[ deanlebaron home | video archive ]

Advice to GWB from a Russian friend, VP 

[ Copernic Summary of article from NY Times, 06 October 2003 ]

Concepts: Russia, Putin, Iraq, United States, American, Bush, country, European, President, Chechnya, democracy, suggesting, militants, criticism, nations.

Summary: MOSCOW, Monday, Oct. 6 --- President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says the United States now faces in Iraq the possibility of a prolonged, violent and ultimately futile war like the one that mired the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

He added, without naming them, that "a great number of members of different terrorist organizations" have been drawn into the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

To respond to this emerging threat, he said, the Bush administration must move quickly to restore sovereignty to Iraqis and to secure a new United Nations resolution that would clearly define how long international forces remain there.

Mr. Putin said for the first time that Russia was prepared to offer partial relief on the $8 billion it is owed by Iraq, but only in coordination with other major creditor nations in the Paris Club.

The United States has been struggling to persuade its European allies to make significant contributions to the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of Iraq.

During an interview that lasted nearly three hours and ranged from Iraq to Russia's economic development to the state of democracy here, Mr. Putin repeatedly characterized Russia's relations with the United States, and his own with President Bush, as close and frank --- those of a partner, even, at times, an ally.

Those militants, he suggested, may now find themselves at ease in Iraq, as they once were among the Afghans, and the "danger exists" of a decade-long struggle like the one fought by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's.

His growing understanding of English was on display in the not infrequent correction of an interpreter on his use of particular words.

As he did during his recent trip to the United States, he seemed eager to present a softer, more congenial image --- perhaps in response to a flurry of advertisements, protests and newspaper columns suggesting that he was an autocrat bent on reversing Russia's democracy.

Repeatedly, Mr. Putin used American analogies to drive home his points.

Why, he asked, was his wide use of the Russian security services any different from the creation of the Department of Homeland Security?

Why should terrorism in Chechnya provoke any lesser response here than America's if the same problems arose in Texas?

Turning to Iran, Mr. Putin said Russia had sought to address American concerns about its aid in the construction of a civilian nuclear reactor in Iran by insisting that Iran return any spent nuclear fuel --- a demand not yet ironed out in talks with Iran.

He made it clear that Russia reserved the right to complete Iran's reactor at Bushehr.

But he also reiterated his call for Iranian leaders to accept expanded international inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities, saying they had no reason to object if they had nothing to hide.

On the conflict in Chechnya, an open sore in Russia's standing in the world, Mr. Putin portrayed the presidential election being held on Sunday as an important step toward a political settlement to end four years of conflict --- not unlike, he said, what was needed in Iraq.

Mr. Putin dismissed the criticism and bemoaned what he called an American double standard in which Islamic fighters in Chechnya were called democrats, while those in Afghanistan and Iraq were viewed as criminals.

Summarized by Copernic Summarizer