Why was Cheney's guy in Georgia before the war?

What was a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney doing in Georgia shortly before Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's troops engaged in what became a disastrous fight with South Ossetian rebels -- and then Russian troops?

Not, according to the vice president's office, what you might think -- if your thinking takes you into the realm of Cheney giving his blessing to the Georgian's military operation.

To be sure, Cheney has been a leader of the hardliners in the administration when it comes to standing up to Russia -- to the point that the man who ran the Pentagon as the Cold War came to an end during the administration of the first President Bush has been seen as ready to renew that face-off with Moscow.

It was Cheney who visited the Georgian embassy in Washington last week to sign a remembrance book as a demonstration of the administration's support.

And yes, Joseph R. Wood, Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs, was in Georgia shortly before the war began.

But, the vice president's office says, he was there as part of a team setting up the vice president's just-announced visit to Georgia. (It is common for the White House to send security, policy, communications and press aides to each site the president and vice president will visit ahead of the trip, to begin making arrangements and planning the agenda.)

The White House disclosed on Monday that Cheney would hurry over to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy next week, almost immediately after addressing the Republican National Convention on Labor Day.

And so it was that a team from the vice president's office, U.S. security officials and others were in Georgia several days before the war began.

It had nothing to do, the vice president's office said, with a military operation that some have said suggests a renewal of the Cold War.

-- James Gerstenzang

Photo of Saakashvili and Cheney in 2006. Credit: David Bohrer / The White House

Comments

Why is it that every bad thing that's going on has Dick Cheneys fingerprints all over it?

Cheney would hurry over to ?zerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy next week, almost immediately after addressing the Republican National Convention on Labor Day.
SUCH WRITING CAN ONLY BE SARCASTIC.
anyone agree?

[Bolieir]

CIA. Plame's Rose Revolution.

[Dr.SteveB]

Timeline is confusing. Was Cheney really planning to go to Georgia before the Russian invasion? Why? Why was advance team in Georgia at that time, especially when President of Georgia was actually out of the country just before Russian's attacked. Indeed Georgian president seemed surprised about his own military's attack into South Ossetia at the time, and pointed to his being out of the country as proof that it was minor and not planned.

Were Cheney's folks pushing Georgian military to attack behind Georgian president's back?

[P. Hedgie]

Who actually believes Cheney anymore?

As the story begins to unfold (or unravel) it is so obvious this Georgia crisis was a Bushie admin setup to a)benefit McCain and keep the Republicans in power b) get the Czechs and Poles to sign those missile and radar treaties they were stalling on, waiting until after the U.S. elections.

If you summarize all the suspicious ties, the visits, the shared consultants, the military preparations, etc. that preceeded the Georgian attack on Osetia August 7, the pattern is very clear.

[Tim]

My friends, this is the Cheney Administration at it's best, I got a letter from a friend in Moscow many months ago, she was upset that " your president is putting your rocket missles in Poland and the Ukraine " Only W could start the Cold War era again.

www.caringbridge.org/visit/timmullins

[Shannon]

Only problem is, it's all innuendo. No evidence given. Rather than inflicting us with this article, the LA Times could have followed up with just a little more investigation. For example, if the visit was just to prepare the way for Cheney's visit, did Wood also go to Azerbaijan, Ukraine, and Italy? Was Cheney's intended visits announced before or after Wood's visits?

Wow, the Bush admistration has turned this nation into a bunch of paranoid conspiracy freaks. It's a little odd for me, being a freak, as I'm a scientist. Then again, the facts are much like the ones gathered to support theories like evolution.

[Rick]

As an Californian whom travels to Russia and has a Russian fiancee, I find this conflict and the media spin its received rather disturbing. The Georgians launched a surprise attack on a territory full of Russian Peace Keepers that Putin has said for years Russia would defend. So how does that make Russia "the bad guy"? Because they used overwhelming force? How does that differ from "Shock and Awe"? And isn't the point of any military conflict to overwhelm your opponent? I think the Bush/Chaney warmongers are just trying to create another bogyman where one doesn't exist, to advance the profits of their two favorite industries; the oil industry (if Russia cuts the supply to Europe, today's high prices we'll be only a dream), and the military contract industry. To these guys, a new Cold War with Russia would be good for business.

[Dan Johnson]

"Who actually believes Cheney anymore?"

Answer: The LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, and the rest of the bought-off press who serve the modern equivalents of Völkischer Beobachter.

Hey James Gerstenzang, thanks for the assist on wagging the dog, but people know better.

P.S. Cheney is only following the dictations of those he serves, who won't get any mentions in sycophantic rags like the LA Times.

[Allen]

Answer: Bay of Pigs, 2008. I think the self-deluded planners of the original honestly thought it would work. In this case, I'm not sure we care what happened or happens to the Georgians, only that they are a tool to poke at Putin. Just my gut reaction.

[Mobert]

The world of George W. Bush's alternatively described "brain" and "turd blossom" Karl Rove is one of backstage deals to destabilize situations for maximum political gain. "Progressive" financier George Soros acts in much the same way in ensuring maximum profits from a program of what Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism."

Last month, the worlds of Rove and Soros met in the Ukrainian Black Sea city of Yalta, suspiciously, a few weeks before the Republic of Georgia and its neocon- and Soros-backed president, Mikheil Saakashvili, launched a night time blitzkrieg attack against South Ossetia and its Russian peacekeepers while unwitting South Ossetians and their Russian protectors were watching the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Rather then appear, pursuant to a subpoena, before the House Judiciary Committee hearing on his role in Justice Department prosecutions, including that of Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman, Rove was winging off to Yalta to speak at a conference sponsored by the YES Foundation of Ukrainian billionaire steel tycoon Victor Pinchuk, considered one of the wealthiest of the Jewish Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who amassed their fortunes after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Past participants in annual Yalta conferences have included Ukrainian neocon President Victor Yushchenko, who came to the aid of Saakashvili with military and political support after Georgia's attack on South Ossetia; International Monetary Fund President Dominique Strauss-Kahn; and, more interestingly, Georgia's Saakashvili.

The presence of Rove and Saakashvili in Yalta at a conference sponsored by a billionaire pal of George Soros, have many observers suggesting that Rove helped engineer, along with Soros, the Georgian attack on South Ossetia as a way to prop up the sagging political fortunes of GOP presidential candidate John McCain. More interesting is the fact that McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a lobbyist for Georgia who has received hundreds of thousands in fees from Saakashvili's government and has lobbied McCain on 49 occasions over an almost four year period on behalf of his Georgian client.

Pinchuk's YES Foundation and Pinchuk Foundation have worked with Soros to establish "legal clinics" in many eastern European nations that have experienced Soros-initiated themed revolutions, including those in Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus (the last two having been unsuccessful). Pinchuk is the only Ukrainian member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Crisis Group. The latter includes such anti-Vladimir Putin ideologues as Soros; Ken Adelman; Zbigniew Brzezinski, a top foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama; and imprisoned former Yukos boss and Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Pinchuk's Interpipe company is also the only eastern European company on Richard Holbrooke's Global Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS. Holbrooke was one the Democratic Party stalwarts who advocated taking a tough stand against Russia in its confrontation with Georgia. Pinchuk also supports local Jewish communities in eastern Europe and the Caucasus, including Ukraine and Georgia. Pinchuk and Soros also attended last January's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Soros spoke on a panel sponsored by Pinchuk.

[unreconstructed confederate]

Could it be that the original attack plans by the Georgians included the destruction of the Roki Tunnel? This tunnel cuts under the mountains that separate South Ossetia and North Ossetia (Russia). Had this tunnel been blocked the Russians wouldn't have been able to pour into South Ossetia as fast as they did. Could it be that American or Israeli Special Ops/mercenary troops failed in a mission to blow this tunnel up? Maybe that would explain the surprise on Saakashvili's face when he found himself in deep sh*t? The Georgian attack has Bush/Cheney/Jewish neocon written all over it. Spin by the MSM may fool most of the idiots in the US but they're not fooling the Europeans and internet saavy observers.

Interesting this happend to be so close to oil pipelines. Monopoly's on gas is what this is all about. I wonder how long it takes them to use the terrorist card to scare some people into more war.

[WashingtonHawk]

To shed some light on the Bush-Cheney regime infamous tactics during their reign, I’d like to share details from a “blueprint” generated in part by Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz in 2000.

In its "Preface", in highlighted boxes, Rebuilding America's Defenses (2000) states that it aims to:
ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for the U.S. military:
• defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”;

In relation to the Persian Gulf, citing particularly Iraq and Iran, Rebuilding America's Defenses states that "while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for U.S. military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein" and "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."
One of the core missions outlined in the 2000 report Rebuilding America's Defenses is "fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars."
The report also states:
"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor"

Robert Kagan, cofounder for the Project for a New American Century, the group which authored this pre-emptive 2000 "blueprint", stated "The genius of American power is expressed in the movie The Godfather II, where, like Hyman Roth, the United States has always made money for its partners. America has not turned countries in which it intervened into deserts; it enriched them. Even the Russians knew they could surrender after the Cold War without being subjected to occupation."

This was drafted in a report from 2000, before the 9/11 attack and the initation of the US "War on Terrorism."

And a large number of members of PNAC were appointed to the Bush administration, evidence that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion.

Cheney and his PNAC cronies - Elliott Abrams, Richard Armitage,John R. Bolton,Eliot A. Cohen, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Randy Scheunemann, Paul Wolfowitz, Dov S. Zakheim, and Robert B. Zoellick - have been baiting Americans with scare tactics for years.

And don't forget - Cheney also worked with the Nixon administration. You tell me - conspiracy? Or well-orchestrated puppet mastery -- Trust me, Cheney's hands are in the Georgia conflict as well -- its another major military stage for KBR(Halliburton), Blackwater et al to rack up millions more.

What sickens me further is, despite countless books, reports, interviews exposing the egregious abuses of power by the Bush-Cheney regime -- these traitors to the Constitution will leave office WITHOUT FACING IMPEACHMENT. That is, unless fellow citizens start hounding their Congressmen to support impeachment. Last breaking news - if 40 congressional members can reach accord - impeachment is back ON THE TABLE.

[Steve Michael]

It is absolutely amazing that the MSM continue to condemn Russia for being attacked. Historically, when the USSR dissolved in 1991, South Ossetia voted for independence from Georgia and was granted semi-autonomy in 1992, with the protection of Russian peacekeeping troops, who have been stationed there ever since. Over 80% of residents hold Russian, not Georgian, passports. Georgia launched a surprise attack during the opening ceremony of the olympics to cover their deeds (targeting hospitals, residential areas and the university). CNN and Sky News were complicit in cover up by showing scenes of Georgian damage inflicted in the South Ossetian Capital but claiming it was scenes from Gori in Georgia.

It is 100% inconceivable that a country applying for membership in NATO and in negotiations to join the EU would unilaterally launch an attack against Russia. To believe otherwise is pure folly. There is no difference now between the recognition of sovereignty of the 'breakaway' regions in Georgia by Russia and the recognition of sovereignty of Kosovo from Serbia being recognised by the West. The hypocrisy is stark and the lack of investigation and honest reporting by the press is greatly disturbing.

[WIGGINS]

I find the comments at this site very refreshing in comparison to the 'pap' served up by the UK media outets. Freedom of speech is something we are rapidly losing in my country'

[Not far from Conflict]

Although I'm not ecstatic with the idea of Kosovo's recently won independence, it's hard to blame them from wanting to seperate from the Serbians who tried to "cleanse" them from the face of the earth. The difference between the US support of Kosovo and the break away regions in Georgia is the matter of independence. Kosovo did not break away in order to become a US territory. South Ossetia and Abkhazia would secede from Georgia to become states of Russia. With that method, any group or nation could overpopulate a region, claim closer ties to their motherland, Attempt to ignore internationally recognized borders, and then claim "legitimacy" for wanting to be part of the other territory. It doesn't work like that. Do we allow Kashmir to be split between the Chinese and Pakistanis and ignore India's internationally recognized borders simply because dangerous people have decided to throw a childish tantrum? Appeasing them won't end the conflict.

[Stefan]

Anyone ever wondered how a fight between Dick Cheney and Mike Tyson would turn out?

Okay, seriously, this Georgia thing is looking a little funky to me. Theres this article which goes along the lines of this that puts forth the claim that the US and 'Rael worked together to stir up the pot in Ossetia and Georgia. Just thought Id share it with you all. By the way, the leaders of the Venezuelan coup that got hold of Chavez met with Bush officials right before that happened, too.

http://warofillusions.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/for-the-jewels-of-the-east/

[Lynn]

I suppose he was there because OUR troops were there training the Georgian troops to fight in "Iraq" so they were told. My son's duty was cut short by a week, 2 days before they started invading.

The US of course knew it was coming.

[WWrist]

--D CHENEY SHOULD BE TRIED IN U.S. COURTS FOR TREASON-- THIS MAN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEATHS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS.

[jeffgrotke]

I wonder if I try to post this comment will it be deleted too? Why is this press covering up the story of Amanda Kokoeva? She is the girl from San Francisco that was in Ossetia when Georgia invaded. She was shut down and hustled out of the studio when she tried to thank Russia for saving her from the Georgian attack. The LA Times sees no point in interviewing her either?

[jeffgrotke]

This was Bush's Bay of Pigs..The thing about Bush is his crew manages to take disasters like Iraq and make billions of dollars off the effort. So they succeed by failing. In this case no one is willing to step up and point the finger at Bush. Instead even Obama is blaming Russia and acting tough and Bush will probably push the crisis all the way to the election - as if any American cares whether Russian troops are conducting searches in Georgia, right down the street from a bronze statue of Josef Stalin. This is Russia's backyard and any troops we send there are just mercenaries working for the oil companies.