Turning a deaf ear to Russia’s complaints, the administration of US President George W. Bush is moving to rebuild Georgia’s military while asserting it will not let Russia divide Europe again.
“Georgia, like any sovereign country, should have the ability to defend itself and to deter renewed aggression,” Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
The Pentagon will send an assessment team to Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, this week to help figure out Georgia’s “legitimate needs” as a way of showing US support for the country’s security, Edelman said.
PHOTO: AFP
At the UN, Russia moved to block the US effort.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin circulated a draft resolution to the Security Council that would impose a UN arms embargo on Georgia, preventing the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of arms to the former Soviet republic.
The White House last week announced a US$1 billion program of economic aid, with about half going to Georgia before Bush leaves office and the remainder for the next administration to deliver.
Administration officials told the committee that any separate military buildup would be undertaken carefully and have in mind Georgia’s support for coalition efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan and its counterterror campaign against Chechen extremists.
Russia adamantly opposes US military aid to Georgia. The proposed Russian resolution is certain to encounter US opposition.
The US and Russia are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council.
In their Senate testimony on Tuesday, Edelman and Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried made clear that while Georgia is a valued ally of Washington, US officials had urged Georgians to avoid a military confrontation with Russia.
“We pointed out that use of military force, even in the face of provocations, would lead to a disaster,” Fried said. “We were blunt in conveying these points, not subtle.”
A five-day war broke out last month, when Russia seized on a surprise military operation by the Georgian army in the rebellious South Ossetia region to forcibly reassert its authority.
Russia sent armor and troops throughout much of Georgia and badly damaged the small country’s already minimal military capability. In the onslaught, Russian forces destroyed a sizable part of Georgia’s arsenal, US and Georgian officials have claimed.
“We must support Georgia,” Fried said in outlining administration policy.
The second key objective, he said, was “to prevent Russia from drawing a line down the center of Europe and declaring that nations on the wrong side of that line belong to Moscow’s ‘sphere of influence’ and therefore cannot join the great institutions of Europe and the trans-Atlantic family.”
Russia has been angered by Georgia’s efforts to join NATO.
Fried said he planned to go to Ukraine yesterday to look into complaints by Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko that Russia was handing out passports to thousands of Russian Ukrainians in the Crimea peninsula to make them Russian citizens.
“Unfortunately, there is some basis” for Ukraine’s concern, Fried said.
The US has begun punishing Russia over Georgia.
In a mostly symbolic move, Bush this week canceled a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that carried the symbolic message of cooperation between the two old adversaries.
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