[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 120 (Friday, September 20, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8967-S8970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          CONDITION IN GEORGIA

  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, despite America's preponderant role in the 
world, it is not often that foreign leaders tell us that their country 
would not exist as an independent state were it not for U.S. support. 
Yet leaders across the spectrum in the former Soviet republic of 
Georgia, including President Eduard Shevardnadze and his political 
opponents, frankly and gratefully attribute their national survival to 
unstinting American support since their independence from Soviet rule 
eleven years ago. In a troubling display of how history does not always 
move in a positive direction, Georgia's independence is once again 
under threat, with repercussions that should concern all who cherish 
freedom.
  In an opportunistic twist of President Bush's policy of pre-emption 
against clear and present dangers to America and the world, President 
Putin of Russia has appropriated American rhetoric in the war on 
terrorism to justify Russian subversion of the Georgian state. A free 
Russian hand in Georgia is apparently the price

[[Page S8968]]

President Putin believes the United States is willing to pay for 
Russia's support for military action against Iraq. President Bush and 
the Congress of the United States should disabuse our friends in Moscow 
of this illusion, immediately.
  President Putin rode to power on promises to defeat Chechen 
separatists in Russia's south. Reports indicate that members of Al 
Qaeda and other terrorist groups operate in Chechnya. Russia has a 
right and an obligation to bring these legitimate terrorists to 
justice. But rather than targeting them and their Chechen comrades in 
arms, Russian forces have conducted a military campaign of astonishing 
brutality against Chechnya's civilian population as leaders in the West 
have looked the other way.
  At the same time, Presidents Bush and Putin have brought about a 
historic change in U.S.-Russia relations that is moving our two nations 
from rivalry to strategic partnership. We in the United States welcome 
this development. But there can be no true partnership absent Russian 
commitment to the fundamental values that guide American policy in 
these areas.
  I believe President Putin has indeed made a historic decision to 
align his country with the West as Russia moves away from its imperial 
past and towards a democratic, prosperous future. Yet Russia's threat 
to Georgia, like Russia's brutality in Chechnya, calls to mind a 
discredited, imperial past whose resurgence threatens the 
transformation in U.S.-Russian relations and, in particular, our joint 
commitment to eradicating the networks of global terror that threaten 
both our peoples.
  Seized by the domestic political costs of a grinding war in Chechnya 
that Russia cannot win militarily, and calculating that President 
Bush's doctrine of pre-emption somehow applies to both a megalomaniacal 
tyrant like Saddam Hussein and a democratically oriented, pro-Western 
leader like Eduard Shevardnadze, President Putin has sent Russian jets 
to bomb targets in Georgia. Putin openly outlines his plans for a 
Russian invasion of Georgia to wipe out terrorism there. Motivated by a 
deep dislike of President Shevardnadze, whom they blame for the Soviet 
Union's disintegration and who has been targeted for assassination by 
figures linked to Moscow, and tempted by visions of Russian control 
over Russia's oil-rich Near Abroad, some Russian leaders seem to 
believe the impunity Russia has enjoyed in Chechnya would carry over to 
Russian military operations against its sovereign neighbor. They are 
wrong.
  Russia's civilian and military leadership must know that our growing, 
and welcome, strategic partnership in the war on terror does not 
sanction unilateral Russian military adventurism for purposes whose 
relation to the war on terror is incidental. Moscow, and Washington, 
and Tbilisi are right to be alarmed by continuing reports that Chechen 
militants and members of al-Qaida have taken refuge in Georgia's 
lawless Pankisi Gorge. America's proper response was to deploy American 
Special Forces teams to Georgia to train and equip Georgian security 
forces to take control of the gorge and enforce Georgian control over 
its territory.
  President Shevardnadze has announced a major Georgian military 
operation, with U.S. military advisors, to root out terrorists in 
Pankisi. International monitors are already stationed along Georgia's 
border with Chechnya, and President Shevardnadze has proposed expanding 
this monitoring force to prevent militants from finding refuge in 
Georgia in the future. Shevardnadze yesterday pledged to extradite 13 
men that Russia says are Chechen guerrillas captured by Georgian 
security officials.
  The United States and Russia, in the spirit of strategic partnership 
both countries profess, have a willing partner in President 
Shevardnadze to eliminate any terrorist presence in Georgia that Moscow 
correctly perceives to threaten its interests. But Russia has rejected 
Georgia's candid, and unprecedented, proposals to cooperate in 
eradicating terrorism. Instead, Russia seems to want to use the 
terrorist problem as a means of reasserting Russian control in Georgia, 
which already suffers the presence of three Russian military bases and 
separatist conflicts supported by Moscow.
  Some in Moscow do not understand that unilateral and preemptive 
Russian military operations in Georgia make the situation worse, not 
better. These operations threaten to turn Russia's desire to root out a 
small group of terrorists into an international crisis that threatens 
what President Putin cherishes--a robust partnership with the West that 
he has defined as Russia's future.
  It is unacceptable and immoral for any American leader to countenance 
Russia's increasingly open campaign for control of its neighbor to the 
south--which is why no American leader will do so. But pressure from 
Moscow works in insidious ways. One ``senior Administration official'' 
recently told the New York Times, ``Looking now at the new strategic 
circumstances, I think there may be some rethinking about how we handle 
the Georgian situation. I think there's a recognition the Russian 
government has a legitimate security concern.''
  The United States properly shares Russia's concern about foreign 
terrorists seeking refuge in Georgia, and can surely find a way to 
advance our mutual interest in helping Georgia end incursions by these 
people. But giving Russia carte blanche to impose its own solution--as 
it has, brutally, in Chechnya--would be a repudiation of the values we 
are fighting the war on terror to defend and the celebration of freedom 
that took place in Georgia and across the former Soviet Union when 
imperial rule crumbled.
  Strengthening the Georgian Government's capacity to control parts of 
its own country and working with American and Georgian officials to 
eliminate terrorists from Georgian territory, on terms acceptable to 
the Georgian Government, is an interest Moscow shares with Washington 
and Tbilisi. It is one we can advance together, in the spirit of 
partnership that characterizes our cooperation in the war on 
terrorism--not in the spirit of rivalry and spheres of influence that 
recall an unpleasant past.
  Leaders in Moscow must know that no nation has a greater stake in 
wiping out al-Qaida's global terror network than the United States. We 
would never countenance any Georgian actions to wink at terrorism 
within its borders; indeed, our deployment of American Special Forces 
to Georgia is a measure of the seriousness with which we take the 
threat terrorists pose to Georgia and the region. In the same way, 
President Putin and those around him must know that we cannot 
countenance unilateral Russian military action that puts Georgia's 
independence at risk. I hope President Putin will make the choice that 
befits his role as an enlightened leader of the Russian people, and 
does not cast his lot with the officers and civilians around him who 
believe Russian can assert imperial control over a sovereign neighbor 
without consequence. There will be consequences--and no friend of 
Russia or Georgia should suggest otherwise.
  (Mrs. CLINTON assumed the Chair.)
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that a Wall 
Street Journal editorial of September 16, 2002, entitled ``Putin's Iraq 
Price'' a September 19, 2002, editorial in the Washington Post, 
entitled ``A Parody Of Partnership'' and an editorial from the 
Economist magazine of September 21, 2002, entitled ``Putin's folly'' be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 16, 2002]

                           Putin's Iraq Price

       One danger of President's Bush's otherwise successful 
     overture to the United Nations on Iraq is the price the U.S. 
     will have to pay to win Security Council approval. Russian 
     President Vladimir Putin has already submitted his bill, 
     requesting a global wink at military intervention in what 
     used to be Soviet Georgia.
       Even as the U.N. was still digesting Mr. Bush's speech last 
     Friday, Mr. Putin appropriated the language of U.S. policy to 
     justify his Georgian meddling. He accuses his southern 
     neighbor of harboring Chechen rebels and others he calls 
     terrorists, and the bold Russian hopes Mr. Bush will give him 
     a pass in return for approving action against Iraq. This is 
     an offer we hope the U.S. refuses, not least so it can begin 
     better defining just what the new Bush ``pre-emption'' 
     doctrine means.
       For starters Mr. Putin's analogy is preposterous. Georgian 
     President Eduard

[[Page S8969]]

     Shevardnadze is not only not another Saddam Hussein, he is 
     one of the more enlightened leaders of the new countries that 
     were once part of the former Soviet Union. He hasn't tried to 
     acquire nuclear weapons or plotted to assassinate a U.S. 
     President, much less invaded a neighbor, gassed his own 
     people or ignored 16 U.N. resolutions.
       On the contrary, Mr. Shevardnadze's main problem is that he 
     has charted a pro-Western foreign policy that irritates some 
     of his former Soviet colleagues in Moscow. He has already 
     survived several assassination attempts, with the chief 
     suspect in one case finding safe haven in Russia. He has 
     fought a separatist war against Abkhaz rebels trained and 
     funded by Russia. Russia still has three military bases in 
     Georgia and has defied orders from the Organization for 
     Security and Cooperation in Europe to vacate its base in 
     Abkhazia and negotiate withdrawal from the others.
       Mr. Shevardnadze is understandably keen not to give his big 
     neighbor any excuse to intervene militarily. In response to 
     Russia's latest saber-rattling, he has beefed up border 
     security and invited monitors into Georgia to testify to his 
     country's anti-terror efforts. U.S. special forces are 
     already helping train and equip the Georgian military to root 
     out rebels from Chechnya, a Russian republic on its northern 
     border.
       All of which suggests the need for Mr. Bush to elaborate on 
     his pre-emption doctrine. We support this policy as necessary 
     in a world in which madmen who control countries can get 
     nuclear weapons; ``non intervention'' in the internal affairs 
     of such countries is no longer a safe strategy. But the 
     critics have a point that without some clarifying 
     distinctions, the doctrine of preventive action can be abused 
     by countries looking to settle old scores or grab new 
     territory. Drawing a line between peaceful Georgia and Iraq--
     ruled by a lunatic dictator who traffics with terrorists and 
     seeks nuclear weapons--would be a useful first step.
       On Friday U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton began to 
     take that step by saying the U.S. ``opposes any unilateral 
     military action by Russia'' inside Georgia. He added that ``I 
     don't see that there are really any quid pro quos to be had'' 
     over Iraq, ``whether with Russia or others.''
       We hope that view holds inside the Bush Administration, 
     even as Russian pressure inevitably increases. Agreeing to 
     Mr. Putin's Georgian price would be damaging to U.S. 
     interests, and isn't necessary in any case. It would set a 
     precedent for Russian action in oil-rich Central Asia, 
     emboldening Russian nationalists to meddle next in Azerbaijan 
     and elsewhere. It would also be dishonorable, abandoning a 
     man in Mr. Shevardnadze who helped bring the Cold War to a 
     peaceful end as the Soviet foreign minister under Mikhail 
     Gorbachev.
       It's doubtful that Mr. Putin will want to block U.S. action 
     against Iraq in any event. Siding with Saddam would only 
     undermine the worthy efforts he has made so far to build 
     confidence in Russia as a political and business partner of 
     the West. His over-stretched military is already bleeding in 
     Chechnya, and the last thing he needs is a ground war in 
     neighboring Georgia. Using Iraq as cover for more meddling in 
     impoverished Caucasus would only recall memories of Soviet 
     imperialism.
       Mr. Bush began to turn would opinion on Iraq last week not 
     merely because he went to the U.N. but mainly because of the 
     rightness of his cause. The U.S. can carry the day in Iraq 
     without sacrificing its principles by catering to Mr. Putin's 
     nationalist opportunism.
                                  ____


               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 19, 2002]

                        A Parody of Partnership

       Vladimir Putin, the soul-baring friend of President Bush, 
     is offering another demonstration of why the administration's 
     flighty rhetoric about the ``transformation'' of U.S.-Russian 
     relations has been premature. Mr. Putin's government is doing 
     its best to hamstring Mr. Bush's campaign against Iraq; the 
     Russian ambassador at the United Nations rushed to embrace 
     Saddam Hussein's transparently tactical acceptance of weapons 
     inspectors and declared that no further action by the 
     Security Council was needed. Meanwhile, Mr. Putin himself is 
     peddling a grotesque parody of Mr. Bush's principled stand on 
     both Iraq and Afghanistan: Last week he informed the Security 
     Council, in terms that deliberately echoed Mr. Bush, that the 
     war on terrorism may require a unilateral Russian attack on 
     the small neighboring nation of Georgia, a former republic of 
     the Soviet Union that infuriates Moscow merely by existing as 
     an independent, democratic and pro-Western state. This 
     stunningly brazen attempt to cloak an old-fashioned threat of 
     military aggression in Mr. Bush's new doctrine of preemption 
     has been accompanied by an even more cynical suggestion of 
     quid pro quo: Allow Russian to crush Georgian sovereignty, 
     Mr. Putin hints, and he just might acquiesce in the 
     enforcement of the U.N.-ordered disarmament of Iraq. Bush 
     administration officials are saying they won't play Mr. 
     Putin's game; the White House needs to make that point 
     unambiguously this week to Mr. Putin's visiting defense and 
     foreign ministers.
       The nominal basis for Mr. Putin's threat to Georgia, a 
     country the size of South Carolina with a mostly Christian 
     population of 5 million, is that it is tolerating the 
     presence of Muslim rebel fighters from the neighboring 
     Russian province of Chechnya. Mr. Putin insists that these 
     are terrorists, indistinguishable from al Qaeda, and that 
     Georgia is allowing them to operate training camps and pass 
     freely across the border. In fact the insurgents are almost 
     all ethnic Chechens fighting for self-rule who take refuge 
     during summer in the Pankisi Gorge, a wild, 11-mile-long 
     strip that has long been lawless. The Bush administration 
     contends that some al Qaeda operatives may be present in the 
     Pankisi, but evidence is scant. In any case, the Georgian 
     government clearly has no interest in backing al Qaeda 
     terrorists, or even the Chechens; it has readily accepted an 
     ongoing U.S. training programing for its army, and it 
     recently dispatched 1,000 troops to clear out the Pankisi. 
     President Eduard Shevardnadze has asked to meet with Mr. 
     Putin and invited international monitoring of the border 
     area; this week his administration agreed to extradite 13 
     suspects Russia says are Chechen guerrillas.
       These initiatives are not enough for Mr. Putin: His 
     generals say they are readying a cross-border invasion, 
     following up on airstrikes carried out last month. It's not 
     likely that Russian forces, which have failed to control 
     Chechen movements across their own border, could eliminate or 
     even locate any militants in the Pankisi. But that's not Mr. 
     Putin's real aim. His goals are to distract attention from a 
     recent series of military disasters in Chechnya--incidents 
     that have revived discussion in Russia about the futility of 
     Mr. Putin's campaign to suppress the rebellion by force--and 
     to use the leverage of Russia's U.N. Security Council vote on 
     Iraq to achieve suzerainty over Georgia, which Moscow has 
     been seeking since long before the war on terrorism. This is 
     not the behavior of a soul mate, or even a ``strategic 
     partner''; and a U.S.-Russian relationship afflicted by such 
     tactics has not been transformed.
                                  ____


                  [From the Economist, Sept. 21, 2002]

                             Putin's Folly

       Those who write speeches for Russia's president, Vladimir 
     Putin, no doubt imagine they are good students of American 
     foreign policy. They seem determined to copy, or rather 
     caricature, every new American idea. They no doubt had a 
     hand, too, in drafting the stern letter that Mr. Putin sent 
     to the United Nations, laying out his case for intervention 
     in neighbouring Georgia unless its government clears its 
     territory of a group of Chechen terrorists who have holed up 
     there.
       Like America in Iraq, his officials claim, Russia is 
     insisting on its right to take military action, alone if 
     necessary, against a nation which it deems to be in breach of 
     international law; like America in Afghanistan, Russia 
     justifies itself by recalling that failed states can be a 
     source of festering security threats. Like George Bush, Mr. 
     Putin is merely proposing to act pre-emptively, in extremis, 
     against a state that poses a deadly and increasing danger. 
     Indeed, regime change cannot be ruled out.
       A mixture of all these arguments has been used by Mr. Putin 
     and his lieutenants to justify their recent and repeated 
     threats of military action against Georgia--some air raids 
     have already taken place, say the Georgians, and Russians 
     have been hinting darkly that a land attack may follow. The 
     Georgians stand accused of posing a threat to Russian 
     security because they cannot or will not take effective 
     action against the Chechen fighters, possibly allied with 
     Islamist extremists from elsewhere, who have set up camp in 
     the remote Pankisi gorge. If you cannot solve the problem--
     and guarantee that no attacks on Russian territory will be 
     launched from Georgian territory--then we will, is the 
     Kremlin's message. The Russian media, meanwhile, have mounted 
     an escalating series of personal attacks on Georgia's 
     president, Edward Shevardnadze. The clear implication is that 
     nobody in Moscow would shed a tear if, in the turmoil caused 
     by a Russian attack, the leadership of Georgia were to change 
     hands.
       If there is not grain of truth in Russia's arguments, it 
     lies in the fact that Georgia, while not a failed state, is 
     one that has had difficulty asserting its authority in its 
     border areas. Indeed in two of its regions--Abkhazia and 
     South Ossetia--the writ of the Tbilisi government does not 
     run at all. Even in other places, it struggles to collect 
     taxes and enforce the law. This is a dangerous state of 
     affairs; where the rule of law is absent, smugglers in drugs, 
     guns and even deadlier things fill the void.


                        The mote in Russia's eye

       But there is also a huge flaw in Russia's argument. If the 
     Georgian state functions less than perfectly--in Pankisi and 
     elsewhere--that is in large part because Russia itself has 
     consistently undermined it. The restive mini-states within 
     Georgia's legal boundaries (Abkhazia, South Ossetia and, to 
     some extent, Ajaria in the south-west) defy the government 
     with the help of powerful friends in Moscow.
       By sending 150 or so military advisers to Georgia, America 
     is attempting to bolster the country's security forces. But 
     even that programme has been undermined by Georgian officers 
     with connections in Russia. If Russians are concerned about 
     the security of their southern frontier, they would do better 
     to reinforce Georgia's statehood rather than chip away at it. 
     Georgia is neither a rogue state, nor (as yet) a failed one. 
     Nor do Georgians need outsiders to orchestrate regime change 
     for them. Imitation is a form of flattery, but other should 
     not be duped into seeing parallels where none exist.

  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, all three of these editorials I have 
asked

[[Page S8970]]

to be printed in the Record talk about the danger we are now 
experiencing concerning Mr. Putin's actions, or possible actions, in 
Georgia.
  The Economist magazine editorial says:

       Russia would do better to bolster Georgia's stability, not 
     undermine it.

  It says:

       If there is one grain of truth in Russia's arguments, it 
     lies in the fact that Georgia, while not a failed state, is 
     one that has had difficulty asserting its authority in its 
     border areas. . . .
       But there is also a huge flaw in Russia's argument. If the 
     Georgian state functions less than perfectly--in Pankisi and 
     elsewhere--that is in large part because Russia itself has 
     consistently undermined it. The restive mini-states within 
     Georgia's legal boundaries . . . defy the government with the 
     help of powerful friends in Moscow. . . .
       If Russians are concerned about the security of their 
     southern frontier, they would do better to reinforce 
     Georgia's statehood rather than chip away at it. Georgia is 
     neither a rogue state, nor (as yet) a failed one. Nor do 
     Georgians need outsiders to orchestrate regime change for 
     them. Imitation is a form of flattery, but others should not 
     be duped into seeing parallels where none exist.

  In the Washington Post it goes on to say, referring to Mr. Putin:

       His goals are to distract attention from a recent series of 
     military disasters in Chechnya--incidents that have revived 
     discussion in Russia about the futility of Mr. Putin's 
     campaign to suppress the rebellion by force--and to use the 
     leverage of Russia's U.N. Security Council vote on Iraq to 
     achieve suzerainty over Georgia, which Moscow has been 
     seeking since long before the war on terrorism. This is not 
     the behavior of a soul mate, or even a ``strategic partner''; 
     and a U.S.-Russian relationship afflicted by such tactics has 
     not been transformed.

  Madam President, I thank the Presiding Officer for her patience. I do 
believe this is an important issue. I hope our Russian friends, with 
whom we have a very strong relationship, will not embark on an 
adventure which could have serious repercussions not only in the region 
but in the world.
  I thank you, Madam President, and yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DASCHLE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________