Gates: No Prospect for Use of Military Force

• Gates: Russia wanted to punish Georgia;
• Standard package of humanitarian aid ongoing;
• Gen. Cartwright: Russia “generally complying” with ceasefire.

“I do not see any prospect for use of military force by the United States in this situation,” U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, said at a special news conference about situation in Georgia on August 14.

The press conference was held jointly with Vice Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. James Cartwright.

U.S. cargo aircraft C-17 with humanitarian supplies started to arrive in Tbilisi and Washington said it would also use its naval forces to deliver humanitarian and medical supplies.

“This is a humanitarian relief mission and that is our focus at this point,” Gates said.

“The United States government will then turn to the questions both of economic reconstruction and also what to do to help the Georgian security forces looking to the longer term future… Right now the only people we will have on the ground are those that are required to deliver humanitarian mission.”

Gen. Cartwright said that the U.S. military was doing a “standard package of humanitarian aid,” involving identifying where the help is needed, what kind of help is needed; is it medical, is it communications rebuilding etc.Two shipments of humanitarian supplies with worth of USD 2 million, have been delivered to Georgia so far, the U.S. Air Force said.

Secretary Gates said that Russia's attack on Georgia was not just about South Ossetia or Abkhazia.

He said he thought that Russia wanted “to punish Georgia for daring to try to integrate with the west.”

“If Russia does not step back from its aggressive posture and actions in Georgia, the U.S.-Russian relationship could be adversely affected for years to come,” he warned.

When asked what he thought Russia’s intentions were, Gates responded: “My view is that Russians – and I would say – principally PM Putin is interested in reasserting not only Russia’s superpower status, but in reasserting Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. I think that there is an effort to try redress what they regard as many of the concessions they feel were forced upon them in 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

He also said that since 2004, every August there had been an exchange of fire between the Georgian and South Ossetian forces. “This year it escalated very quickly and it seemed to me that Russians were prepared to take advantage of an opportunity and did so very aggressively,” Gates said. “They [Russians] clearly had a great advantage and having superior air power and lot of force.”

Gen. Cartwright said that the Russian forces were currently “generally complying” with the ceasefire commitment.

“Generally the [Russian] forces are starting to move out of the city, particularly Gori; starting to consolidate their positions and get themselves into the position where they can start to back away towards the border,” Gen. Cartwright said. “Air activities in and around of that region has slowed down dramatically over last 24 hours; there has been no air activity.”

Town of Gori remained under the Russian forces’ control at the time of writing this report. The Georgian security forces and the police were outside the town waiting for the Russians to hand over the town.