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Georgian officials are reporting that the presidents of Georgia and Poland were fired upon while traveling in a motorcade on Sunday. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and Polish President Lech Kaczynski were not harmed in the incident. It's believed the gunshots came from the disputed province of South Ossetia -- and that the motorcade was approaching a military checkpoint at the time of the incident. However, there is some dispute as to exactly where the incident took place. Georgia's Interior Ministry said the shots were fired at a military checkpoint in the Akhalgori area, while legislator Marika Verulashvili said the incident...

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared. Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.” Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words,...

The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvili. Some Western intelligence reports have undermined Tbilisi's version of events and there are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for an independent investigation. But now, five weeks after the end of the war in the Caucasus, the winds have shifted in America. Even Washington is beginning to suspect that Saakashvili, a friend and ally, could in fact be a gambler -- someone who triggered the bloody five-day war and then told the West bold-faced lies....

Just weeks after Georgia’s military collapsed in panic in the face of the Russian Army, its leaders hope to rebuild and train its armed forces as if another war with Russia is almost inevitable. Georgia is already drawing up lists of options, including restoring the military to its prewar strength or making it a much larger force with more modern equipment, like air-defense systems, modern antiarmor rockets and night-vision devices. Officials at the Pentagon, State Department and White House confirmed that the Bush administration was examining what would be required to rebuild Georgia’s military, but stressed that no decisions had...

MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday Moscow no longer considered Mikheil Saakashvili as Georgia's leader, calling him a "political corpse" and accusing his regime of "aggression that ended in many deaths." Speaking in an interview ahead of US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to Georgia, Medvedev again accused Washington of helping Tbilisi "build its war machine" and urged the United States to review its relations with the country. "For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse," Medvedev said in the interview broadcast on Russian...

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said he will not leave Georgia because he fears Russia would prevent him from returning home, in an interview with a German newspaper. ''If I leave Georgia then the Russians will close our airspace and prevent me from returning home,'' Saakashvili was quoted as saying by the German daily Bild. For this reason the Georgian leader said he would not attend an emergency European Union summit in Brussels on Monday called to discuss the crisis in the Caucasus, according to the newspaper. He said that he wanted from the summit a ''clear commitment from the EU...

Both sides had an interest in escalating the conflict, say political analysts. Russia wanted to show that Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was an irresponsible firebrand who could not be trusted with the responsibilities of Nato membership. Georgia, meanwhile, wanted to paint Russia as the imperial aggressor it has traditionally been in the Caucasus, which would have strengthened Tbilisi’s case for Nato membership. Each can be seen to have acted swiftly, with a great deal of preparation, later trying to make their behaviour appear spontaneous. Mr Saakashvili, despite repeated denials, clearly drew first. But Russia was not far behind, indicating that...

In media's war of words, Georgia emerging as victor President's PR savvy has Russia looking like the bad guy in conflict By MATEA GOLD, TRACY WILKINSON and MEGAN STACK Los Angeles Times Aug. 23, 2008, 5:37PM NEW YORK — He is the leader of a small country that, until recently, was not on the radar for most Americans. But it's been hard to turn on a news channel this month without encountering the brooding glare of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, railing against the Russian troops pouring across his country's borders, doing his best to turn a military disaster into a...

President Bush urged Moscow to abandon two Soviet-era military bases in Georgia as he met on Wednesday with the newly elected leader of the strategically placed Caucasus state. Sitting with President Mikhail Saakashvili in the Oval Office, Bush told reporters he would help build good relations between Georgia and Russia. He said Russia should honor a promise to remove the bases, which it made during the 1999 Istanbul summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "The Istanbul commitment made it very clear that Russia would leave those bases," Bush said after a closed-door meeting with Saakashvili, whose...

“The Saakashvili government in Georgia made a foolish mistake by initiating hostilities in its breakaway province of South Ossetia,” says Libertarian Party presidential candidate Bob Barr in a press release entitled No Foreign Aid for Georgian War. “American taxpayers should not have to pay for that mistake. After all, they already are paying $10 billion a month for the administration’s mistaken invasion and occupation of Iraq. They cannot afford to pay the price for other people’s wars as well.” In response to the press release, Liberty Maven says: It is comforting to know that Barr is quick to point out...

Strategy Who Started Cold War II Posted by Patrick J. Buchanan on August 18, 2008 The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO. Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow’s superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis. If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the...

TBILISI (AFP) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday in the Georgian capital that the ex-Soviet republic, currently mired in conflict with Russia, will join NATO. "Georgia will become a member of NATO if it wants to -- and it does want to," she said before talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili in Tbilisi. It was one of the strongest statements yet of support for Georgia's NATO membership bid, which is fiercely opposed by Russia.

MOSCOW — Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili vowed Sunday that his country would not give up the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. This comes as Russia's president said troops would begin pulling out of Georgia on Monday, but made no mention of leaving the separatist province at the heart of the conflict between the countries.

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Former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has criticized Georgia for the war over South Ossetia, calling Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili a gambler, and warning against allowing the country to join NATO. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine due out on Monday, Schröder said he thought Georgia’s chances of joining the transatlantic alliance had moved “even further into the distance,” following the fighting with Russian forces. Schröder’s comments are sure to be scrutinized due to his close personal and political friendship with former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, as well as his acceptance of a Gazprom job immediately after leaving...

Aug. 9, 2008 (EIRNS)—Following his service to his British masters in the Balkan wars of 1990-91, George Soros convened a series of meetings inside Serbia, that were to launch the "Rose Revolution," the "Orange Revolution," and the series of phony democracy insurgencies designed to undermine nation-states and create a "ring around Russia" for a future British-inspired confrontation. One of the key operations run by Soros, as indicated in a LaRouche Political Action Committee press release, "LaRouche Denounces `Obama's Godfather' George Soros," was to topple Georgia President Eduard Shevardnadze, and bring in Mikhail Saakashvili, the Colombia University-trained project of Soros's "Open...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15, 2008 – President Bush today pledged the United States will support the former Soviet republic of Georgia in its time of need, as Russian troops still occupy parts of the country. Video “The United States and our allies stand with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government,” Bush said at the White House. “Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. Moscow must honor its commitment to withdraw its invading forces from all Georgian territory,” Bush declared, noting the United States is working closely with its European allies and other members of the G-7...

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, warned Russia that it must withdraw its troops behind the boundaries of two disputed Georgian enclaves as she secured a ceasefire agreement that leaves open the possibility of continued incursions. America's chief diplomat arrived in the Georgian capital Tblisi for talks with a deeply suspicious President Mikheil Saakashvili, who sought to strengthen guarantees of a complete Russian pullback. In the end, the pro-Western Georgian leader had little option but to accept the accord on a day that Russia threatened to target Poland with its full arsenal. Before the arrival of international monitors, Russia...

This morning, after receiving an update from his national security team on the situation in Georgia, President Bush delivered a brief statement from the White House Rose Garden. (Transcript) The United States and our allies stand with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government. Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected. Moscow must honor its commitment to withdraw its invading forces from all Georgian territory … The people of Georgia have cast their lot with the free world, and we will not cast them aside. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia today and met...

Joint appearance with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tbilisi, Aug. 15, 2008.PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI: Madame Secretary, we had almost five — hour discussion about mechanics to stop ongoing violence and deterring Russian invasion, as well as about massive assistance programs for Georgia from the United States in order to start immediate rebuild, immediate assistance, and immediate normalization of life in my badly damaged country. As we speak now, significant part of territories of Georgia remain under foreign military occupation. You might have heard reports that some Russian APCs were dislocated to move closer to the capital and on — halfway...