string of condemnations from the heads of the Bush administration. It came from US ambassador John Beyrle, who arrived in Moscow last month, in an interview published by the Russian daily Kommersant Friday, Aug. 22.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly disclosed Friday in its lead article that Washington and Moscow are working quietly and intensively to set up a summit between President George W. Bush and Russian prime minister Vladimir Put to bring crisis-ridden US-Russian relations back on an even keel. (Both Powers Push for a Bush-Putin Summit.)

Ambassador Beyrle’s words were the first public departure by a US official from the critical remarks of Moscow’s conduct heard uniformly from Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates.

The ambassador said Washington had not sanctioned Georgia’s initial actions when on Aug. 8, after a succession of tense skirmishes, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, triggering a massive Russian reaction when its peacekeepers came under fire.

“We did not want to see a recourse to violence and force and we made that very, very clear,” said Beyrle. “The fact that we were trying to convince the Georgian side not to take this step is clear evidence that we did not want all this to happen,” he said.

DEBKAfile: This was the first US admission that Georgia was the aggressor in South Ossetia and showed cracks in their hitherto solid support for president Mikhail Saakashvili.

Beyrle said Washington still supports Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization – an official departure from implied American threats to punish Moscow by international isolation.

The US ambassador’s interview was run in the same Russian paper which quoted Syrian president Bashar Assad on Wednesday, as announcing he was willing to accept Russian missile bases in his country. Beyrle’s words look like a bid to halt the deterioration in Russo-American relations before they veer out of control in a second global arena.

In another telling remark, the US ambassador said: “We have seen the destruction of civilian infrastructure, as well as calls by some Russian politicians to change the democratically-elected government of Georgia. That is why we believe that Russia has gone too far.”

The subtext here, say DEBKAfile’s sources, is that if Moscow continues to pull troops out of Georgia and does not threaten the country’s integrity and regime, Russian and US leaders can do business.

DEBKAfile reported Wednesday, Aug. 20: Back-door US-Russian contacts to de-escalate war of words - after Moscow threatens to nuke Poland

Both powers have begun acting to cool the rhetoric and review relations, after spokesmen in Washington - and especially Moscow - raised the threat level of their oratory to its highest pitch since the Cold War’s end.

Back-door US-Russian contacts to de-escalate war of words - after Moscow threatens to nuke Poland

DEBKAfile Special Report and Analysis

August 20, 2008, 9:35 AM (GMT+02:00)

Russia's Dep. Chief of Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn raises the tone of threats

DEBKAfile reports that both powers have begun acting to cool the rhetoric and review relations, after spokesmen in Washington - and especially Moscow - raised the threat level of their oratory to its highest pitch since the Cold War’s end.

The coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly, out Friday, will elaborate on this effort.

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Friday night, Aug. 15, Russia’s deputy chief of staff Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned Poland it was “exposing itself to a strike 100 percent.”

He said any new US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack. At the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev dismissed the claim that the US missile interceptors in Poland were a deterrent against rogue states like Iran as “a fairy tale,” insisting they were aimed against Russia. President George W. Bush said "The Cold War is over… Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."

He said Russia’s invasion of Georgia had damaged its credibility and the US stands with the people of Georgia and called for the withdrawal of “invading forces from all Georgian territory.”

DEBKAfile’s political sources report that, as in most cases when international tensions and violence reach dangerous levels, the big powers have instituted secret diplomacy to cool the situation before it gets out of hand in order to formulate new modes of conduct and relations.

This process began with Rice’s visit to France and Tbilsi.

In five hours of arm-twisting, she persuaded Saakashvili to accept clarifications to the ceasefire accord which contradict Washington’s spirited assurances for Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”

Russian troops allowed to remain in Georgia would be “very limited to a light patrolling ability, such as a few kilometers outside of South Ossetia.”

Furthermore, “Russian peacekeepers” would be allowed to “implement additional security measures” until international security can be put in place.

This clause authorizes on behalf of the US and Europe the narrow security strips, which DEBKAfile’s military sources revealed two days ago the Russians are establishing 300-500 meters deep outside the South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders with Georgia.

This American concession was designed as initial impetus for quiet diplomacy with Russia on a settlement in Georgia.

The other concession, which will unfold in time, is the removal of the Georgian president, another of Moscow’s conditions for ending the crisis. While Bush declared the Cold War is over, Saakashvili heaped verbal coals on the standoff with Russia to keep it ablaze.