[Peace-discuss] another double standard

[Dlind49 at aol.com]

We go to war when Iraq uses or threatens to use WMD's but Russia can with 
immunity!!!

**

US Will Not Criticize Russia on Gas
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 2:40 a.m. ET


PHOENIX (AP) -- The White House refused to criticize Russian special forces 
for pumping a mysterious sleeping gas into a theater to end a hostage siege, 
killing 116 hostages.

``The Russian government and the Russian people are victims of this tragedy, 
and the tragedy was caused as a result of the terrorists who took hostages 
and booby-trapped the building and created dire circumstances,'' White House 
spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Fleischer did not endorse the tactic in remarks to reporters as Bush flew 
from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to Phoenix. But he made clear the 
administration's view that blame for the deaths lay with the captors.

Asked directly about the use of the gas, Fleischer wouldn't say whether the 
administration believed it was appropriate. ``We don't know what all the 
facts are,'' he said.

But, he said, ``Given the fact that the terrorists were clearly serious and 
had already killed people, and apparently had the theater booby-trapped so 
all would die, it's important to know what the full circumstances are before 
venturing further.''

Bush, he said, ``abhors the loss of all life. This is a reminder of the 
tragedy that can unfold when terrorists attack.''

Bush had not spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin as of Sunday evening, 
Fleischer said.

The measured White House reaction comes as Bush seeks Russia's support for a 
tough resolution in the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

In Moscow, a U.S. consular officer visited an American survivor of the 
theater hostage crisis, a State Department official said.

The identity of the female patient was not released for privacy reasons, the 
official said. Although she was hospitalized, the official said she was not 
injured.

``We are still continuing to determine the whereabouts of possibly one or two 
other Americans,'' the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Russian special forces troopers ended the 2 1/2-day takeover before dawn 
Saturday with a raid on the theater shortly before the hostage-takers, rebels 
from Russia's embattled Chechnya region, had threatened to begin killing 
their more than 850 captives. Russian officials reported 750 were rescued, 
many wounded.

The rebels killed one hostage early in the takeover. The Russian news agency 
Interfax reported Sunday that Moscow's chief physician, Andrei Seltsovsky, 
said all but one of the 117 captives killed Saturday were victims of a 
knockout gas pumped through the building before the soldiers came in. About 
50 of the Chechen hostage-takers died in the military action, some shot in 
the head as they lay apparently incapacitated by the gas.