Or was the allowance given to Russia to go ahead with Chavez as part of the ABM-nucleardisarmament-missiledefense deal made with Putin?
Hmmmm...
Did you see Powell's UK interview transcript? He was dealing with the OAS during the 9-11, BTW. Here's a quote:
We have new opportunities in Central Asia. The Russians in any other time or place would have gone shall we say beserk with American units running around Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakstan and similar places. Now Igor and I just talk about it on the phone every day. An amusing anecdote, a Russian soldier turned up at Bagram air base unannounced and everybody went 'Yes Pristiina again' and one phone call to Igor resolved it. 'No, no, no they are just people coming to look at the embassy to see what we can do with it. We 've got big trouble, 4,000 refugees in it'. 'Okay just tell me when the planes are coming so we can have it all cleared up.' 'Okay, thank you.' Done. No crisis.
Will Powell end up as Chamberlain?
Or was the allowance given to Russia to go ahead with Chavez as part of the ABM-nucleardisarmament-missiledefense deal made with Putin? I don't know if the timetable works out on that. Usually when things finally hit the news, the plans have been in the works for a long time. I think it is possible that Putin was holding this as an ace in the hole, because he knew Bush was going to withdraw from the treaty.