Putin Ignores World Leaders' Call To Stop Fighting In Georgia
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President Bush and other Western leaders have sharply criticized Russia's military response as disproportionate and say Russia appears to want the Georgian government overthrown. They have also complained that Russian warplanes -- buzzing over Georgia since Friday -- have bombed Georgian oil sites and factories far from the conflict zone.
The world's seven largest economic powers urged Russia to accept an immediate cease-fire Monday and agree to international mediation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations spoke by telephone and pledged their support for a negotiated solution to the conflict.
"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia," Bush told NBC Sports.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the United States for viewing Georgia as the victim, instead of the aggressor, and for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday.
"Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said in Moscow. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed 10 Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds -- these leaders must be taken under protection."
The U.S. military was flying Georgian troops back from Iraq on C-17 aircraft and had informed the Russians about the flights before they began in order to avoid mishaps, said one military official said Monday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the subject on the record.
Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Monday morning that U.S. officials expect to have all Georgian troops out of Iraq by the end of the day.
ABC publishes the sharp exchanges between Putin and the United States:
Bush, who was attending the Beijing Olympics, told NBC Sports that the Soviet offensive was unacceptable.
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advertisement"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia," Bush said. "I was very firm with Vladimir Putin." Bush said he made the same point later in a phone call to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
Vice President Dick Cheney was more blunt, telling Georgia's president that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."
Asked to explain Cheney's phrase "must not go unanswered," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "It means it must not stand." White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the attacks continue.
Putin fired back at the U.S. today, indicating he was particularly upset at the American military for flying 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq, where they were helping out their U.S. allies, back to Georgia.
"It is a shame that some of our partners are not helping us but, essentially, are hindering us," Putin said. "I mean ... the transfer by the United States of a Georgian contingent in Iraq with military transport planes practically to the conflict zone."
Putin's emotional speech said the U.S. was wrong to blame Russia for the outbreak of war.
"The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing -- the attempt to turn white into black, black into white and to adeptly portray victims of aggression as aggressors and place the responsibility for the consequences of the aggression on the victims," he said.
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First Posted: 08-11-08 01:58 PM | Updated: 09-11-08 05:12 AM