GEORGIA MADE A MISTAKE, U.S. CONFESSES

PanARMENIAN.Net
04.09.2008 16:58 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Georgian government "made a mistake" by attacking
Tskhinvali in early August, said Daniel Fried, Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs, The Washington Times reports.

"The Georgian case is basically, ‘Look, our people were attacked,
our villages were being shelled, we’d been subjected to months of
provocations from the Russians,’ and that’s basically true. But that
doesn’t mean that their decision was a wise one," he said.

He confirmed that the Bush administration has ordered a review of
U.S. defense cooperation programs with Russia but is not about to
draw up "mindless lists" of penalties that could alienate the Russian
people while leaving Moscow’s troops in Georgia.

After Russia sent troops into Georgia last month, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice asked her advisers to "think this through in a serious
way," Mr. Fried recalled. "Don’t draw up mindless lists. Think where
we need to be at the end of this administration and the beginning of
the next administration," he said Miss Rice told her staff.