Cheney attacks Russia on rights

Cheney attacks Russia on rights
- Steven Lee Myers, New York Times
Friday, May 5, 2006

**so....let me get this right...Cheney wants Russia to get behind the US, so the US can invade Iran, make war on their country, kill and maim who knows how many, repress who knows how many more, and try to turn that country into the same nightmare the US has left in Afghanistan and Iraq, and, to try to get Russia on board with the program, Cheney says it's RUSSIA that a hard time understanding human rights and freedoms and threatens and blackmails other countries? Does NO ONE in Washington understand irony? Or is anyone listening? EG:) **


Moscow -- Vice President Dick Cheney delivered the Bush administration's strongest rebuke of Russia to date on Thursday, saying the Russian government "unfairly and improperly restricted" people's rights and suggesting that it sought to undermine its neighbors and to use the country's vast resources of oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail."

"In many areas of civil society -- from religion and the news media, to advocacy groups and political parties -- the government has unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people," Cheney said in a speech to European leaders in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius. "Other actions by the Russian government have been counterproductive and could begin to affect relations with other countries."

Cheney's remarks, which officials in Washington said reflected the administration's current thinking on Russia, appeared to lay down new markers for a relationship that has become strained and could become significantly more so in the months ahead.

The remarks were delivered in the midst of an international confrontation over Iran's nuclear programs, in which the United States has tried to enlist Russia's help in putting pressure on Tehran to end its enrichment program or in punishing Iran for failing to do so.

Cheney's criticisms would seem to complicate those efforts, but they could also reflect a growing impatience with Russia's unwillingness to back stronger measures, including sanctions, against the Iranians. Cheney did not mention Iran in his speech, which was devoted mostly to a triumphant celebration of the expansion of democracy in Europe since the end of the Cold War.

A senior administration official said the speech emphasized the desire of the White House to continue working with Russia in many areas, including Iran, even as it voiced its concerns. The official requested anonymity because he did not want to be seen as speaking for the vice president.

Asked if the remarks risked alienating the Kremlin at a crucial moment in negotiations on Iran at the U.N. Security Council, the official said in a telephone interview, "There's never a good time."

Cheney's remarks also previewed what is shaping up as a tense meeting between President Bush and President Vladimir Putin at a July gathering of the Group of Eight, the leading industrialized nations, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Some in Washington, notably Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have called on Bush to boycott the meeting as a signal of displeasure with Putin's anti-democratic course, though Cheney did not address that matter on Thursday.

Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, disputed Cheney's remarks, calling them unfounded and "completely incomprehensible." At the same time, he discounted the message Cheney sent, saying it would cloud neither the coming meeting between Bush and Putin nor their relationship generally.

"The relations between the two presidents are much more constructive than these statements," Peskov said.

Indeed, the two men spoke by telephone just this Monday, and they agreed then on the need to cooperate closely on the Iranian issue, the White House said.

While Cheney has always voiced greater skepticism toward Russia than Bush, his remarks underscored a deepening rift that has emerged since Bush said in 2001 that he had looked into Putin's eyes and "got a sense of his soul." In many areas now, the United States and Russia have rarely seemed more at odds since the Cold War ended.

The Bush administration's relations with Russia have largely followed the arc of Putin's presidency, from cooperation and personal closeness after the Sept. 11 attacks to growing concerns about Putin's centralization of political and economic control.

The downward slide began with the prosecutorial assault on Yukos, once the country's largest private oil company, and has continued through what many in Washington view as the Kremlin's effort to reassert its authority in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia.

In Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, the two countries, if not their leaders, seem to square off on opposite sides more often than they cooperate. In Ukraine, Putin openly sided against Western-oriented President Viktor Yushchenko during public protests of electoral fraud in 2004 that ultimately swept him to power.

In December, in what was seen as an effort to discredit Yushchenko before crucial elections, Moscow briefly shut off gas supplies to Ukraine when it balked at Russia's demand that it pay world prices -- about four times what it had been paying.

"No legitimate interest is served when oil and gas become tools of intimidation or blackmail, either by supply manipulation or attempts to monopolize transportation," Cheney said. "And no one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor, or interfere with democratic movements."

The last remark was a clear reference to Georgia and Moldova, both former Soviet republics with unrecognized separatist enclaves abetted by Russia, and to Ukraine.

Cheney spoke at an international conference in Vilnius that drew leaders of nine former Soviet republics or Warsaw Pact satellites along Russia's western border, as well as the United States, the European Union and NATO. Russia was not invited, an omission that its Foreign Ministry was quick to point out.

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