Posted on 08/28/2005 3:51:46 PM PDT by wagglebee
A plane carrying two U.S. senators was detained for several hours Sunday while trying to leave Russia, before being permitted to leave the country for Ukraine, according to spokesmen for the lawmakers.
Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., who had been visiting storage sites for weapons of mass destruction, were held at an airport in the Ural Mountain city of Perm for several hours but were allowed to leave after talks between U.S. and Russian officials.
"I am in Ukraine with Sen. Lugar," Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Lugar's spokesman, Andy Fisher, said in a message sent from a personal messaging device Sunday afternoon.
He said Russian officials refused to let the plane take off for three hours and insisted on boarding it. "They did not. The border patrol finally got orders to let us go," Fisher said.
"We were treated just fine," he said.
A spokesman for Obama also confirmed the plane's arrival in Ukraine.
The senators and their aides spent three days in Russia visiting sites where warheads are stored before destruction under the U.S.-funded Comprehensive Threat Reduction program.
The spokesmen did not have information on the nature of the dispute that resulted in the senators' being held. Telephone calls to the Russian border guard service and Foreign Ministry were not answered Sunday evening.
No need to stutter!
lol...
Seriously, chill and let the Mod's do their job.
Get a life.
I was hoping the the Lifeguard was one of them.
I should have known better he drinks scotch not vodka.
Did somebody miss their fiber this morning?
Chill out before you stroke out.
Not to worry the ruskies are our friends, they need our bucks to keep on buidling their underground bunkers that hold thousands of higer up commies who will be safe when the sh!t hits the fan.
Niether of those two senators are worth a damn and without question, the US would be a much happier place without them...probably the exact reason the russkies let em go.
As though they'd know what a weapon storage site was supposed to look like if it jumped up and bit them.
Another congressional boondoggle.
They probably would not have stopped Lugar if he hadn't been accompanied by a black guy!/off sarcasm
They should've kept them both.
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