Q It seems to me it's almost akin to having the wolves guard the henhouse, if you're talking about having Russian peacekeepers in a position where they've already invaded a sovereign nation. Is it the administration's position that this is an acceptable way, moving forward?

MR. JOHNDROE: I think there's two things here. What the agreement between Georgia and Russia, brokered by France, says is that all troops, all equipment, military assets that came in after August 6th need to return to their original locations. What can remain are the "Russian peacekeeping forces," so relatively small number.

But what in addition would be international monitors. And I think there's been some move by the OSCE today to get ready to deploy up to 100 international monitors into the region, so they can assess what's going on. But it's also our position that we're going to need to move beyond, at some point down the road, Russian peacekeeping forces; that this is going to be something that needs to be done by outside observers. So we have a number of steps that need to be taken: Russia needs to honor its commitment, move its forces back to August 6th locations; need to get international monitors in; and then we'll move forward with more longer-term mechanisms. Okay?

seen at 09:00, 19 August in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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