Why was Cheney's guy in Georgia before the war?

[sabra]

Source: LA Times

What was a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney doing in Georgia shortly before Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's troops engaged in what became a disastrous fight with South Ossetian rebels -- and then Russian troops?

...

And yes, Joseph R. Wood, Cheney's deputy assistant for national security affairs, was in Georgia shortly before the war began.

But, the vice president's office says, he was there as part of a team setting up the vice president's just-announced visit to Georgia. (It is common for the White House to send security, policy, communications and press aides to each site the president and vice president will visit ahead of the trip, to begin making arrangements and planning the agenda.)

The White House disclosed on Monday that Cheney would hurry over to Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine and Italy next week, almost immediately after addressing the Republican National Convention on Labor Day.

And so it was that a team from the vice president's office, U.S. security officials and others were in Georgia several days before the war began.

It had nothing to do, the vice president's office said, with a military operation that some have said suggests a renewal of the Cold War.

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/08/georgia-war.html

[LisaM]

1. Why was Giuliani in London when they had a terrorist attack?

Frighteningly, the answers are probably similar.

[PassingFair]

2. He was giving Saakasvili a green light.

And extra neckties.

[Robbien]

3. Why did the WH announce this was a hurried up trip if advance men

were there almost a month ago.

Not buying Cheney's flimsy excuse.

[TacticalPeek]

4. Why did the tail wag the dog?

Follow the money.

[Politicalboi]

5. Why was FEMA already

In New York 09/10/01? Maybe they can predict the future.

[Larry Ogg]

9. I’m sure God told Gorge about 911 prior to 911

So that s why he sent FEMA to New York the day before, so they could set up the presidential closed circuit video TV cameras, so as Gorge could watch the first plan hit - live on his limo TV in Florida, prior to his reading my pet goat too all of the little kiddy’s future canon fodder…

[Infinite Hope]

19. I never heard that before. Do you have a source? n/t

[katty]

6. WH said Cheney-darth himself is going there next week

i'm sure to stir up more trouble.

[Demeter]

14. If the Russians Had Any Mercy, They'd Arrest Cheney and Charge Him With War Crimes Against Humanity

but they figure he does much more damage to US interests running around loose.

[katty]

16. gawd that would be sweet! arrested in Russia!

[OnyxCollie]

7. While Karl Rove was ignoring a subpeona,

he was at the Yalta European Strategy meeting with Mikhail Saakashvili.

Rove refuses subpoena, leaves country
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Rove_disses_Congres_refuses_subpoena_to_0710.html

YALTA EUROPEAN STRATEGY (YES)

5th YALTA ANNUAL MEETING
Yalta, Ukraine, 10 – 13 July 2008

http://www.yes-ukraine.org/en/programyes5.html

Saturday, July 12, Yalta

09:30 – 11:00 – Plenary session: Elections in Russia and the USA: impact on Ukraine and Europe
What will be the foreign policy of the new Russian and American leadership over the coming years? How will it impact their relationship with the European Union and Ukraine, and EU’s further enlargement?

Moderator: Richard Haass
Panel:
Sergey Glaziev, Director, Institute for New Economy, member of the 1st, 3rd and 4th Russian State Duma
Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ambassador to the Russian Federation and First Deputy Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
Alexander Rahr, Programme Director, German Council on Foreign Relations, member of the Board of YES
Karl Rove, Former Deputy Chief of Staff to George W. Bush and Chief Strategist for Bush's Presidential Campaigns
Bob Shrum, political consultant and Senior Fellow, Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University

11:00 – 11:30 – coffee break

11:30 – 13:00 – Plenary session: Building Democracy and Market Economy in the Black Sea Region
What are the lessons to be learnt from the transitions in the Black Sea Region? How can they inspire their neighboring countries and Ukraine? What is the room for regional cooperation? What should be the EU policy?

Moderator: Richard Haass
Keynote speaker: Mikhail Saakashvili, President of Georgia
Panel:
Raissa Bohatyreva, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine
Valery Chalyi, Director for International Programmes, Ukrainian Center for Economic and
Political Studies (Razumkov Center)
Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005), Member of the Board of YES
Arseniy Yatseniuk, Speaker of Parliament of Ukraine

[dothemath]

10. poor Cheney

Off-topic. Get used to it.

The most hated man in the current misAdministration is about to lose his title.

If McCain chooses Lieberman to run for VP, Lieberman will replace Cheney as the most hated man in the current misAdministration. And deservedly so.

And to Joe: have you forgotten you don't have a POW card to play every time you fuck up, like during the coming VP debate with Biden?

Dementia, senility, senior moment - thy name is Lieberman.

[laststeamtrain]

8. I believe there is a simple answer to this question. Dick Cheney is a demented war profiteer. n/t

[Satyagrahi]

11. Strange, prophetic e-mail sent to "Joseph R. Wood"

I googled "Joseph R. Wood" and "Georgia" and found this strange and at the same very prophetic e-mail posted on a Russian (?) blog on August 11, 2008:

"Joseph R. Wood" <[email protected]>;
Dear Joe:

Am still in Tbilisi. No dount you are totally informed on the situation. However, some observations and suggestions.

- The destruction of Georgia's military capacity will be ttoal by the time this is over and Moscow will not stop until it has achieved this. While Moscow prevaricates on ceasefires, it is changing the reality on the ground.
- It is very likely that they may then move to attack some parts of civil infrastructure.
- Very unlikely that they will withdraw from the two territories for some time and the push on Zugdidi and Gori are about creating negotiable buffer zones.
- End game is regime change - preferably now, but will live with longer term asphyxiation.

How to resist?

a. Make sure that US is united in resistance to this
b. Drag Europe by the nose
c. Kill the notion that the Georgians started this - the scale and intensity of the Russian attack bear all the hallmarks of a well planned and inevitable operation. To suggest that Georgia started is to agree that Poland caused the Nazi attack on it in 1939.

http://tarlith-history.livejournal.com/604384.html

Also quoted here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4403

ovp = Office of the Vice President

The e-mail is probably just fiction (I imagine that any real communication with the Office of the Vice President would be heavily encrypted), but It was obviously written by somebody who is very knowledgeable about the situation in Georgia, starting with the fact that this "e-mail" was apparently the first time that "Joseph R. Wood" was mentioned in the context of the conflict in Georgia. And it anticipated very accurately what happened in Georgia in the last two weeks.

[TomInTib]

12. The same thing April Glaspie was doing in Iraq with Saddam.

"Don't worry, be happy."

[cincycapell]

13. Condi Rice was there meeting with Saakashvili on July 9th,

and KKKarl Rove 2 weeks later. McCain's little neocon Toaddie, Randy Scheunemann is up to his ass in Georgia, and has made nearly $1 Million lobbying for Georgia. This whole event stinks to high heaven. I think that Saakashvili got the 'greenlight' from Washington to launch his offensive in South Ossetia, then when the Russians (inevitably) attacked, we left him holding the bag. You can tell that Saakashvili was genuinely shocked that Washington didn't come to his aid, and he lashed out at Washington for not helping.

The Neocons stoked this situation in order to give McCain a boost in the polls. And so far it's working.

[Barrett808]

15. Like when Cheney visited Maliki in Iraq, and soon after the disastrous assault on Basra started

Cheney seems to have the strategic smarts of a blindfolded chimp throwing darts.

[yellowcanine]

17. There is an oil pipeline there, don'tcha know?

Where there is oil there is Cheney.

[Satyagrahi]

18. Western intelligence sources: First draft of Saakashvili's invasion plans prepared in 2006 (!)

On Aug. 3, the Russian foreign ministry issued a final warning that an "extensive military conflict" was about to erupt. Officials in Europe's seats of government and intelligence agency headquarters had a sense of what the Russians were talking about. Saakashvili's plans for an invasion had been completed some time earlier. A first draft prepared in 2006, believed to be a blueprint of sorts for the later operation, anticipated that Georgian forces would capture all key positions within 15 hours.

-snip-

According to Western observers, by the morning of Aug. 7 the Georgians had amassed 12,000 troops on the border to South Ossetia. Seventy-five tanks and armored personnel carriers were in position near Gori. In a 15-hour blitzkrieg, the tanks were to advance to the Roki Tunnel to seal it off. At that point, there were only 500 Russian soldiers and another 500 fighters with the South Ossetia militia armed and ready to defend Tskhinvali and the surrounding area. At 4:06 p.m., the South Ossetian authorities reported that Tskhinvali had come under attack from grenade launchers and automatic weapons. Fifty minutes later, they reported "large-scale military aggression against the Republic of South Ossetia." According to Western intelligence sources, the Georgian artillery bombardment of Tskhinvali did not begin until 10:30 p.m. on that Thursday. It was orchestrated by 27 Georgian army rocket launchers capable of firing ordnance with a maximum caliber of 152 millimeters. At 11 p.m., Saakashvili announced that the goal of the operation was the "re-establishment of constitutional order in South Ossetia."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,574812-2,00.html

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1283691,00.jpg

And now Cheney claims that they had no advance knowledge of these invasion plans? That all the Western military advisers on the ground did not notice the preparations for the invasion? Who are they kidding?