Bush Slams Russia's Invasion Of Georgia

(CBS/AP)  Russian tanks roared deep into Georgia on Monday, launching a new western front in the conflict, and Russian planes staged air raids that sent people screaming and fleeing for cover in some towns.

The escalating warfare brought sharp words from President Bush, who pressed Moscow to accept an immediate cease-fire and pull its troops out to avert a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence in the former Soviet republic.

Touring battle damage on Monday, Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili said he heard a Russian jet and feared he might be its target, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth. Bodyguards bundled him away. His people don't have that protection.

"We are basically seeing the cold-blooded, preplanned, premeditated murder of a small country," said Saakashvili.

There's a moral duty for the world to respond to the invasion Georgia, he said. But, as Roth reports, diplomacy is the only weapon the West is using.

"We strongly condemn the bombing outside South Ossetia," President Bush said in a Rose Garden speech Monday afternoon.

What's troubling about this war, fought in a relatively unknown region, is that none of the suffering here is about the enclave of Ossetia, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. This war is all about Russia and the message Russia's sending to the world. This is Putin's announcement that Russia is back as a great power.

Vladimir Putin, Russia's former President and current Prime Minister, has been planning this attack on Georgia for years, reports Andrews.

"We have to understand, these Russian troops didn't materialize out of nowhere," said political analyst Robert Kagen. "This is the culmination of Putin's efforts to pull Georgia back within Russia's sphere and exert control over it."

Russian forces for the first time moved well outside the two restive, pro-Russian provinces claimed by Georgia that lie at the heart of the dispute. An Associated Press reporter saw Russian troops in control of government buildings in this town, just miles from the frontier and Russian troops were reported in nearby Senaki.

"The advance casts doubts on Russia's claim that this five-day war is just a peacekeeping operation," said CBS News reporter Beth Knobel.

Georgia's president said his country had been sliced in half with the capture of a critical highway crossroads near the central city of Gori, and Russian warplanes launched new air raids across the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry, through news agencies, denied it had captured Gori and also denied any intentions to advance on the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.

The western assault expanded the days-old war beyond the central breakaway region of South Ossetia, where a crackdown by Georgia last week drew the initial military response from Russia.

"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 disproportionate and continuing military attacks by Russia appear 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, and a political crisis with fears that Russia is trying to overthrow the democratically elected, pro-Western government of Georgia," added Falk.

While most Georgian forces were still busy fighting around South Ossetia, in the country's east, Russian troops opened the western attack by invading from a second separatist province, Abkhazia, which occupies Georgia's coastal northwest arm.

Russian forces moved into Senaki, 20 miles inland from the Black Sea, and seized police stations in Zugdidi, just outside the southern fringe of Abkhazia. Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials.

By late Monday, Russian news agencies, citing the Defense Ministry, said troops had left Senaki, 20 miles inland from the Black Sea port of Poti, "after liquidating the danger," but did not give details.

The new assault came despite a claim earlier in the day by a top Russian general that Russia had no plans to enter undisputed Georgian territory.

In related developments:

Knobel reported a group of pro-Georgian European presidents were headed for Tbilisi Tuesday to lend their support in the standoff with Russia. The head of Georgia's security council told the Interfax news agency that Poland's Lech Kaczynski, Lithuania's Valdas Adamkus, Ukraine's Viktor Yushenko and Estonian President Toomas Hendrick Ilves would go to suppport Saakashvili.

In talking points on the conflict obtained by The Associated Press, the Bush administration claims it had no specific advance warning that Georgia would try to retake control of South Ossetia.

Vasil Sikharulidze, Georgia's ambassador to the United States, said his government has made no specific requests for U.S. military help beyond assistance bringing Georgian troops home from Iraq to help in the fighting.

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro weighed in Monday evening on the side of Russia in its conflict with Georgia. In an editorial posted on the official government Web site, Castro insisted that Georgia would never have dared to send troops into the breakaway republic without backing from the U.S. He described Georgian President Saakashvili as an "adventurer" and an "opportunistic, ambitious and Westernized Georgian." Castro accused him of deliberately "invading" South Ossetia while the world was focused on the opening of the Olympic Games.

(AP Photo/Shakh Aivazov)

Saakashvili, seen at left, told a national security meeting that Russia had also taken central Gori, which is on Georgia's only east-west highway, cutting off the eastern half of the nation from the western Black Sea coast.

But the news agency Interfax cited a Russian Defense Ministry official as denying Gori was captured. Attempts to reach Gori residents by telephone late Monday did not go through.

Russia's massive and multi-pronged offensive has drawn wide criticism from the West, but Russia has rejected calls for a cease-fire and said it was acting to protect its citizens. Most residents of the separatist regions have Russian passports.

Both provinces, 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.

The Georgian president said Russia had sent 20,000 troops and 500 tanks into Georgia. He said Russian warplanes were bombing roads and bridges, destroying radar systems and targeting Tbilisi's civilian airport. One Russian bombing raid struck the Tbilisi airport area only a half-hour before EU envoys arrived, he said.

At least 9,000 Russian troops and 350 armored vehicles were in Abkhazia, according to a Russian military commander.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people have been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed, but refugees who fled Tskhinvali over the weekend said hundreds had been killed.

Many found shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors. "The Georgians say it is their land. Where is our land, then?"

[prophetjohn]

Please, Please, Please, somebody get President Bush to just hold his peace for F-I-V-E more months. He and his administration has already messed the world up enough. They have no idea of global foreign policy. If we can just make it to January 2009, there may be some hope for our country and the world.

[babooph]

The idiot tells Israel to attack Lebanon-with US money ,US space pix,armor ,6to1 manpower edge-THEY LOSE!!The idiot & the propaganda system claims a WIN!!Now Georgia attacks Russia,thinking Bush will be true & help HA HA ANOTHER LOSS!!When will they all see he is an idiot loser!!

[nincomp]

We must save freedom now at any cost Or someday our own freedom will be lost

Posted by drivehard1 at 01:47 AM : Aug 13, 2008

+

Problem is you don''t have leg to stand on, since your own country set the example by occupying Iraq.

[babooph]

The idiot castrates himself & his nation then tries to be macho !

[martel_v]

As I said, there are no fascists here. You are ignorant of the words meaning.

In your hate sick mind with it''s twisted projections you have created straw men that do not exist except in those twisted mental abysses. - Posted by Latrocinor

Okay, you''re amusing; but an amusing propagandist is still a propagandist.

Apparently, you don''t have a grasp of the language. Use a dictionary. America IS - under the neocon repugnants - a fascist nation. Not only is it classically fascist, but its economic theories are fascist (socialism for the rich).

IF - and it''s a HUGE ''if'' - it is possible to have a fair election here any longer (an election not determined by fraudulent manipulation of electronic vote totals), the next administration and Congress will, hopefully, eliminate most of the fascist policies instituted over the last 25 years by the Repugnant Party.

[martel_v]

Russia provoked this war. Russia brought their tanks down to the border before it even happened. - Posted by drivehard1

Obviously, the Russians weren''t too concerned about Georgia launching a military offensive on the territories which weren''t a part of Georgia (because the people there didn''t want to be a part of Georgia, even if Georgia insisted that they should be). They assumed that Georgia wouldn''t actually do anything stupid but, if they did, they knew that it was an opportunity for Russia because there was no way that Georgia could defend itself against Russia''s military.

Sure, there were Russian tanks in the area. Any nation presented with the same situation would be foolish to do otherwise. However, it''s obvious that the Russians moved MOST of the men and equipment they are using into the area AFTER the Georgian military invaded. This whole issue was provoked entirely by the stupidity of the Georgian leadership (and, apparently, by much of the Georgian population).

If there had been any REAL legitimacy for what Georgia did, it wouldn''t have been necessary to accomplish their purpose with military force...and the use of military force was monumentally stupid unless they had an assurance from Russia that the Russian military would do nothing in reply.

Neither Georgia nor Russia is without blame in this episode. However, Russia did NOT start this war.

[martel_v]

don''t expect too many here to know what your refering to as this entire site is swarming with rabid Bush haters who complain that all the ills of the world are caused by him including the Spanish-American War and the Bubonic Plague - Posted by earth56

Apparently you''ve grasped the concept of the ''straw man''. How very Repugnantcon of you. Would you like to actually use your brain instead of employing propaganda techniques?

As for Georgia, if Czechoslovakia had invaded a territory which had seceded from it when it was formed because the Germans there preferred to be a part of Germany instead, would the German invasion have been illegitimate?

Never mind who would have ordered the German invasion, it would NOT have been illegitimate. Entirely and unnecessarily militarily agressive, yes. Immoral, probably. But not illegitimate. And this is exactly what Russia has done. So, yeah, let''s rattle the sabers and launch the nukes.

[martel_v]

Our President should exercise some ''class''...and keep his mouth shut...on this one. - Posted by guadalcanal3



LOL...well, we all know that''s impossible. ''Class'' is something he thinks he inherited, not something he''s ever thought he had to achieve.

[martel_v]

If russia will not stop SOON .I will be on my way there to help Georgia
with in 30 days or less I WILL NOT LET AMERICA''''S FRIENDS DIE ALONE this
american will die with AMERICA''''S FRIENDS THE GEORGEIANS.
We must save freedom now at any cost Or someday our own freedom will be lost - Posted by drivehard1

Buy a clue. Georgia is NOT some kind of bastion of democracy. Neither is Georgia a ''friend'' of the U.S. They have a democratic process which is somewhat different, but no better, than that of Russia. And they are America''s ''friend'' because they want a powerful ally against Russia so that they can invade the territories which refused to become part of Georgia when Georgia seceded from the Soviet Union - territories populated mostly by people who would rather be in Russia than be a part of Georgia.

So Georgia finally invaded one of those territories assuming that the Olympics would cause Putin to ignore what they were doing. Putin, who clearly wants to put the old Soviet Union back together, wasn''t in any mood to ignore it. Georgia''s military action was an opportunity for him, and he took it...just as Bush has done throughout his presidency. He simply followed the ''Bush doctrine'' and did what America would have done in the same situation.

[martel_v]

Bush has no room to talk. His administration invaded a sovereign country, Iraq. For what? Oil. Guess why Russia went after Georgia? Remember they are both using false pretenses to gain control over what they deem important.

The Bush administration set a very dangerous precedent when they invaded Iraq. Now other countries think its okay to do as well. - Posted by mitch6544

It was hysterical (as well as hypocritical, of course) when Bush said that it was wrong to invade a ''sovereign'' nation.

Everything he''s done in his approach to the rest of the world has been idiotic, because his words and actions have encouraged OTHER rogue regimes to behave idiotically. He and his cronies have no understanding at all of anything outside of the U.S. (and almost no understanding at all of anything INSIDE the U.S. for that matter).

This is what happens when people vote for the idiot they''d like to get drunk with.