Posted on 08/21/2008 12:21:54 PM PDT by edpc
SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) - Washington demanded on Friday that Russia pull its troops out of Georgia "now," but Moscow said it would be another 10 days before the bulk of its force left Georgian soil.
In a sign of growing tension between Moscow and the West over the conflict in Georgia, a Russian news agency reported that Russia had temporarily frozen cooperation with the NATO alliance, though there was no immediate confirmation.
In some of Washington's toughest comments to date, the White House declared Russia in violation of its commitments to leave the territory of Georgia after routing Georgian forces in a war that erupted two weeks ago.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he could not imagine a circumstance in which the United States would engage in military-to-military cooperation with Moscow until the Georgia situation was resolved.
U.S. impatience has been growing by the day as it waits for a full-scale pullout of troops and weaponry that Russia sent into its small Caucasus neighbor two weeks ago to counter a Georgian attack on the Moscow-backed South Ossetia region.
A Reuters reporter saw a column of T-72 main battle tanks lumbering across the border from Russia into Georgia -- the first sign of heavy armor being withdrawn from Georgian soil -- but elsewhere Russian forces remained in place.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sabotage the tunnel and cut them off. They're obviously not leaving.
Still haven’t seen those American transports returned yet...
Say what Reuters?
I’m switching from Stoli to “Freedom Vodka”.
They won't be.
It's time to start giving the Georgians a few hundred MANPADS and several thousand JAVELIN systems.
L
Lotsa talk, not much action as I see it.
Czar Putin is laughing his ass off.
What??????
Nope. The Russians aren’t keeping their word. They intend to stay and I’ll bet they’re planning to overthrow Saakashvili.
When will the West realize that diplomacy isn’t working here?
“When will the West realize that diplomacy isn’t working here?”
Agreed, but my question would be...what’s our next move? It’s not like we can count on the UN to do anything.
The Russians can't leave just yet. The KGB hasn't planted enough bugs and organized enough agitators.
The Russian President and his Generals are liars. Period.
“Agreed, but my question would be...what’s our next move? It’s not like we can count on the UN to do anything.”
Of course not. Since Russia has veto power on the Security Council and the Chinese probably won’t be much help.....the UN is pretty much deadlocked. So, you’re right, we can’t count on them at all.
It’s in the hands of the US/EU/NATO now. If/when Russia invades Poland, the US/EU/NATO will have no choice but to get involved.
We should stop talking if we are not prepared to do anything to motivate the Russians to withdraw. Each piece of US rhetoric followed by a Russian yawn gives them a propaganda victory they can use elsewhere to weaken us.
An earlier report said that captured Georgian tanks were being moved out of Georgia.
Basically the Russians were just moving looted materials out.
There have been a couple of PC games (The Rainbow Six series comes to mind) in the past that dealt with Russia exerting force on Georgia and the U.S. sending in elite squads and CIA to thwart. Weird how art sometimes predicts life.
Right after the strongly worded letter to the NYT.
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