The Washington Post: Russia publicly humiliated the head of the Pentagon
Pentagon chief Robert Gates and his entire US administration were humiliated by Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov, when he accused the international coalition led by the US of killing civilians of Libya during aerial attacks the day before and called for an immediate cease-fire, the Washington Post said. According to the newspaper, Washington is too many issues to meet Moscow, honestly fulfilling the obligation to "reset", while Russia gives almost nothing in return and behaves as if it had a leading role in this process.
Last Tuesday, an illustration of this statement could be seen at a press conference in Moscow of the US and Russian defense ministers, according to the publication. In response to Gates' "good words" about progress in US-Russian cooperation, the Russian defense minister made an unpleasant statement on the situation in Libya. According to The Washington Post, Serdyukov actually “reprimanded Obama” in the presence of Gates.
According to the Global Post, according to journalists who attended a press conference in Moscow, the head of the Pentagon listened to Serdyukov’s accusations "calmly", "with a stony face", after which he rejected them, reports InoPressa.
The US Secretary of Defense emphasized that the overwhelming majority, if not almost all of the casualties among civilians, were the work of Gadhafi’s army. As Gates noted, some take Gadhafi’s blatant lie about the losses among the population after the rocket-bombing attacks on Libyan territory by allied forces at face value. Nevertheless, at the end of his speech, Gates promised that in the near future the intensity of coalition attacks on military targets in Libya would be reduced.
According to The Washington Post, the main problem of the current US policy towards Russia is that even such defiant behavior of Moscow remains without consequences, writes InoPressa. For this reason, the unpleasant situation repeats again and again. "Sooner or later, Obama, following the example of George W. Bush, will have to reconsider his attitude towards the gangster democracy with which he deals," the newspaper believes.
The Global Post recalls that Serdyukov’s call for a cease-fire was made against the background of disagreements between Russian leaders regarding Libya. On Monday, Prime Minister Putin called the actions of the coalition "armed intervention from the outside."
According to the publication, these were standard statements reflecting Russia's traditional objections against Western intervention in the affairs of other states, but Medvedev did not like Putin’s rhetoric. In his residence near Moscow, the president delivered a 7-minute monologue about the fairness of military intervention in Libya and recalled that the UN Security Council resolution on Libya also reflects the position of Russia, which did not use its veto power when adopting the document.
As the publication is sure, the skirmish between Putin and Medvedev most likely will not have any consequences, however it is noteworthy that for the first time the participants of the tandem clashed in the sphere of foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Vesti FM states that, despite Gates’s promise to reduce the intensity of strikes against Libya, this has not happened yet. On the contrary: the attacks on the military facilities of Muammar Gaddafi became more powerful. The French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle went to the scene, and six fighters from Belgium, Norway and Qatar were redeployed to the airfields of Greek Crete.
On the eve aviation the coalition launched a series of attacks on the naval base of Gaddafi's forces and a village near Tripoli. As it turned out on Tuesday, the matter was not limited only to air operations. As the military department of Great Britain admitted, three weeks ago it sent a detachment of special forces to Libya, which are engaged in targeting aircraft.
The international coalition continued to fire on the territory of this country on Wednesday night. In just one day, coalition forces made more than 300 sorties, and the total number of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched at military sites exceeded 162.
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