[ It's about time!. However, the D.C. criminals will find another despot
government to suck on our Teats. Does this mean we Taxpayers are gonna give
'Aid' to the crooks in the Russian private economy? ]
U.S. Ends Aid to Kremlin
John L. Perry Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2001
In a dramatic foreign-policy reversal, the American ambassador to Moscow
announced Tuesday that the United States planned to end financial aid to the
Russian government. It came at the very time a high-ranking U.S. envoy was in
Russia negotiating with the Kremlin to accept President Bush's plan for an
American missile-defense shield.
Alexander Vershbow, the new U.S. ambassador to Russia, is reported as saying
the United States will now shift its emphasis to assisting the Russian
private sector rather than the government.
According to the Russian news service Interfax, the ambassador made the
startling statement in an interview with the weekly Moscow News published
Tuesday.
Funneling Funds Via IMF
It has long been American policy to try to help the Russian Republic, now
entering its 11th year after the collapse of the communist Soviet Union, by
routing assistance in the form of loans through international financial
organizations, such as the International Monetary Fund.
That day is past, Vershbow said in the interview.
He said the Bush-Cheney administration's reason for cutting off financial aid
to the government is that instead of helping Russia to build an effective
market economy it has actually set back the essential reforms.
Vershbow called for Russian and American business communities to help
persuade the Russian people to accept the reforms needed for American private
capital to flow into Russia through a free economy.
President Vladimir Putin has been struggling, with little noticeable success,
to bring about those internal financial and economic reforms, even as the
U.S.-backed international loans kept disappearing inside Russia.
Going the Private Route
This latest move by the Bush administration is an obvious attempt to apply,
through Russia's private sector, the necessary pressures and incentives to
create a genuine free-market economy, rather than continuing to rely on the
Russian government to manipulate the transformation.
The Associated Press is reporting that the latest U.S. major official to meet
with Kremlin authorities is Under Secretary of State John Bolton, who was
conferring with the Russian deputy foreign minister, Gregory Mamedov.
Laying the Groundwork
These talks are scheduled to be followed up next month at a meeting between
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
After that, the two presidents plan to meet at Bush's ranch in Texas, where
an agreement about missiles may be announced.
Before Bolton arrived in Moscow, there had been earlier conversations with
Russian defense officials, first by National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, and next by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
All these conversations are the result of an agreement reached by Bush and
Putin at their summit meeting to have their technical counterparts explore
Bush's missile-shield plan in the context of possible reductions in U.S. and
Russian intercontinental ballistic-missile arsenals.
In her discussions with the Russians, Rice adhered firmly to Bush's position
that he would go ahead with his missile shield with or without Moscow's
concurrence.
Rumsfeld Hanging Tough
As NewsMax.com reported Aug. 16, several Russian news publications said
Rumsfeld had in effect backed down Putin to the point where was Russia was
prepared to accept Bush's missile shield.
That would be a major breakthrough for Bush, for it would require junking the
1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which Moscow has clung to so relentlessly
dating back to the Cold War of the old Soviet Union era.
The American ambassador's unexpected announcement about ending financial aid
to the Russian government has to be yet another point of pressure applied on
Putin to let him understand the United States is serious about acting
independently of the Russian government if Bush feels that is in America's
vital interests.
Apparently in the view of the Bush-Cheney administration, continuing the
Clinton-Gore administration's policy of pouring financial aid into the
Kremlin is no longer in America's vital interests, but building a free
economy in Russia by aiding its private sector is.
John L. Perry, a prize-winning newspaper editor and writer who served on
White House staffs of two presidents, is senior editor for NewsMax.com. Read
more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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AB
