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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldsnow who wrote (12988)	3/26/2002 12:01:45 PM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

Those Russkies are a bunch of bozos, aren't they? I mean, just think of that 1999 apartment-bombing mess... In the hours following the carnage, Russia pundits and journalists had already doubts about the official version offered by the Kremlin, and today, we've got that "self-exiled" Berezovsky spinning his own conspiracy against Putin and his entourage: Berezovsky's revenge Accusing fingers are being pointed at Russian President Vladimir Putin for masterminding a bombing campaign originally blamed on Chechen separatists, writes Negar Azimi In September 1999, a series of bombs ripped through apartment buildings in Moscow and the small southern Russia town of Volgodonsk, leaving nearly 300 people dead in their wake. At the time, the blasts were blamed on Chechen insurgents. The Kremlin rapidly used the collective rage borne of the occasion to justify the deployment of troops to the breakaway republic. But in London last week, Boris Berezovsky -- a former ally of the president and currently a mega-media mogul in exile -- created a stir by claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin was involved in the bombings. Berezovsky charges that in fact it was the Russian state security service which masterminded the plot. Standing before journalists in London on 5 March, Berezovsky presented a meticulously prepared array of evidence in support of his request for a public investigation into the bombings. His efforts came complete with a 10- minute clip from a documentary film and testimonies from former state security (FSB) agent Nikita Chekulin, a British explosives expert, and a woman who lost her mother in the attacks in question. Berezovsky sought to prove that the Kremlin was behind the attacks as the premise for an ensuing Chechen campaign that would facilitate then-Prime Minister Putin's meteoric rise to power on a wave of strong public sentiment. "I am sure the bombings were organised by the FSB. It's not just speculation," Berezovsky told journalists. "I am not saying Putin ordered the attacks ... I am saying that he knew such things were taking place." In an attempt to pre-empt such allegations, the Kremlin emphasised their own position, claiming that Berezovsky was bankrolling the Chechen terrorist movement in the Caucasus. As for the FSB, it categorically denied any involvement in the bombings. A spokesman for the state security service brushed off the allegations as "groundless and lacking in common sense." [...] ahram.org.eg Goddammit, Goldsnow! Why didn't the Kremlin hire White House'spin-doctors??? I mean, American PR quacks would have turned the whole thing into a SUICIDE attack!! A Bin-Laden-hijacked Tupolev smashing into these Moscow shanties.... But, you might say, people would have asked for the pictures, debris from the aircraft and whatnot... Heck, Pr Andy Thomas would have lectured them about the FRAME RATE and the poor quality of Soviet-era videocams!! Indeed, the FSB is no match for US crack PR people --they just screwed it up. Gus