The Bush administration yesterday decried Russia's use of strategic bombers and ballistic missiles in Georgia as a "dangerous escalation" of the hostilities there, but said it will not immediately send an envoy to help mediate the crisis. "It's hard for us to understand what the Russian plan is," said a senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. "People can argue back and forth over who shot first," but the Russian response is "far disproportionate to whatever threat" it may have perceived in the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia.
With residents of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, in a "panic" amid fears that the city will be bombed, the U.S. Embassy there has been placed on "authorized departure" status, meaning that dependents can leave at U.S. expense, the official said in a conference call.
The Bush administration is also arranging to transport as many as 2,000 Georgian troops back home from Iraq. Georgian forces make up the third-largest contingent in the multinational force in Iraq, after the United States and Britain. "If [Georgian officials] request it, we will facilitate [the transfer] within a relatively short amount of time" with commercial or U.S. military aircraft, the official said. "We have communicated with the Russians what our obligations are" to Georgia. |