Saw
this today.
Does this sound familiar at all?
"It is very important now that all parties cease fire,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. ``The Georgians have agreed to a cease-fire, the Russians need to stop their military operations as they have apparently said that they will, but those military operations really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored.''
At the same time, however, President Bush and his top aides were engaged in frantic consultations with European and other nations over how best to demonstrate their fierce condemnations of the Russian operation that began in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia, expanded to another disputed area, Abkhazia, and ended up on purely Georgian soil.
``The idea is to show the Russians that it is no longer business as usual,'' said one senior official familiar with the consultations among world leaders that were going on primarily by phone and in person at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where alliance diplomats met together and then with representatives of Georgia.
A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe confidential conversations among the leaders of other nations, said European and other leaders have been blunt with Russia that it must withdraw its forces. Russian leaders have said they do not plan a long-term occupation, the official said. The official was not specific about whether Russia has offered a timeline for withdrawal. ``People are saying, 'You know you cannot stay,''' the official said. ``We have been hearing from Russia, 'We don't want to stay.'''
