Replies

Peter,

I am very familiar with what happened at Nord-ost. I was on top of this event when it happened, and devoured every fact as it was revealed. I am also very familiar with what happened to Sandy Booker, Svetlana and her daughter. I have compassion for her and what she went through. I might add my wife was in Volgograd at the time, and she suffered horribly and blamed the Russian government at the time.

That said, I will only cover a couple of details, but I found several points in the letters and articles which quite frankly are not simply wrong, but dead wrong.

I have previously stated my military qualifications on here, and it is boring to go into them again, but they need repeating. I was on a Special Forces A-Team for 6 years, and served as the teams demolitions expert.

Firstly, there were two 155 mm artillery shells rigged in the theatre, one in the balcony and the second suspended from the ceiling. These two shells were electronically to each other. Three of the terrorists had switches which would have set off the rounds. One of these would have been more than enough to bring down the building and killed everyone therein.
Secondly, I find it highly problematic that the charges on the Chechyen widows were fakes. That simply defies logic. Furthermore, the alpha SF had no way of knowing these charges were fakes prior to carefully examining them. The Russian SF simply could not take the chance they were fakes, because setting off one of these charges would have exploded the two 155 mm shells. Shooting the terrorists as they slept was the only option. Any soldier who did not follow out orders on this point would jeopardize everyone in the building. END OF DISCUSSION.
Thirdly, all military operations have problems, and this one was no exception. It is impossible to foresee every eventually, but professional soldiers try. Most of those who died did so in the theatre prior to when they were evacuated. The planning and logistics of entering the theatre, finding and killing the terrorists as they slept, and then removing sleeping victims through narrow aisles was a major operation.
Fourthly, I do not say the following lightly. I do not respect Anna Politkovskaya, and I consider her an opportunist, a liar, and likely a propaganda machine for the terrorists. Furthermore, I honestly do not believe she was poisoned.
I could go on and on. That said, I appreciate Svetlana's pain. My wife grieved horribly, believed the Russian government failed, and only after her nephew and I both confirmed the same things did she finally believe what we had to say.

Gary