Mijail Saakashvili's Blunder

With the Russian president on a cruise to El Volga, the world’s attention concentrated on the Beijing games, and Vladimir Putin attending his inauguration, Washington calculated that the Georgian president, Mijail Saakashvili, would be able to resolve the issue of Southern Ossetia in twenty four hours and make it irreversible. Russian diplomacy is convinced that the Georgian army’s attack on Southern Ossetia had the blessing of President George W Bush, Russian sources in Beijing report.

In July, the United States, Georgia, and the Ukraine conducted military maneuvers in Georgian territory. For almost three years Georgia was modernizing its army by the hand of the United States that has one hundred and twenty nine “military advisors” in Georgia. Georgia maintains an “enormous increase” in military spending. “More than one billion dollars” have been spent on defense buying arms from Ukraine, Turkey, Israel, and the U.S., including American made missiles. “We knew that Georgia was prepared for a long time for military actions, but the one on the eighth was totally unexpected”, signaled Russian sources. “It was an operation with the consent of the United States and that’s how we interpret it”, they say. “Saakashvili promised Bush a rapid and short, successful military operation.” The superiority of the Georgian troops was twelve to one, but they lacked experience and the Ossetians presented a strong resistance. The attack began the night of August seventh with artillery shots and aviation mission rounds. Ten villages surrounding the capital Tsinjvali with Ossetian populations were “devastated” and the capital destroyed. The result, according to Moscow, is two thousand dead and more than thirty thousand refugees.