WH careful on cutting ties with Moscow

EXCLUSIVE:

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, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, also called Russia’s accusation that “foreign navy ships” are delivering weapons to the former Soviet republic under the guise of humanitarian aid “complete nonsense.”

“The first order of business should not be some sort of punishment,” Mr. Fried said in an interview with The Washington Times. “Russia has to decide how much it wants to isolate itself from the world. We don’t want to have a bad relationship with Russia. We’ve never wanted that.”

Some prominent U.S. political figures, including presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain, have called for expelling Russia from the Group of Eight major industrial nations.

However, 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.

Global effect

The European Union failed to reach an agreement Monday on imposing sanctions for Moscow’s invasion of Georgia, but it suspended talks on a new partnership accord with Russia.

Mr. Fried, who flew to Brussels late Tuesday to consult with EU officials on “next steps,” said, “We applaud the EU’s intention to send a sizable monitoring force to Georgia. We hope they do it soon. We think getting more internationals in Georgia is important.”

In another show of support for the Tbilisi government, Vice President Dick Cheney left Washington on Tuesday for a visit to Georgia and other nervous Russian neighbors, including Ukraine and Azerbaijan.

At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had ordered a review of military cooperation agreements with Russia as part of a wider evaluation of relations in response to the continued presence of Russian troops in parts of Georgia.

“Clearly, Russia’s military operations in Georgia give not just the United States, but the entire international community, cause for concern regarding the direction that nation is going,” Mr. Whitman said.

The review, he said, encompasses the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), a program to combat the proliferation of nuclear, biological, chemical and other weapons of mass destruction.

However, the most prominent program administered by the agency - known as Nunn-Lugar - will not be affected, said Mark Hayes, a spokesman for Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Lugar and Sen. Sam Nunn, Georgia Democrat, were the prime architects of the program, which has provided nearly $6 billion since 1991 to support the safe destruction of weapons and security for weapons facilities in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and Central Asia.

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