GORI, Georgia, Aug. 11, 2008
Bush Slams Russia Over Georgia Conflict
"Dramatic And Brutal Escalation" Jeopardizes Russia's Standing With U.S.
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Play CBS Video Video Russia Bombs Georgian Targets For the fourth day, Russian planes are bombing Georgian targets in the contested province of South Ossetia. Richard Roth reports.
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Video Russian Forces Overwhelm Georgia Russia has taken the upper-hand in the battle with Georgia over the disputed territory of South Ossetia. The conflict is spreading to Abkhazia, another contested border region. Mark Phillips reports.
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Video Will The U.S. Aid Georgia? Bob Schieffer talks with CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod about whether the U.S. will come to the aid of Georgia. Then, Schieffer talks with Gov. Tim Kaine about the ongoing "veepstakes."
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Georgian soldiers are seen atop a tank as it makes its way along a street, as a monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is seen in the background, in Gori, Georgia, Aug. 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
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An unidentified Georgian woman cries in the town of Gori, Georgia, just outside the breakaway province of South Ossetia, Aug. 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
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Russian troops ride atop armored vehicles and trucks near the village of Khurcha in Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, Aug. 10, 2008, heading toward the border of Georgia. (AP Photo/Vladimir Popov)
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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, left, is seen during a meeting with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Gorki residence outside Moscow on Aug. 9, 2008. (AP PHOTO)
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Photo Essay Georgia On The Brink Georgia attacks, Russia counters in breakaway region of South Ossetia.
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Fast Facts Republic Of Georgia Learn about the people, economy and history.
Bush put the crisis at the top of his agenda as he returned from the Olympic Games in Beijing.
In a Rose Garden statement, he said there appeared to be an attempt by Russia to unseat Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili.
He demanded an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the conflict zone and a return to the status quo as of Aug. 6.
Russia has ignored calls for a truce and has responded with overwhelming military force. It appeared Bush had little leverage to win Moscow's compliance.
Bush said the military crackdown has "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world. And these actions jeopardize Russia's relations with the United States and Europe. It is time for Russia to be true to its word and to act to end this crisis."
On Monday, Russian armored vehicles rolled deep into western Georgia, quickly taking control of several towns and a military base and slicing open a damaging second front in Russia's battle with Georgia. Other Russian forces captured the key central city of Gori.
Fighting also raged Monday around Tskhinvali, the capital of the separatist province of South Ossetia. Swarms of Russian planes launched new raids across Georgia, with at least one sending screaming civilians running for cover.
The invasions of Gori and the towns of Senaki, Zugdidi and Kurga came despite a top Russian general's claim earlier Monday that Russia had no plans to enter Georgian territory. By taking Gori, which sits on Georgia's only east-west highway, Russia has the potential to effectively cut the country in half.
Alex Rossi, of CBS News partner Sky News, told CBS' The Early Show that the city of Gori was bombed early Friday, and that some civilian locations were hit.
Rossi said fighting around the capital city of South Ossetia had largely quieted Friday and that Russian troops appeared to be fully in control of the breakaway region, leaving Georgian forces to retreat and take up defensive positions.
Security Council head Alexander Lomaia said Monday it was not immediately clear if Russian forces would try to advance on Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. Georgia sought at urgent meeting of the U.N. Security Counil in New York - the fifth meeting on the subject in as many days.
Also, the U.S. State Department said it has evacuated more than 170 U.S. citizens from Georgia as the conflict over separatist areas there intensifies between Georgia and Russia.
A spokesman said Monday that two convoys carrying about 170 private U.S. citizens along with an undetermined number of family members of American diplomats based in Georgia have left Tbilisi on their way by road to neighboring Armenia.
The two-front battlefield was a major escalation in the conflict that blew up late Thursday after a Georgian offensive to regain control of the separatist province of South Ossetia. Even as Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge Monday with EU mediators, Russia flexed its military muscle and appeared determined to subdue the small U.S. ally that has been pressing for NATO membership.
(AP/ESRI)
Russian armored personnel carriers moved into Senaki, a town 20 miles inland from Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, Lomaia said. Russian forces also moved into Zugdidi, near Abkhazia, and seized police stations, while their Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials.
In Zugdidi, an AP reporter saw five or six Russian soldiers posted outside an Interior Ministry building. Several tanks and other armored vehicles were moving through the town but the streets were nearly deserted, with shops, restaurants and banks all shut down.
Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Both provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s - and both have close ties with Moscow.
Georgia began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia late Thursday with heavy shelling and air strikes that ravaged South Ossetia's provincial capital of Tskhinvali.
"There is no question that Georgia started this conflict with an offensive against the separatists of South Ossetia because its entry to NATO required a resolution to the problem, but the disproportiate and continuing military attacks by Russia appears to have united the European Union and the U.S. in a call for the removal of Russian troops," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk.
"The fighting has now created a major refugee crisis that is spilling over to regional states," Falk added, "and a political crisis with fears that Russia is trying to overthrow the democratically-elected, pro-Western government of Georgia."
The Russia response was swift and overpowering - thousands of troops that shelled the Georgians until they fled Tskhinvali on Sunday, and four days of bombing raids across Georgia.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Add a Comment See all 676 Comments
- You just proved my point in spades.
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Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:12 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
you never even made a point for anyone to prove dear boy - Reply to this comment
- Yeah, I''''m done trying to school the kid
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:15 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
I''m sure your fellow americans made the same claims about you wrt their calims about Iraqi WMD ...........seems like you''re no different from them - you''re unwilling to accept ANY point of view but your own - Reply to this comment
- How do you twist that to mean I claim Obama is no departure from Bush?
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:07 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
So you claim Obama is a departure from Bush ?
If so explain how promising to attack Pakistan is any difference from Bush''s promise to attack Iraq ?
Explain how promising unconditional support for Israel is a departure from Chimp
Explain how supporting Israeli agressi0n against Lebanon whilst condemning Russian actions against Georgia is a departure from Bush
Explain how promising to leave troops in Iraq (ignoring any mention of Iraq insistence that US troops leave Iraq by 2010) is a departure from Bush
Explain how promising to launch attacks into Iraq against so called AQ groups ie disrespecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Iraq is any differnce from Bush or any difference from Russain action in S. Ossetia which he has condemned
Facts are that Obama is not a great departure from Bush - he is just neocon lite - Reply to this comment
- Wasting your time.
Good night Sgt.
Posted by AJMarine111 at 11:14 PM : Aug 11, 2008
Yeah, I''m done trying to school the kid.
Take care, AJ.... - Reply to this comment
- You just proved my point in spades.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:12 PM : Aug 11, 2008
Wasting your time.
Good night Sgt. - Reply to this comment
- You don''''''''t even know the definition of patiotism.
You think it means following blindly or some such rot.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:04 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
Among other things - the term patriot as used by your fellow americans involves supporting your country right or wrong
Posted by causeway_m at 11:11 PM : Aug 11, 2008
You just proved my point in spades. - Reply to this comment
- You don''''t even know the definition of patiotism.
You think it means following blindly or some such rot.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:04 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
Among other things - the term patriot as used by your fellow americans involves supporting your country right or wrong
Personally I reckon that supporting your country right or wrong and believing it can do no wrong is BS, which is why I consider being called a patriot to be absolute BS
americans consider Washington and Jefferson to be patriots ? why because they wanted freedom for themselves but considered freedom for blacks to be totally wrong
Americans call Lincoln a patriot because he supposedly freed the slaves with his Emancipation Proclomation - baloney ....that proclamation only applied to the south - he dod not proclaim emancipation in Delaware - a northern state that was a slave state
Patriotism is a fvcking joke - Reply to this comment
- Look at your post where you claimed that I was wrong to assume that neocons represent the personal ideology of all americans pointing to Obama''''s lead in the polls as some sort of example of this
Posted by causeway_m at 11:05 PM : Aug 11, 2008
How do you twist that to mean I claim Obama is no departure from Bush?
Are you drunk or what? - Reply to this comment
- You don''''t paste it because it doesn''''t exist...just like I said.
Blow it out your a$$.
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Posted by formrusmcsgt at 11:02 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
Look at your own post at 10.44 pm dear boy
Look at your post where you claimed that I was wrong to assume that neocons represent the personal ideology of all americans pointing to Obama''s lead in the polls as some sort of example of this - Reply to this comment
- Me I''''d rather be correct than be a "patriot"
Posted by causeway_m at 11:02 PM : Aug 11, 2008
You don''t even know the definition of patiotism.
You think it means following blindly or some such rot. - Reply to this comment
- So your patriotism dissapears when some come to power and reappears when others come to power does it?
You''''re an idiot.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 10:59 PM : Aug 11, 200"
No - Whether Obama or clinton or MCcain comes to power, chimpy would still claim he''s a great patriot; the idiot americans who supported the Iraq war (yes that includes such Obama supportes as Kerry, Daschle, Edwards, clinton etc) woul;d claim they''re patriots
Me I''d rather be correct than be a "patriot" - Reply to this comment
- Look for yourself dear boy
Posted by causeway_m at 10:59 PM : Aug 11, 2008
You don''t paste it because it doesn''t exist...just like I said.
Blow it out your a$$. - Reply to this comment
- I sure as hell don''''''''t want to be called patriotic when the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc claim they''''''''re patriotic
Posted by causeway_m at 10:55 PM : Aug 11, 2008
If you weren''t so dense, I''d expect that you would understand that patriotism means love of one''s country, not the administration..... - Reply to this comment
- Go ahead....or **** about it.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 10:55 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
Look for yourself dear boy
I stated facts about Obama''s bush like foreign policies and asked you how was this such a great departure from bush
Your response - "where did I claim he was a great departure from Bush"
He is either a great departure from Bush on foreign policy or he isn''t
Your own statemenst show that you''re not so sure that he is; his own ststemements and votes show that he isn''t and yet you claim that his leading in polls somehow show that america is turning away from neocon stupidity ? - Reply to this comment
- I sure as hell don''''t want to be called patriotic when the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc claim they''''re patriotic
Posted by causeway_m at 10:55 PM : Aug 11, 2008
So your patriotism dissapears when some come to power and reappears when others come to power does it?
You''re an idiot. - Reply to this comment
- I don''''t know which is actually worse.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 10:49 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
I''d far rather be called unpatriotic......as someone once said - "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
I sure as hell don''t want to be called patriotic when the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld etc claim they''re patriotic - Reply to this comment
- Look just a few posts down - you yourself admitted that great a departure from Bush
Posted by causeway_m at 10:52 PM : Aug 11, 2008
Post it.
Go ahead....or **** about it. - Reply to this comment
- My research tells me that voting for someone to head a region that you call critical to fighting a major threat like OBL when you have doubts about the guy''''s claims on Iraq is just plain STUPID
Posted by causeway_m at 10:50 PM : Aug 11, 2008
You would appear to be very young.
You see the world in absolute white and black terms.
The mark of a young mind.....
As the mind mnatures and gains experience and knoweldge, it comes to understand that not only is the world not black and white but that it is principally gray.
If Petreus'' confirmation was a slam dunk, how do you know that Obama wasn''t working a quid-pro-quo for a vote that wouldn''t change the outcome anyway?
You don''t. - Reply to this comment
- And you yourself admit that Obama is not that big a change from Bush
Posted by causeway_m at 10:48 PM : Aug 11, 2008
Show me where I''''ve stated such.
Go ahead.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 10:50 PM : Aug 11, 2008
Look just a few posts down - you yourself admitted that great a departure from Bush - Reply to this comment
- You''''ll have to ask Obama his reasons. I wasn''''t at the meeting when he made the call.
Posted by formrusmcsgt at 10:45 PM : Aug 11, 2008"
not too interested in doing that
My research tells me that voting for someone to head a region that you call critical to fighting a major threat like OBL when you have doubts about the guy''s claims on Iraq is just plain STUPID - Reply to this comment
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