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US Destroyer Anchors off Georgia for Exercises
BATUMI, Georgia - A week after a Moscow summit intended to smooth over the differences between Russia and the U.S., both countries on Tuesday engaged in displays of military might near Russia's southern border.
Officer from the U.S. guided missile destroyer USS Stout, wearing white service cap, and Georgian Navy sailors, wearing black caps, salute during a welcome ceremony for the USS Stout anchoring in the Georgia's Black Sea port of Batumi, Tuesday, July, 14, 2009. USS Stout dropped anchor Tuesday in Georgia's Black Sea waters ahead of a joint naval exercises widely seen as a show of American support for the former Soviet nation that was crushed in last year's war with Russia. (AP Photo/ Shakh Aivazov) A U.S. warship anchored off the Black Sea coast of Georgia in preparation for joint naval maneuvers with the ex-Soviet nation, which was trounced in a war with Russia last August. Russian warplanes, meanwhile, conducted mock bombing runs in exercises just a few hundred kilometers northwest.
The maneuvers and countermaneuvers marked a stark change from July 6-7, when U.S. President Barack Obama dined in the Kremlin with Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and both countries expressed hope for repairing relations that in recent years have sunk to a post-Cold War low.
During those meetings, Obama diplomatically warned Moscow to respect the territorial integrity of Georgia and reject the notion that it holds a zone of privileged interest among its former Soviet neighbors.
Georgia is still seething over what it views as Russia's occupation of South Ossetia after the August conflict, when Russian tanks drove deep into Georgia before pulling back. Georgia had attacked South Ossetia, which has long had de facto independence, to try to retake it. Russian tanks and troops poured into the region immediately and overwhelmed the Georgian army. Russia said it was acting in defense of locals with Russian passports.
Hopes have risen in recent months that the U.S.-Russia tensions that led up to that war would be defused under a new U.S. administration, but recent events in and around Georgia's mountainous lands suggest the two sides are still deeply divided.
The guided missile destroyer the USS Stout on Tuesday anchored off Batumi, where its commander, Mark J. Oberley, was welcomed ashore with Georgian music and wine.
"This visit and the combined training demonstrate the U.S. and Georgian commitment to work together, to cooperate and maintain maritime security," Oberley said.
Two vessels of the Georgian Coast Guard are to participate alongside the USS Stout in Wednesday's drills in Georgian territorial waters between the ports of Batumi and Poti. Georgian Navy Commander Beso Shengelia said the small-scale exercises would involve averting a sinking after a hull breach, capturing a hostile boat, and joint maneuvers in conflict situations.
A couple of hours after the events in Batumi, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev peered through binoculars to watch jets fly over Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiisk and fire at nonexistent ground targets. He was shown on state-controlled television station Vesti.
Georgia's military cooperation with the United States irritates Moscow, which considers Western forays into Georgia since the war destabilizing.
The forthcoming naval exercises in Georgia and Russian Air Force drills take to at least four the instances of cooperative military maneuvering in territory adjacent to the conflict zone since the five-day war.
Russia voiced outrage in May over NATO drills near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, equating them to foreign interference in Georgia's domestic affairs. Russia promptly conducted its own exercises on a much larger scale near the Georgian border earlier this month. Those exercises ended on Obama's first day in Moscow, July 6.
Medvedev's surprise visit to South Ossetia on Monday was cast by Moscow as a show of solidarity for locals under perpetual threat of renewed military intervention from Georgia.
Georgia, which called Medvedev's visit an act of provocation, insists that South Ossetia is under Russian occupation. Thousands of Russian troops remain in the province after the August conflict, and the boundary with Georgia proper has been fortified. Only Russia and Nicaragua have recognized South Ossetia's independence.
The port of Poti, meanwhile, is close to Georgia's de facto border with Abkhazia, another Moscow-backed breakaway province. Poti was occupied by Russian troops in the weeks after the conflict and Abkhaz rebels clashed with Georgian forces during the war. Moscow later also recognized Abkhazia.
Associated Press Writer David Nowak contributed to this report from Moscow.
36 Comments so far
Show AllNothing like a little gun boat diplomacy to smooth over relations.
The US and Israel are doing their best to take control of the big pipeline that runs through Georgia - Trying to steal it from under the Soviet Bear's nose. So much for 'diplomacy' - America/Israel can't be trusted.
America will use its high moral standing to support the wishes of the inhabitants themselves. Plebiscites open and honest, backed by the common interest of the UN peoples for democracy and non-volence, again will take place where independence and freedom are yearned for.
Bwahahahaha! What the hell's in my coffee this morning?
Mine bigger than yours.
They are all a bunch of emotionally disabled adolescent minded warmongering assholes.
Now that the US' new middle east oil control center (disguised as the world's largest embassy)is staffed with 1000 people in Bagdad, middle east oil procurement can get underway in every direction.
The sister "embassy" in Pakistan will soon begin construction to assure US control of the oil remains unhindered.
From the article:
"During those meetings, Obama diplomatically warned Moscow to...reject the notion that it holds a zone of privileged interest among its former Soviet neighbors."
I guess this means the Monroe Doctrine is a dead letter too---if economic reality hadn't already achieved that end.
what OBAMA really meant was "russia has no PRIVILEGED ZONE OF INTEREST on its neighbors -- BECAUSE THE USA HAS"........
what hypocrisy! it is truly breathtaking in its depth.
I did find the remark about Russia complaining over US interference in Georgia's domestic affairs to be a bit comical.
actually it's not comical at all.
if you are refering to Russia as being "interfering" IN georgia -please remember - that
EVEN NATO and the EU were FORCEd to ADMIT (although little reported in the USA and little acknowledged at large in the EU) that it WAS GEORGIA that started the war with russia
BY invading and shelling the DEFENSELESS south ossetians - at night - when they were asleep - and putin and others were in the Beijing olympics - like a stealth bombing...
and you need to learn that South Ossetia as well as the other province Abkazhia - have MAJORITY RUSSIAN ETHNIC citizens who
AS FAR BACK as early 1990's when USSR imploded and Georgia detached itself -- South Ossetia and Abkazhia DECLARED INDEPENDENCE FROM GEORGIA and professed their affinity , ethnic and cultural WITH russia.
they know THEIR history .
STALIN was a GEORGIAN and NOT "ethnic russian" ..and THAT was part of why the south ossetian and abkhazhian RUSSIAN ethnics NEVER acknowledged that they were "part of georgia"
whether in the times of the USSR (ruled by stalin FROM GEORGIA) - OR after the USSR collapsed.
so - in reality - the COMICAL ONES here are GEORGIA and their PATRON the USA which has NO BUSINESS being in a neighborhood IT DOESN"T BELONG TO!!
fact is - the Russians as a general rule - DESPITE being ruled by STALIN THE GEORGIAN who twisted their communist ideology towards HIS personal dictatorship and "GEORGIANIZED"
Russia -
NEVER accepted Stalin - as truly one of their own .
and here we are with a present day STALIN WANNA BE Shakaasvili - the columbia university new york educated NEO_CON US CLIENT
doing things at the behest of his US patrons - and then getting out of hand - tried to take over South Ossetia as a way to thumb his nose at Russia.
while the USA -
"quietly" supported him with military ordnance - (the israelis did it too) -
while making big talk about "democracy"
about GEORGIA which is run AS A DICTATORSHIP - a "friendly" one TO the USA........
who are they really trying to FOOL?.
bottom line:
WHAT IS THE USA DOING in Russia's neighborhood INTERFERING in teh AFFAIRS of THAT region, by way of having CLIENT STATES like Georgia and Ukraine?
how would the USA LIKE it if Russia put destroyers and missiles IN MEXICO , Panama, Guatemala, Canada, Jamaica, Haiti?
"WHAT IS THE USA DOING in Russia's neighborhood"
Pursuing the oil/war imperative. People who reject peace have no other alternative.
"WHAT IS THE USA DOING in Russia's neighborhood INTERFERING in teh AFFAIRS of THAT region, by way of having CLIENT STATES like Georgia and Ukraine?" uquote by teddy.
The USA is not doing this. The Federal Mafia that hijacked the government is doing it for Haliburton, Bectel, Unical so they can steal that section of pipeline and hook it up with the path that the Predator drones are clearing in Pakistan.
Why?
How else are they going to complete their pipeline to concurrently run to the Sea with another leg that splits off to India? Besides, more American jobs are going to be outsourced to India where the labor is cheaper so they will need more stolen Caspian Sea Oil and Gas.
Isn't it fun living under the Jackboot of Monopolies?
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Georgia has a navy? Oh, yeah, rowboats have remarkable stealth qualities, and don't block channels when sunk.
Seriously, this from globalsecurity.ca:
"...as of 2004 Georgia's navy had 30 vessels and boats of different classes at its command. The main forces were made up of missile boats “Dioskursia (class Combattante II, received from Greece in 2004 were armed by two Exocet MM38 cruise missiles with 49 km. range). The Tbilisi missile boat (206MP Vikhr, given by Ukraine in June 1999), was equipped with P-15M cruise missiles with 80 km. range). The navy also had two 106K Vydra storm-boats, received from Bulgaria, three 1400M Grif patrol boats, 4-5 1398B Aist boats, 15-20 patrol boats of different kinds received from Turkey, Greece, USA, Germany, and Romania. Georgia's navy may also have possessed a 1241 Molnia missile boat with P-15M missiles and two small 1124 Albatros anti-submarine boats."
More conservative stupidity.
Just as the USA practiced (and continues to do so in some form) "Gunboat diplomacy," so too must the machinations of Moscow in the former territories of the Soviet Union be seen in a similar (though not exactly the same) light.
Conversely, expect a Russian destroyer to participate in Cuban naval exercise very soon.
Looks like a setup for another Gulf of Tonkin incident.
The second USS Cole?
This is just a setup by the Carlyle Group. Just in case, by some miracle, we finally got out of the Middle East, they want to have another war to fall back on.
The Carlyle Group has sold off nearly all the Military Contractors. Hertz, Dunkin' Donuts, Home Depot and probably your local movie theater is what the group makes money on today.
You do realize the 90's ended right?
I just use the Carlyle Group because they are one whom everybody knows. I would find it surprising that the Bush Family would be into Dunken Donuts. Perhaps the thing to do is look to see what other war supplying group they have bought into.
The point is, the economy and the government is being driven by the war industry, by whatever name it currently goes by, and I doubt that we will ever be allowed to cut into those vast profits by stopping war.
As I said in another post, if we ever commited peace, these guys would have to start making refrigerators. Guy buys a refrigerator and he keeps it ten years. Where is the profit in that? Guy buys a thousand pound bomb and, BOOM, he's got to buy another! Now that is profit!!
"Georgia is still seething over what it views as Russia's occupation of South Ossetia"
"Georgia had attacked South Ossetia, which has long had de facto independence, to try to retake it."
""This visit and the combined training demonstrate the U.S. and Georgian commitment to work together, to cooperate and maintain maritime security," (U.S. commander) Oberley said."
"Georgia's military cooperation with the United States irritates Moscow, which considers Western forays into Georgia since the war destabilizing."
------------
So Russia occupies South Ossetia and the U.S. and Georgia "cooperate and work together"according to associated press writer, Misha Dzhindzhikhashvili.
Of course these "Western (U.S.) forays" are destabilizing! There is the pipeline, the attack on an independent neighbor!
All illusions folks, move along now. Yes, don't mess with Cuba or Venezuela, remember that's OUR turf, as Jethro reminded us the Monroe Doctrine states, it's in our hemisphere and belongs to the U.S..
We all live by the same rules don't we?
a few days ago -- USA , whether it was obama that said it , is immaterial - "warns russia NOT to INTERFERE" in the affairs of Russia's NEIGHBORS.......
eh -- exactly what is that kind of logic?
as Patrick buchanan correctly says - for once -
"WE DIDN'T LIKE IT WHEN THE USSR WAS IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD (CUBA) -- SO .........WHAT ARE *WE* DOING IN RUSSIA'S NEIGHBORHOOD? WE SHOULD GET OUT OF THIS BUSINESS OF EMPIRE AND GET OUT OF THOSE LANDS BEFORE THEY KICK US OUT".
but think back also to Madelein Albright in the 1990's.
"WHAT GOOD IS OUR GREAT MILITARY IF YOU CAN'T USE IT?"
connect with her statement:
"IT IS SO UNFAIR.........that ONE country has all those rich resources ...(she WAS refering to russia) .....SOMETHING SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT IT".......
connect with when Russia after the collapse of the USSR was in chaos - and western, us-led corporations connived with russian oligarchs like the western darling kodorkoshvky to divvy up russia's industries and resources before putin kicked them out and jailed the oligarchs -
connect with a leaked Pentagon memo from the 1990's (i read it only once a few years back but it has disappeared or i can't remember where)
that said something like THIS, as far as I can remember:
:"russia's military capability is now so weakened that it is now POSSIBLE to ENVISION a LAND INVASION"......
and you get the picture -- that RUSSIANS see right through Obama's hypocritical talk about "partnership".
i have ALWAYS suspected that - all the way back FROM the 19th century - the GREAT TROPHY the USA EMPIRE ALWAYS wanted was RUSSIA - her great landmass , all those rich resources, forestry, the largest concentration of the world's FRESH WATER resources , unbelievably rich river and fisheries resources, uranium and other metals, both precious and industrial, perhaps even the world's largest DIAMOND untapped veins, sitting atop the largest landmass on earth - AND sitting just north of China that IF the USA can control russia - will render china -permanently impotent as well as the rest of the world - get europe to be USA's client permanently, etc. etc. etc.
that's why -with NATO - and other means - the USA NEVER STOPS trying to "surround" russia - with the intent - i always suspected - of once actually INVADING Russia - if "diplomacy" doesn't work.
but then that is STANDARD American method - well-practiced against weaker and much smaller nations.
abd Reagan had the GALL to call Russia and the USSR as the "evil empire?"
he was pointing at the WRONG direction!
after all - Obama gave a big talk in Russia about
"the times of EMPIRES dominating and dictating are long gone"
EXCEPT OF COURSE for the USA...........
We are being led by idiots.
I'm an ardent Obama supporter, but he is dead wrong on Georgia. I'm appalled at his provocative suggestion to Putin and Medvedev that they back off from their assertion that they have a special relationship with the former Soviet states. Imagine Russia cozying up to Cuba, Mexico, or the Bahamas! We would be furious.
It seems more likely that once the train gets put on the tracks, it's very hard to redirect it, but I'm right with you on this. I just wonder how you implement what seems so desireable -- a joint declaration of the end of hostilities followed by 100,000,000 new sets of individual orders. We are a octopus with a million arms, and eventually you get to a place where some provision for safety and protection really does rear its ugly head. Clearly we have no more legitimate interest in Georgia than Russia has in Mexico (or Honduras), but the history of abuse by both doesn't exactly beat the drum for those interests we do have in Georgia and Russia has in Mexico. I mean: where do we go from here? What?
exactly .
in the face of Obama's speechifying IN russia about 'being equals'...and "leaving the cold war mentality"...
he actually commits to PROVOCATIVE actions right next door to Russia.
when gorbachev agreed with reagan to "dismantle the warsaw pact" as a show that russia was no threat to europe - NATO was supposed to also "never expand or threaten russia in any way"....
WHAT did the USA do? it egged on NATO to EXPAND right next door to russia and EVEN right NOW IN Afghanistan, pakistan and soon
its SISTER organizations of "the white man's burden" of Empire that the USA inherited from england will expand as AFRICACOM ...
so - WHO STAYED IN THE COLD WAR MENTALITY if NOT the USA all along?
Looks like we didn't need to elect Kamikaze McKane after all. O'Bomber is piloting the aircraft into the lake like it's 1967.
NeoCON driven.
After the Georgia/Russian conflict heated up, w/ McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis in the middle of it, and Israeli private arms sellers pushing it forward, Putin called Israel and gave them 24 hours to get out. Or Syria would be sold sophisticated air defense technology. They were gone in 12.
But in their stead, and by their heed, we do return.
Very foolish on the part of the Pentagon! The US military is just itching to tangle with the Russian military and has gone so far as to station a warship right in the heart of a Russian area of interest and oversight. I guess wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and who knows where else (Iran) are just not enough. Empire building takes a lot of military practice and I guess in that respect these incursions into a competitor's territory fit the bill. The Kremlin must wonder just how much trust they should have in the president when he can't even control his military's machinations. Or in the alternative perhaps the president is a liar and is planning to screw Russia if possible. Putin and Medvedev are probably wondering right now which scenario is more plausible.
Can anyone still doubt that the U.S. is purposefully being methodically destroyed from within?
Another Gulf of Tonkin on the horizon? They can deny it, and they can tell me there's no "i" in Dzhindzhikhashvili too for that matter.
How does it feel to know that your leaders are little more than children playing war games with no clue of how a government should be properly run. At best. And, at worst, deranged psychopaths with no care or concern at all for humanity. Profit has become their only god and their only constituent.
this article by a far more knowledgeable eastern european writer - than ANY american - about the Hypocrisy of The USA - in lecturing Russia for instance - basically sums up and details correctly the actual history - even most recently though conveniently forgotten or NEVER learned by americans - about the USA's own IMPERIAL actions, excepting itself from its own lectures to others, as Obama recently displayed in Moscow :
==================
Overload
by Nebojsa Malic, July 15, 2009
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Toward a Confrontation With Moscow
At a meeting in March 2009, Secretary Clinton presented her Russian counterpart with a red button that was supposed to read "Reset" in Russian. Instead, it read "Overload." It seemed like an innocent mistake, a syllable lost in translation. But was it, really?
That may well be the question on many Russians’ minds this week, in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s visit to Moscow, but also in the wake of news that the new Bulgarian government reneged on its energy agreements with Moscow and signed on to the alternate gas pipeline, designed to bypass Russia.
Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Though the speech Obama gave at the New Economic School in Moscow on July 7 was well written and well delivered, it is hard to see how the reaction to it could have been anything but incredulity. Having endured seven decades of violent hypocrisy, Russians can smell it a mile away – and Obama’s speech reeked of it.
Take this, for example: "In 2009, a great power does not show strength by dominating or demonizing other countries. The days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chess board are over."
Isn’t it Obama’s own country that routinely dominates and demonizes entire nations, and invents Hitlers du jour to justify its overseas military adventures? And isn’t the most notable theorist of the "grand chessboard" Obama’s old professor from Columbia, Zbigniew Brzezinski, an unrepentant Russophobe?
It gets better. Surely Obama was aware that the U.S. pioneered the method of regime-change now known as the "color revolution" and used it first in Serbia (2000), then in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004). His Russian audience certainly was. Yet he looked them in the eye and said, "America will not seek to impose any system of government on any other country, nor would we presume to choose which party or individual should run a country."
Finally, even though it was Washington that interfered in Georgia and Ukraine to install friendly regimes; even though it was the U.S. that pushed the hardest for the "independence" of the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo; and it was the U.S. that attacked Serbia in 1999 and Iraq in 2003, in clear violation of international law, Obama had the sheer gall to say:
"State sovereignty must be a cornerstone of international order. Just as all states should have the right to choose their leaders, states must have the right to borders that are secure, and to their own foreign policies. That is true for Russia, just as it is true for the United States. Any system that cedes those rights will lead to anarchy. That is why this principle must apply to all nations – including Georgia and Ukraine. America will never impose a security arrangement on another country."
So who put Yushchenko and Saakashvili in power? Who created the "independent state of Kosovo"? Who invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan? Who has bases in over 150 countries around the planet? The Martians, maybe?
The Gas Gambit
The regime of Viktor Yushchenko in Ukraine, put into power by the 2004 "Orange Revolution," signed a charter with the U.S. in December 2008, pledging to cooperate on a variety of agendas. One of these agendas, set out by a joint U.S.-EU declaration from June 2008, was to "encourage the development of multiple pipelines, such as the Nabucco … to supply additional natural gas to Europe from diversified sources."
Sure enough, during a vicious cold snap in January 2009, Yushchenko’s people in the Ukrainian gas consortium fabricated a dispute with Moscow that cut gas deliveries and left most of Europe in a deep freeze. In the words of one Western observer, "Everything about this dispute is negative for the Russians. … And if everyone blames the Russians, Ukraine has nothing to lose."
And what a surprise, EU officials rushed to say that "the crisis should encourage a search for independent energy sources and supply routes, such as the US-backed Nabucco pipeline."
Yushchenko may have gotten a bump in his polling numbers playing the Russophobia card, but his own grip on power was actually weakened, as Prime Minister Tymoshenko successfully ousted his cronies from the gas consortium. Ukraine paid its bills, the gas began to flow, and the episode was quickly forgotten.
Nabucco vs. South Stream
One can see how it would be in the Empire’s interest to paint the Russo-Ukrainian dispute and its chilly consequences for Europe as a pressing reason to build an alternate pipeline. The obsession with bypassing Russia goes back to the early 1990s, when the U.S. engineering giant Bechtel built an oil pipeline (BTC) from Azerbaijan to Turkey, via Georgia. The idea of a gas pipeline to Europe connecting to the BTC was floated in 2002. Though strongly pushed by Washington, Nabucco languished for years as a pipe dream.
In 2007, Moscow put forth two alternate pipelines, bypassing Ukraine and Poland (seen as U.S. client states). The Nord Stream would go under the Baltic Sea and into Germany, while the South Stream would go under the Black Sea and into Bulgaria, from where it would go to Italy via Greece, and to Austria via Serbia and Hungary. However, South Stream was delayed while the U.S. client regime in Serbia dragged its feet for a year on ratifying the contract with Moscow.
By the virtue of its location, Bulgaria was the key to both pipeline projects. The government in Sofia, though a member of the EU and NATO and a client of Washington, nonetheless signed energy agreements with Moscow. At the time of the gas crisis in January ‘09, well-informed analysts predicted that Washington might seek regime-change in Bulgaria for that very reason.
Sure enough, just a week after the July 5 general elections, Bulgaria signed on to Nabucco.
<<<<
Empire’s Pet Project
The July 5 vote went overwhelmingly in favor of a new party, Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), led by Boyko Borisov. A Communist-era police official who later went into the private security business, Borisov has been the mayor of Sofia since 2005. He campaigned on a promise of fighting corruption and securing a better economic future. One of the first things he did, however, was to suspend the existing energy contracts with Moscow, both the South Stream and a nuclear power plant project.
On Monday, July 13, representatives of Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey officially signed the deal to begin the construction of Nabucco. The chairman of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso of Spain, was present at the signing. The U.S. was represented by Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy Richard Morningstar and Sen. Richard Lugar, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
The fact that Washington has a "special envoy for Eurasian energy" in the first place, and that he was present at the signing, indicates that Nabucco is more than just a project for European energy supply. Add to that that Nabucco is supposed to provide a mere 10 percent of Europe’s gas needs if and when it is completed – and assuming the conglomerate finds a supplier – and that Washington and Brussels have ruled out Iran as a source, and everything points to the conclusion that Nabucco is not business, but politics.
Pattern of Hostility
What is someone in Moscow to make of all this? In 1990, the USSR ended the Cold War by effectively surrendering. Far from being a gracious victor, the U.S. enlarged NATO, transformed it into an aggressive military alliance, and claimed the entire world as its rightful sphere of influence. Russia itself was plundered and impoverished by U.S.-sponsored oligarchs under the Yeltsin regime, which was praised as democratic even as it sent tanks against the parliament. Yeltsin also needed American spin doctors to win reelection, while Vladimir Putin and his successor, Dmitry Medvedev, enjoy widespread popular support – but are branded "dictators" in the West. >>>>
<<<<
Now Obama comes to Moscow and lectures Russians about sovereignty, democracy, and international law, even though his own country is the prime violator of all three. Meanwhile, the U.S. is sponsoring a pipeline seeking to bypass Russia. One doesn’t have to be particularly observant to add it all up and see hostility. It seems that Clinton’s gift to Lavrov was not lost in translation after all.
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end of article
"The chairman of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso of Spain, was present at the signing."
Small correction: He's the President of the European Commission, and he is Portuguese, a country that had to suffer him as Prime Minister, at which time he managed to appear sufficiently grovelling and one of the boys to host a summit in 2003 in the Azores when U.S. President George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar joined him to provide an international face "of the willing" to the commencement of the Iraq War.
Realise that your quoting the article from Anti-War.com, so its not correcting you, but its always good to get our lackies of the New Worl Order's details right. Even though they change positions they don't change their spots.
Once again in the case of US belligerence against Russia and the Pentagon organizing Georgia as surrogate army for US government foreign policy objectives, Barack Obama is recycling Bush/ Cheney Thought.