If Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia took Washington by surprise, as some
reports have it, then American intelligence is in far worse shape than we've even imagined.
If the Pentagon and CIA were also caught flat-footed by Russia's response, as the McClatchy Newspapers' crack Washington bureau is
reporting, then we have to ask: Why are we spending $55 bllion a year on intelligence? What are we getting out of it?
"I wouldn't say we were blind," a State Department official told McClatchy's Jonathan Landay on Monday.
"I would say that we mostly were focused elsewhere, unlike during the Cold War, when we'd see a single Soviet armor battalion move. So, yes, the size and scope of the Russian move has come as something of a surprise."
A "surprise." My, oh, my.
Except I don't believe it.
As easy as it is to believe that the CIA, etc., blew another huge event, I find it impossible to accept that not one of the 127 Pentagon advisors in Georgia, including Special Forces and intelligence contractors, were clueless about Tblisi's intent -- and preparations -- to move into South Ossetia.
That just doesn't pass the laugh test.On July 15, for starters, amid rising tension between Moscow and Tblisi over South Ossetia, some 1,200 U.S. troops launched a
three-week long joint military exercise with Georgian troops.
Three weeks later, on the night of Aug. 7, "coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgian President Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia."
It is simply inconceivable that the Pentagon wasn't wired to the helmets of Georgian troops, despite the denials of U.S. military officials.
A few days ago a Pentagon spokesman uttered a careful denial. (Note the qualifiers.)
"They are not involved in any way in this conflict between the Russian military and the Georgian military," Lieutenant Colonel John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US European Command, told Agence France Press.
"We have upwards of 100 military trainers who are in Georgia now. We've been able to account for all of them," he told AFP.
And they'll stay there, according to the Pentagon, even with Russian tanks rolling deep into Georgia.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said there were no plans to redeploy the estimated 130 US troops and civilian contractors, who he said were stationed in the area around Tblisi.
The US Defense Department has been in contact with Georgian officials over the situation, but the Georgians have made no requests for assistance, Whitman said.
[At a Moscow press conference at 5:00 Eastern Daylight Time, Russia's
deputy chief of General Staff General Anatoly Nogovitsyn said U.S.
advisors had been withdrawn.]
Israeli advisors have also been embedded in Georgian units, according to
reports that could not be verified.
The U.S. Defense Department has been helping Georgia retool its military and intelligence forces since shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Tblisi tooks its first baby steps toward democracy.
As early as 1993, I
reported here last year, CIA Director R. James Woolsey was conferring with his Georgian counterparts about joining a planned Black Sea Basin Intelligence Consortium, designed to lash the spy services of other former Soviet republics into a pro-U.S. spy network.
Delta Force operatives were active in the Pankisi Gorge, adjacent to Chechnya, which was in full rebellion against Moscow. Other highly classified U.S. intelligence programs were under way there.
In 1998, the Defense Department and Tblisi signed a U.S.-Georgia Defense Cooperation Plan in an
elaborate Pentagon ceremony featuring Minister of Defense Gen. Lt. Vardiko Nadibaidze.
Intelligence cooperation quickened after the 9/11 attacks, supposedly only to track Islamic militants in the region, as well as to monitor the heroin traffic surging out of Afghanistan.
Thousands of American advisors, not to mention Western oil executives, passed through Tblisi over the past decade.
During a visit, President Bush said he wanted to bring Georgia into NATO.
With all this attention, the Georgians can be excused for losing their heads.
But what about us?
Conservatives have been ecstatic as the Bush administration pushed the Russians around in Eastern Europe, culminating with plans for a "missile shield" in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Did some in the Pentagon encourage the Georgians to tweak Putin's nose -- or more -- in South Ossetia? Were U.S. advisors told to hold the Georgians' coats as they stormed over the border?
There are many unanswered questions about the clash in the
Caucasus.
If so, the Georgians are about to learn what the freedom-minded Hungarians, in 1956, and the freedom-loving Czechs, in 1968, learned the hard way: When the Russian tanks roll in, the party's over. You're on your own.
You'd think one of our spooks could have told them that.
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Comments
What a mess. Who has the job of collating all the difference stories in order to make decisions that will hav e to be made? I don't think anybody at the White House is capable of making wise decisions on this. Are we just making more enemies for ourselves?
Posted by: bethyboo
| August 13, 2008 12:44 AM
A better question:
Who is in charge of collecting and coordinating all the CYA excuses coming out of the "intelligence" community?
I don't know why anyone would expect this bunch of pencil-neck losers to improve since 9/11.
Posted by: graywolf
| August 14, 2008 11:58 PM
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