Catastrophe in Chechnya
Escaping the Quagmire

December 10, 2004

Unedited transcript prepared from a tape recording

8:45 a.m.	Registration and continental breakfast
9:00	Welcome:	Radek Sikorski, executive director, NAI
	Introductory Remarks:	Ruud Lubbers, United Nations high commissioner for refugees; former prime minister of the Netherlands
9:30	The Quagmire
	Speakers:	David Ensor, national security correspondent, CNN
		Khassan Baiev, Chechen surgeon, author of The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire
		John Dunlop, senior fellow, Hoover Institution
		Stephen Solarz, chairman, American Committee for Peace in Chechnya; former U.S. congressman
	Moderator:	Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor, Washington Post
10:45	Break
11:00	Chechnya and Terror: Facts and Myths
	Speakers:	David Satter, senior fellow, Hudson Institute; author of Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State
		Andrew Meier, author of Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall
		Andrei Babitsky, journalist, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
		Rajan Menon, Monroe J. Rathbone professor, Lehigh University
	Moderator:	Radek Sikorski, executive director, NAI
12:30 p.m.	Luncheon
	Keynote Speaker:	Zbigniew Brzezinski, counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies; former National Security advisor
2:00	Search for Peace
	Introductory Remarks:	Jerry Fowler, staff director of the Committee on Conscience, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
	Speakers:	Lord Frank Judd, former rapporteur on Chechnya for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
		Ilyas Akhmadov, foreign minister in the government of Aslan Maskhadov
		Aleksandr Lukashevich, senior counselor, Embassy of Russia
		Leon Aron, resident scholar, AEI
		Andrei A. Pointkovsky, director of the Center for Strategic Studies in Moscow
	Moderator:	Danielle Pletka, vice president, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, AEI
3:30	Conference Adjournment
6:30	Reception held at the Freedom House Main Office Building
	Speaker:	Thomas Dine, president, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
8:30	Reception Adjournment

Proceedings:
MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Radek Sikorski, executive director of the New Atlantic Initiative here at the American Enterprise Institute. Welcome to the New Atlantic Initiative.

The New Atlantic Initiative program of the American Enterprise Institute stands for cooperation between the United States and Europe. We stand for the enlargement of NATO, of the European Union. We stand for free trade between America and Europe. We stand for strong security and against terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Last, but not least, we've always stood, since our founding at the Congress of Prague in 1996, for welcoming Russia into Western institutions. Welcoming Russia means encouraging Russia to abide by the standards of our Western institutions, helping Russia to overcome its colonial and totalitarian past, treating Russia like the great nation that it is, and helping it to become a member of our family.

We also have sympathy with the underdog, and the Chechen nation has been an underdog, mostly conquered in the 19th century, subjected to genocide by Stalin in the 1940s, and now a war in which a considerable proportion of the Chechen nation has died.

We gather here at the American Enterprise Institute on the International Human Rights Day, and your presence here from so many corners of the world, from so many thousands of miles away, show how important this cause is. I would like to thank in advance all of the institutions that have helped to make this event possible: The Jamestown Foundation, the U.S. Committee for Peace in Chechnya, the Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Amnesty International and the Holocaust Museum.

I cannot think of any better person to kick off our deliberations than Mr. Ruud Lubbers, the longest-serving Dutch prime minister, and the U.N. high commissioner for refugees--incidently, also, professor of globalization.

Chechnya is many things. It's also a refugee crisis, and we are delighted that Mr. Lubbers has agreed to address us. His schedule is very tight. He will not be able to take questions, but, please, Prime Minister, the floor is yours.

[Applause.]

PRIME MINISTER LUBBERS: Thank you for inviting me to make a couple of remarks as high commissioner for refugees, but I'll say, first, that it's for me also seeing back a number of good friends related to Chechnya.

My first thing with Chechnya was the time that I was not any longer prime minister in the Netherlands, but a visiting professor at the Kennedy School in Harvard, and there was an initiative taken to bring together Chechens, representatives from Moscow and some others. That didn't happen in Cambridge. It happened in the Hague. That seems centuries ago. It was, indeed, last century, with still Maskhadov around and others. I will not mention them all.

We went later to Tatarstan to Kazan, at the invitation of President Shaimiyev. We tried again to find a better way forward. Like many others, I did not succeed. So then I became high commissioner for refugees, and I'm punished, as it were, because the problem is still there.

As a starting point, allow me to provide a brief statistical overview, so you know what numbers we are talking. We estimate that more than 300,000 persons are still in a situation of displacement within the Russian Federation: outside of Chechnya they are mostly in Ingushetia, 70,000; and other constituent entities of the Federation, up to 48,000, including 8,000 in Dagestan. In Chechnya itself, there are, in the tallies with the governmental sources, more than 190,000 displaced persons.

Despite the problems of violence and instability that still prevails in Chechnya, returns are taking place--some 16,000 from Ingushetia since the 1st of January of this year--and we can ascertain that none of these have been forcible, some have been voluntary and others have been conditioned by the withdrawal of other options and characterized by a climate of pressure, and that is true, and that of course has been problematic for UNHCR.

Let me use the time to explain the two-pronged approach that UNHCR is promoting for Chechnya and the Chechens.

We expect the Russian authorities to respect the voluntary nature of return and the possibility of taking care of and protecting internally, in Chechnya, displaced Chechens who wish to remain in Ingushetia, that they should stay there. You might call this the first prong. It's the whole dimension of voluntariness and respect of the preferences of the people. And that's, of course, in a role of [?], if you like, the first prong. Allow HCR to be with the people who still think time has not come to return, and in particular in Ingushetia.

At the same time, and that is the second prong, we declared ourselves available to go back to Chechnya, HCR, making it clear that the voluntary return to Chechnya is a real option, and we can make that even more clear when we are there for the returnees and with the returnees and also assisting in reintegration and rehabilitation.

Now, this is a pretty practical scheme, the two prongs. Allow UNHCR to continue protection and assistance outside Chechnya, mainly in Ingushetia, as well as that is provided by the authorities, we are preferred to give a clear signal of possibilities to go back to Chechnya and be there.

Although this sounds pretty practical, the basic thing in this is to build confidence, and that is my contribution to the conference here, trying to build confidence.

A constructive dialogue concluding with sound and pragmatic recommendation is a goal that I would endorse also for this meeting. My office has threatened to find a balance of constructive dialogue, and I would like to remind those present here that the goal is not only to find durable solutions for the Chechen population, but to remember to be aware that the Russian Federation in itself is a country in transition.

We must also address, in any scenario of solutions then, to support a unified and functioning society in the entire Federation. The task is tremendous. Can we achieve the necessary level of partnership with the various authorities and those affected to reach a goal?

Let's make it even more actual. Today, I have to report, as the high commissioner for refugees, that gradually, after Afghanistan, after Iraq, the Russian Federation is moving to the top of the list of countries who are refugee-producing. At least people come to Central and Western Europe claiming that they are refugees. So, then, we have to believe they are real refugees, and many of them show up also as Chechens, and then we have to check are these all Chechens or they also others? But they've made it pretty clear that the Chechen dimension is not only a dimension in Chechnya, but it's a relevant phenomenon also from a global perspective.

Can we become a sort of catalyst of building trust? That is, for me, the question. And I noticed, because I spoke earlier about this two-pronged approach, that people consider us to be a bit naive maybe, not realistic, but we see no other way forward.

We think it's possible to combine the function, which is our international mandate to protect people in trouble, to protect people who need protection and still to do it in such a way that the solution is based on a minimum level of confidence.

We had talks, of course, with the Russian authorities. We have discussed that indeed the Chechen tragedy is not limited to domestic considerations. It is, as I said, an international discussion. Therefore, there must be a spirit of international partnership. UNHCR has asked our Russian interlocutors to exhibit an advanced level of cooperation and partnership with the international community.

Additionally, HCR has pointed to clear examples that sudden and destabilizing actions toward the displaced do not build trust and, in fact, work not only against the protection needs of the displaced, but against also the authorities' own stated objectives of promoting voluntary returns to Chechnya, stabilization and civil society. So this doesn't start today, but it's an ongoing struggle.

We should, we made clear, avoid actions that are sudden, threatening, misunderstood, inconsistent. Thus, there is a call for an open and transparent set of agreements and actions that support trust.

So, therefore, this two-pronged approach, I discussed that in Geneva with my bosses, the Executive Committee of UNHCR and got for that the green light. We have this discussion going on in terms of is it for real, and with have many NGOs, is it really protecting the people, and with others who say you have to support stronger specifically the policy of Moscow and of the Chechens in a formal way.

Here, we have said our role in all of this is to go for a policy which in a way is balanced and which has the main characteristic that it is in return in safety and dignity, and if people still decide [audio break] that they are well informed, that they can make informed decisions and the decisions are voluntary.

In the discussions with the Russian authorities, I might say that indeed they have demonstrated more recently better than sometime before, a will to allow alternative recommendations in Ingushetia. For a while, it was just closing down and finishing the whole thing. That has changed a bit, but the whole situation is still fragile, although the formal situation, and we see it in recent decrees have formalized this point, I estimate.

The officially stated policy of the Russian Federation to support returns with grant programs and other incentives appears, therefore, okay and, in a way, impressive, and that is positive, of course. However, UNHCR has found, working around the world in many programs, that refugees that are displaced must have complete information from all aspects of return in order to realize a level of confidence and trust that they can make the well-informed decisions themselves. Return information is--and that's not only there. It's all over the world--usually neither sufficient, nor strategically well structured, and then you get misinformation and misunderstanding, and that's part of new problems.

So, therefore, essential part for our two-pronged approach is to develop a communication strategy. This is pretty practical. We just have to write brochure, a pamphlet, if you like, with the information in it, and on that, of course, the label of UNHCR to make it clear that this is exactly what we stand for, to put pressure to implement the nice things in such a procedure. This is then "Conditions of Return."

We do hope, of course, that these "Conditions of Return," serve several objectives of such an action. As I said, it is clarity and information. It sets, in fact, also the benchmarks to check on the promises. What is really happening. It's a tool for those who have to make decisions to check on their own future, on the risks, which there are both in staying out and in going back, but also the concrete time lines of certain improvements and, as I said, promises.

Next to information, a pamphlet of UNHCR, I would be happy, of course, that the document itself is not only with the name of UNHCR, and the mark of UNHCR, but also of the Federation authorities. Then, it becomes a real commitment, and from a commitment it can function as a tool to build trust.

Up to now, I might say it's going most of the time downwards and sometimes upwards in this process. So I use this opportunity again to give it a new impetus. We think it's a modest part maybe what UNHCR can do, but it's the only thing what we do.

Now, I'm fully aware that HCR, as I said, is a small part of the whole equation. We should not see these things only in terms of programs and budgets. It's useful that you hear from me that our whole program there is very limited. It's not too limited. It's, in our opinion, good enough. It's more a fundamental point for us, that of the so-called CAP appeal for the Northern Caucasus--and that's the normal language for me as a U.N. person--the CAP for the Northern Country Caucasus is about $62 million, and what are we doing? Only 5 percent of that.

So here is a small percent, with a small budget in Ingushetia. Still, we think that the role of UNHCR in this process can be pretty crucial. It's very needed. There is fatigue among the displaced Chechens, as well as in the circles, and I would say, in general, the Russian population. "Fatigue" is a mild word still. You even might say it's despair. It's more serious. And we have to take this very seriously. I said that earlier, and I can only repeat it today.

It's a misunderstanding to think that fatigue will end automatically. Normally, it translates itself in more despair, and that's exactly then the reason that I continue stubborn with this two-pronged approach.

Of course, I don't think I have to do that here--it will be said by many-- that we have to be aware of the full consequences of a spiraling radicalization. This is not only with Chechens. It's with all populations who have the feeling that it is not right. So you need a program to repair that, if you like.

Therefore, we want to use the opportunities. It's, for us, a question of making a judgment. It's not purely a political nor purely a moral question. It also builds on an experience with displaced persons, with refugees, what are the elements that determine their interpretation of the situation. And we know that there is this risk of downward spiraling, and in fact that is what happened.

So these were my few remarks I wanted to make here. I thank you very much. I wish you a fruitful day. If I can shorten all of my other commitments, I will drop again in this afternoon, but I am not absolutely sure.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, High Commissioner.

Before we can search for solutions to the Chechen problem, it's I think very important to see the lay of the land, to hear from those who have witnessed this terrible conflict and for us to see and feel the reality on the ground in Chechnya.

With this in view, we will now show you two video cuts of the first and of the second war, and then we will have some prominent practitioners of journalism out there to tell you what it's like.

If I could ask all of our speakers and panelists to please join us at the three head tables to make more room for more participants. We have had to close registration at 250. So we want to make it possible for all of those who can sit, to sit.

Are we ready with the film? Let's let it roll.

[Videotape played.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll want to show you another short cut--we'll just change the tape--of showing what it's like to cover a war like that from the point of view of the journalists who are there and who you will have the privilege to hear afterwards.

[Videotape played.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Ladies and gentlemen, distressing pictures, indeed, and I'd like Fred Hiatt, the editorial page director of the Washington Post, to please moderate the panel, which will establish the facts on the ground in Chechnya.

Please, Fred, David--

MR. HIATT: Thank you, Radek, and thank you and everybody else who has organized this panel for doing it. I think there's a tendency in this town, as anywhere, to sort of look at Chechnya as hopeless and so start paying attention to something else. And just a conference like this is a valuable addition to the discussion.

On the other hand, Radek has given our panel the topic of "Quagmire," which doesn't suggest all that much hopefulness.

I think maybe I'll just quickly introduce everybody and then give folks five or ten minutes. Most of you know most of these people from one forum or another.

David Ensor, as you just saw, was an NBC correspondent. He and I were in Moscow at the same time during the first Chechen war. He's now a diplomatic and intelligence correspondent for CNN.

Dr. Baiev, as many of you know, was a doctor in Chechnya, who treated anybody who was hurt, and for that basically got run out of his country.

Stephen Solarz, a former congressman and co-founder of the International Patrol Group, has been involved in monitoring democracy in elections in many parts of the world, as well as a spokesman for Clinton-Gore foreign policy in the '96 campaign.

And John Dunlop, whose writings we all know, author of, "The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire," and many other works including about Chechnya.

So why don't we start, since we just saw your [audio break], David, and maybe everybody can take five or ten minutes or closer to five maybe to give us your perspective on whether it is a quagmire and whether there's any way out, and then we can move to discussion.

MR. ENSOR: It's nice to be here. Chechnya is now a victim of the brutal folly that the Russian army has used, but it is also a victim of some of the banditry that, frankly, has continued to be a problem in Chechnya, in my opinion, and you have to add to that list a certain amount of indifference and ignorance on the part of many foreign governments, including our own.

It's not just another battlefield in the war on terrorism, as it is sometimes described in this city, and Russia is not just another ally in that war on terrorism. It is also not just about human rights, as some try to suggest, in my view, although it is certainly that. The human rights abuses that are going on, on both sides, but particularly on the Russian side, are appalling, but I do think we should also note that Russia has a real strategic interest in Chechnya.

I know "liberal Democrats," the types who lost the election the other day, Russian friends, who would not ever let Chechnya go because they feel that if Chechnya were to be allowed to go, the Federation would unravel, and they are still in shock that the Soviet Union unraveled so quickly. So it is, for the Russians, I think one has to concede, as an outsider, a legitimate strategic issue. They can't just let Chechnya go. Others might want to follow.

There's a lesson for the U.S. from Chechnya, a lesson for us in Iraq. By failing to distinguish between fighters and civilians, the Russians have turned far more of the population against them. There was a recent Carnegie Endowment poll that I thought illustrated that well. Over the period of May to June of this year, Chechens were asked: Why are Chechens killing Russians? And the answer was 6 percent said jihad; 24 percent, struggle for independence; 56 percent, revenge for the brutality of Russian forces.

To a very large extent, that is what many of the Chechens are fighting about. It didn't have to be that way. Back in the early '90s, there were so many miscalculations by the Yeltsin government, and now, unfortunately, another president is continuing the process.

This is an unusual role for me, giving my opinions. I'm usually paid just to report facts, but I have two more opinions to give you before I pass it on, and that is--they're fairly simple.

No. 1, we should tell it like it is to the Russians. Our president, and other American leaders, should be much more honest than they are being about what really is happening in Chechnya. There might be other subjects we should also be more honest about. We're not doing the Russians any favors by avoiding the subject or rewarding them for their help in the war on terrorism by soft-peddling Chechnya. That is not helping the Russians. It is not helping Russia, and we should stop taking this approach. It was a mistake by Mr. Clinton. It is a mistake by Mr. Bush.

Secondly, I don't think Chechnya is ever going to be an independent country. I may be wrong about that, but that's my view, and I think that something that the U.S. government should be working very hard on now is looking for ways to professionalize the Russian army.

The Pentagon should be reaching out to whoever the right people are at the Ministry of Defense. We should start trying to help them put money in the right places, do what we have to do to turn the Russian army into less of a mess than it is because that is really what Chechnya is about. It's an example of the collapse of what was the Soviet army and the collapse of professionalism, to the extent there was professionalism, in the Soviet army.

Thank you.

MR. HIATT: Thank you, David.

Dr. Baiev?

DR. BAIEV: Dear friends, thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about the disaster in Chechnya, the first and second Chechen-Russian wars.

I am here to tell you from my own experience that the medical and ecological situation in Chechnya is a catastrophe. Chechnya is the size of Connecticut and had a pre-war population of just over one million. The first war began in 1994 and ended in 1996. The second war began in 1999 and still goes on.

In Chechnya, as in all modern wars, the civilians are the main victims. The United Nations estimates that in wars today 90 percent of the victims are civilians. At the beginning of the last century, only 5 percent were victims. In Chechnya, about one-quarter of the population of one million has been killed. Translated into American terms, this would amount to 17 million people.

Chechnya, today, is a medical disaster area. When the second war started in 1999, the Russians used overwhelming force. As a doctor, I witnessed what were just ordinary people who want nothing more than to live in [audio break]. --some 500,000, by most assessments.

UNICEF estimates that 10,000 people have been killed by mines, mostly women and children. Thousands are killed for [?]. Unlike other countries, Chechnya receives no international aid for removal of mines. During the wars, the Russians used defoliants on trees to uncover Chechen fighters. This poison produced skin sores, intestinal problems, and disorders which doctors are not able to identify. I believe the contaminated environment is responsible for the increased rate of cancer and blood disease such as leukemia in children.

Some estimates state that 73 percent of Chechnya territory is contaminated. My medical contact in Chechnya report that women are giving birth in increased numbers. Unfortunately, I cannot supply numbers of the recent birth rate, but it does not surprise me. Our nation is naturally protecting itself against what we see as genocide war. However, I must add that the infant mortality during the first year of life is very high. In Chechnya, it stands at 26 per 1,000 compared to 18 per 1,000 in Russia or 7 per 1,000 in the United States.

Chechen pediatricians estimate that 1 child in 3 is born with birth defects. I recall a mother coming to me. Her baby who was born with two extra eyes, two extra ears, and hole instead of a nose. It is not only disease which is plaguing the population. In my opinion, the whole nation is suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. People are nervous. They suffer memory loss, insomnia and depression. Suicide and suicide attempts are common. Men in their twenties are having heart attacks. General stress dries up mothers' milk.

We do not know how many women have been raped because Chechen families see rape as shameful and try to hide it. I, personally, know of several cases, many victims, including men, were raped in the filtration camps, which were supposed to weed out the active fighters from the innocent, and I could go on.

Mr. Hasan Gadayev, head of Maternity of Children's Health Department of the Pro-Russian Chechen Administration, has stated that over 80 percent of children in Chechnya have problems. Forty percent of children suffer from sight and hearing pathologies. The incidence of tuberculosis among children is very high.

In March 2003, Doctors of the World took testimony from 40 Chechen doctors. Under the Geneva Conventions, medical and religious personnel are supposed to be protected in war. All doctors interviewed reported being treated as criminals and subjected to threats, blackmail, harassment, arrest and other forms of intimidation.

One doctor said, "We live in fear day and night--fear of practicing our profession, of providing care or being arrested or being excused." I describe my own sad experience in my book, "The Oath: Surgeon Under Fire." Dear friends, I fear for the future of my country, especially for our children who are growing up without education and without health care. They are growing up in fear and hatred of their Russian neighbors.

Unfortunately, I am not able to return to Chechnya to help my people. Instead, I am heading up a nonprofit organization called The International Committee for the Children of Chechnya. I hope to raise funds and equipment for the children such as artificial limbs or hearing aids for children with hearing loss from the heavy bombardments.

As a doctor who experienced the horrors of war, I appeal to political oversight to begin peace negotiations.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. HIATT: Thank you for that very disturbing and moving report.

Congressman Solarz, let me apologize for misnaming the International Crisis Group and turn it over to you.

MR. SOLARZ: Thank you very much, Fred.

I don't have the same degree of personal involvement or professional experience with Chechnya that the other very distinguished members of the panel have. But as someone who firmly believes in the truth of Santayana's observation that those who do not study the past are condemned to repeat it, I recently had the occasion, in an effort to get a better understanding of the situation in Chechnya, to read a short story by Leo Tolstoy called, "Haji Murad." Perhaps only Tolstoy could write a short story of 150 pages, but it is really an extraordinary literary achievement. My impression is that most Tolstoy scholars consider it the best piece of short fiction he ever wrote. Some go even further.

Harold Blum, for instance, wrote that "`Haji Murad' is my personal touchstone for the sublime prose of fiction. To me, the best story in the world or at least the best that I have ever read."

It's the story of Haji Murad, a Chechen warrior, who in 1851 defected to the Russians, who were then engaged in a campaign, as they are now, to subdue Chechnya. And in the course of reading this short story, what struck me most of all was how, with due allowance for the advances in technology that have taken place over the last century-and-a-half, how little has really changed in terms of the way in which the Russians have sought to achieve their objectives in Chechnya.

And as my modest contribution to this panel, what I would like to do is to read one brief selection from Tolstoy's short story, "Haji Murad."

"The village which had been destroyed was that in which Haji Murad had spent the night before he went over to the Russians. Sato [ph], with his family, had left the village on the approach of the Russian detachment. And when he returned, he found his house in ruins, the roof fallen in, the door and the post supporting the veranda burned, and the interior filthy. His son, the handsome, bright-eyed boy who had gazed with such ecstacy at Haji Murad, was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a borka [ph]. He had been stabbed in the back with a bayonet.

"The dignified woman who had served Haji Murad when he was at the house now stood over her son's body, her smock torn in front, her withered, old breasts exposed, her hair down, and she dug her nails into her face till it bled and wailed incessantly.

"Sado, with pickax and spade, had gone with his relatives to dig a grave for his son. The old grandfather sat by the wall of the ruined house cutting a stick and gazing stolidly in front of him. He had only just returned from the apiary, the two stacks of hay there had been burnt. The apricot and cherry trees he had planted and reared were broken and scorched. And worse still, all of the beehives and bees were burnt.

"The wailing of the women and of the little children who cried with their mothers mingled with the lowing of the hungry cattle, for whom there was no food. The bigger children did not play, but followed their elders with frightened eyes.

"The fountain was polluted, evidently on purpose, so that the water could not be used. The mosque was polluted in the same way, and the mullah and his assistants were cleaning it out.

"No one spoke of hatred of the Russians. The feeling experienced by all of the Chechens, from the youngest to the oldest, was stronger than hate. It was not hatred, for they did not regard those Russian dogs as human beings, but it was such repulsion, disgust and perplexity at the senseless cruelty of these creatures that the desire to exterminate them, like the desire to exterminate rats, poisonous spiders or wolves, was as natural an instinct as that of self-preservation.

"The inhabitants of the village were confronted by the choice of remaining there and restoring, with frightful effort, what had been produced with such labor and had been so lightly and senselessly destroyed, facing every moment the possibility [audio break]."

MR. DUNLOP: Is it working now? Yes.

At a conference in Washington that I attended last month, one leading Russian specialist on Chechnya predicted that the current conflict would likely last another 10 years. Another well-known Russian specialist on the Caucasus region has forecast that the war "will end around 2020."

My own prediction is a more modest one. The conflict will last, at a minimum, until March of 2008, when Vladimir Putin's second presidential term comes to an end. Since I only have a very brief period of time in which to justify such a prediction, I'll cite but a few of the reasons why I don't expect the present war to end any time soon.

One key reason, of course, is that the Putin leadership declines to hold talks with moderate Chechen separatists. Instead, it seeks to kill them, to capture them or to extradite them from abroad. It is highly difficult to end a war when you refuse to negotiate with the enemy. Such a stance means that you're aiming for the enemy's unconditional surrender. In a guerrilla war, such a stance is clearly unrealistic.

Instead of negotiating with moderate separatists, the Kremlin has chosen to empower its hand-picked, pro-Moscow Chechen leader, former mufti, Akhmad Kadyrov and his entourage. Kadyrov was declared elected president in a rigged election held on October 5th. The three Chechen candidates who had higher approval rates than did Kadyrov were removed from the ballot.

Twenty-one percent of Chechens in one poll termed the election a farce and said that they would not participate. Another 13 percent said they would not participate because their preferred candidate had been removed from the ballot. An unpopular, corrupt politician, Kadyrov has been bolted into power over other candidates enjoying greater trust among the populace.

Another reason the war will continue is this: Chechnya is a destroyed republic with a devastated infrastructure and a very high rate of unemployment. Obviously, in order to regain the trust of the citizenry, the Russian government needs to invest major funds in order to restore infrastructure, services and housing for the populace.

Unfortunately, Chechnya continues to represent what [audio break]--a black hole?

[Laughter.]

MR. DUNLOP: --a black hole in which a large part of the funds earmarked for reconstruction and services are, in fact, embezzled at both a federal and a local level. Next year, the federal budget for all programs in Chechnya will amount to about $1 billion. Predictably, a large percentage of that sum will be embezzled.

An article appearing in one leading Russian newspaper, "Kommersant," on December 5th, concluded, "It turns out that more and more money is being spent on restoration in Chechnya each year. In 2003, it was 8 billion rubles more than the previous year, while less and less is actually being constructed. In 2002," it was noted, "17,000 new jobs had been constructed." For 2003, the figure was 3,000--17,000 in 2002, and 3,000 in 2003.

There is also a program in Chechnya for paying compensation to the most needy Chechens who have lost their houses or apartments. To date, only 74 families, out of the intended 40,000, have received compensation.

While the Chechen citizenry is being shortchanged, the apparatus of the pro-Moscow government is expanding by leaps and bounds. Thus, the budget of the 36-year-old acting prime minister, pro-Moscow prime minister, Edi Isaev, has grown by 76 percent.

Another reason that the situation in Chechnya will likely worsen is connected with the recent removal of Aleksandr Voloshin as head of the Russian presidential administration. Over the past several years, Voloshin had de facto been in charge of both conceptualizing and implementing Russian's Chechen policy which became known as "Chechenization."

An extremely powerful figure in his own right, with ties to the so-called Yeltsin family and to certain oligarchs, Voloshin served as a key counterweight to the so-called Siloviki or "power ministers."

With Voloshin gone, the influence of the Siloviki could likely rise in Chechnya, and for the most part, they appear to be skeptical about Chechenization and hostile towards Kadyrov and his entourage.

On October 20th, it was reported that the acting chief prosecutor of Chechnya, Vladimir Kravchenko, who is a Slav, had voiced strong objections to the very existence of Kadyrov's 5,000-man, heavily-armed presidential security service, a body which included a number of former separatist fighters.

On November 20th, it was reported that Kadyrov had appealed to the Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Ivanov, with a request that he strengthen controls over the Russian forces in Chechnya. The Russian military Daily, "Krasnaya Zvezda", for its part, sharply criticized Kadyrov's police for constantly losing and surrendering to the rebels. Kadyrov's police, the paper said, should not be put in charge of the counterterrorist operation in the republic.

As for the Chechen separatist fighters themselves, their morale, according to recent reports, remains high. The actions of the Russian federal forces provide them with a steady stream of new recruits. Recently, kidnapping has become the preferred modus operandi.

Over the past year, Aleksandr Cherkasov, a representative of the leading Russian human rights organization, Memorial, has noted cleansing operations are de facto not being conducted by the federal forces, but the disappearances of people and extrajudicial executions are continuing. By night, people are being taken into custody and then carted off by armed individuals wearing camouflage uniforms who arrive in armored transport carriers.

In all, during the course of the second war, more than 3,000 persons have disappeared in Chechnya, and that is only according to official figures.

In late November, Boris Nemtsov, who was at the time a well-known Duma faction leader, affirmed that during the present second Russo-Chechen war, Russia has lost 6,000 soldiers, as well as "tens of thousands of peaceful inhabitants."

While polling data shows that most Chechens are quite moderate in their views and still willing to reach some kind of settlement with Russia, there is accumulating evidence that the younger Chechen fighters, those in their late teens and early twenties, are being radicalized and are turning to a variant of militant Islam. In this sphere, too, Russia may be running out of time. The older fighters, those in their late thirties and forties, still have memories of a shared existence with Russia and Russians. The younger fighters have no such memories.

In conclusion, I believe that the present Kremlin policy of Chechenization will likely fail in the long term. The federal forces based in Chechnya will continue to prey aggressively on the Chechen populace. The mutual animosity of the Russian Siloviki and the Kadyrovites is likely to grow and perhaps even mushroom. One can even envisage scenarios under which some degree of Kadyrovites will elect to join or rejoin the ranks of the rebels. Kadyrov is a corrupt leader surrounded by corrupt officials more interested in lining their own pockets than in fostering the well-being of a traumatized population.

Chechnya will continue to represent a black hole with federal funds earmarked for Chechen restoration and the needs of the populace being massively embezzled both at the federal and the local level and could turn even more vicious.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. HIATT: Another cheerful assessment.

[Laughter.]

MR. HIATT: We can take a few questions. Let me start by asking one and then turn it over.

Khassan, you said many Chechens see this as a genocidal war. How close to succeeding in that do you think the Russians are and what will be left to the Chechen people if, as John says, the war continues to 2008 or 2010?

[Question being interpreted into Russian and interpreter requested question be repeated.]

MR. HIATT: The question was how close to--if this is a genocidal war, how close to successful has it been and what will the status of the Chechen people be if the war, in fact, continues until 2008 or 2010?

DR. BAIEV: [Responded in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.]

MR. HIATT: Yes, please identify yourself when you ask a question.

MR. UZZELL: Lawrence Uzzell with Chechnya Weekly.

This is also a question to Dr. Baiev, whom I want to thank for his brilliant book, which I think is the most important book about Chechnya to come out in the last two years. If there's one book that people in this room should recommend to their friends who are not specialists on Chechnya, it should be this one. It is a classic of the study of the effects of war on civilians and should be read by people, even those who are not particularly interested in Chechnya.

My question: You've talked about the use of defoliants by the Russian army in Chechnya. I'd like to know if you could tell us more about the use of biological and chemical weapons deliberately targeted against Chechens.

DR. BAIEV: [Responded in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.]

MR. HAJ: I'm Smyrdin Haj [ph] of Defense Week. This question will be directed to Mr. Ensor or maybe Mr. Hiatt. I wondered if they could maybe just address some of the difficulties of covering Chechnya today, how difficult it is to actually go into Chechnya without, say, being chaperoned by the Russian military.

And Mr. Ensor quite rightly pointed out that very much of what we see today is just stock footage and if they could talk about some of the obstacles that reporters face today.

Thanks.

MR. ENSOR: The whole subject is discouraging. Even back in 1995, it was dangerous to go into Chechnya, especially with a television camera, which, from a distance, of course looks like it's something else. You ran the risk of being fired upon, certainly by the Russian side, and it was even unclear you might have some risk from the Chechen side sometimes.

What we generally did back in 1995, however, after trying to get the Russian military to let us come with them and being turned down, we went in with the Chechens. I slept on the floor of an abandoned kindergarten in Dagestan with my camera crew, and we would go in, in the morning. We would try to hook up with some Chechen fighters because they usually knew the safest places, and we would try to take some film for television. You must have pictures. You must go, take risks, and then get out safely.

In the time that I was traveling in and out of there, which was '94-'95, several Western journalists were killed, but it was basically, our sense was that none of those deaths were deliberate assassinations. They were simply people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Since then, there clearly have been some cases where journalists in Chechnya have been targeted. By whom, we're not sure, but there are suspicions among journalists that there are Russian soldiers who simply fire on them because they're journalists.

The biggest problem, though, is that there are no longer Russian journalists going to Chechnya, taking the risks and telling the truth about what's happening there. There was a brief and wonderful period of courage on the part of the Russian media in the mid '90s. It's been ended. It's over, as far as I can see. Maybe some in the room have seen some exceptions to that. I hope so.

MR. HIATT: I would just add, I mean, there are a couple of courageous exceptions who deserve notice, like Anne Nivat, a French journalist, and Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian journalist. They go back disguised as Chechen civilians, and they take great risks.

But the other side of the equation, as David mentioned earlier, that even when there's obvious news from Chechnya which could be covered, television, which are all now controlled by the Kremlin downplay it or don't play it at all, and so what Russians see of this war is very, very minimal.

Yes?

MS. DIVINSKY: Ina Divinsky [ph], Voice of America.

Current suicidal bombers that basically took lives of many Russians in the Yesentuki, in Moscow, many call these attacks sort of like, for Russia, that it shoot itself in the foot, that it caused these attacks. But at the same time, President Putin declares that it has terrorism, Chechen terrorism, on Russian soil.

So what would be the position of international community, under the circumstances, how to distinguish between the rightful cause of the Chechen people and these suicidal attacks?

Thank you.

MR. DUNLOP: Well, I think the most recent episodes you mentioned in Yesentuki and in Moscow yesterday, in my opinion, it's too early really to know what happened. We're getting very conflicting reports, and so I wouldn't want to pronounce on who is responsible for that because I don't think it's been sorted out yet, and I think it will take a long time to sort out that.

But obviously these horrible, horrible suicide attacks have to be condemned. There is a question of who's responsible for them. There are some simple explanations and some very complex explanations. I don't have time to get into the complex ones now. I have recently done a piece, which will be appearing shortly, where I try to get into some of that.

But I think this is a job for Western journalists, such as our colleagues here, to look into it very carefully, to examine the trustworthiness of the official reports and to try and probe and, indeed, to determine who is behind these despicable terrorist acts.

MR. HIATT: Steve, part of the question is Putin would like us to see this as part of the international war on terrorism. What should U.S. response be to that contention, do you think?

MR. SOLARZ: I think the United States should clearly and unequivocally condemn these attacks. Whoever is responsible for them, whatever their motivations may be, there can be no moral justification whatsoever for the slaughter of innocent civilians. But as Professor Dunlop said, the origins of these attacks is not absolutely clear, nor is it clear who ultimately is responsible for organizing and orchestrating them.

I happened to be in Moscow shortly after the series of bombs went off in the apartment houses there just prior to the election, in which Putin was elected, and I have to say that the contentions on the part of the Soviet authorities that the Chechens were clearly responsible for this were, themselves, not very clear. The evidence was very murky. It's obvious who benefitted from the bombings, although it doesn't necessarily follow that those who were the primary beneficiaries were also the organizers.

But the point, it seems to me, is that it is not very clear exactly who is behind this. But regardless of who is behind it, the United States should leave no room for ambiguity in forcefully denouncing these activities.

MR. BRZEZINSKI: My name is Constantine Brzezinski. I am a retired lieutenant colonel of the KGB, now staying and living in the United States.

I would like to address my question to Mr. Ensor. As a former military, this question concerns your military aspects.

I was so happy to hear from you, for the first time, that finally Americans are abandoning or leaving their illusions about the possibility of having Russia as a partner in their war on terrorism. Finally, they understand that Russia is not fighting terror, but producing it.

But on the other hand, in my opinion, you are producing one more illusion; that there can be some generals in Russian Ministry of Defense who share the opinion about possibility of the conscript army in Russia after the fact that recently Russia has taken a new doctrine, the doctrine of reconstruction of the Soviet army.

Today's Russian generals, whose average weight is about 150 kilograms, with great bellies, they can't live under conscript army. They have been nourished in their military schools to use the soldiers as slaves, nothing more. So, even if there is conscript army, they will have to be exchanged by some other people.

Do you really believe that--at present, in Russia, we don't allow difference in opinions among generals. They also [?]--do you really believe that under new military doctrine in Russia there can be some generals in Ministry of Defense who would be eager to cooperate with Pentagon military intelligence, not against it, but in constructing the conscript army in Russia?

MR. ENSOR: Sir, your question fits very well under the subject of "quagmire" that we're discussing.

I think what you've done, in describing what I take to be your doubts about that, has only underlined how difficult the problem is. I was simply saying, in my comment about the military, that it may be a very big problem, it may be, in your view, in the short term, almost insoluble, but it is a problem. That is where the problem is, in my view.

If we are to reduce the number of outrages that occur in Chechnya, we have to address the Russian military. When I was there, there was this man, Grachov, and what he was allowing to happen, what the military was allowing to happen there, no civilized, disciplined military force should behave that way, and I just think, for your country, what it needs is a serious, civilized, disciplined army, and it doesn't have one, as Chechnya makes all too clear.

As to whether it should be conscript or not, our model is not conscript, and it seems to work better for us. I don't know what the best model for Chechnya is. I'm just saying we Americans haven't got all that many levers by which we can affect what happens in Chechnya.

One of them might be to quietly, but determinedly, with some serious money and attention, try to address the Russian military directly, military to military, and try to encourage programs, training, exchanges, whatever that might produce, eventually, a military that wouldn't behave in the manner it's behaving in Chechnya.

MR. HIATT: The question of whether the military can become professional and democratic is a subset of the question of what direction Russia is going in, which the last Duma election on Sunday also raises questions about.

I promised one more person a question, and then I think we have to wrap up.

MS. ALAPUL: Misha Alapul [ph], Russia College.

First of all, I wanted to thank Mr. Solarz for reading this very important passage, for reminding us of that from "Haji Murad."

And my question was also to Mr. Ensor, how you understand that telling the Russians the truth without speaking about independence, and how you imagine practically aiding the Russian army, kind of workshops, financial support, because it's very contradictory, but in a sense, you already addressed part of that question just now--just how you could mention this process of professionalizing the Russian army.

MR. ENSOR: You're getting me into a depth beyond which I'm not sure I can go. Perhaps Mr. Dunlop or Mr. Solarz might have better ideas than I do.

I don't really know what the solutions are. I just think, you know, this is a rare chance for me to give my opinions. I'm not normally paid to have opinions. And my opinion is Chechnya is not going to be allowed to go outside Russia. So we need to start thinking about ways in which to change Russia's approach to Chechnya, and it's not going to be easy, it's not going to be quick. But one of the first things we ought to do is start telling the Russians what we actually think about Chechnya and some other subjects.

And I don't think that Mr. Putin's help for the war on terrorism would reduce by much that's worth anything if we started telling him what we actually think about Chechnya. I think honesty is the better policy.

MR. HIATT: John, do you want--

MR. DUNLOP: I just wanted to make one very simple point. I don't think any military reform of significance is possible in Russia until the war ends. As long as the war goes on, you won't see significant military reform. So, first, you end the war, and then you have a reformed army.

MR. HIATT: Thank you. I think we've got to wrap up. I'd like to thank the panel. It was a very interesting discussion and more to come.

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, Fred.

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: We reconvene at 11 o'clock sharp, please.

[Recess.]

MR. SIKORSKI: --features journalists who have covered this conflict, and I'd like us to address the issue of facts and myths about Chechnya, to what extent Chechnya is a terrorist problem and to what extent it's a traditional national liberation struggle.

Congressman Solarz has already hinted at the depths of the analytical problem that we face, and I would like us to kick off with David Satter, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who is the author of, "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State," who has analyzed--

[Technical interruption to fix microphone problems.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Whatever happens to the sound, I will try to make myself heard.

David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He is the author of "Darkness at Dawn: The Rise of the Russian Criminal State." And I'd like him to explore the issue that Congressman Solarz raised; namely, the origin of the second Chechen war, which, if you remember, was the blowing up of the apartment blocks all over Russia, in which over 300 innocent Russian civilians died.

It was the event that propelled Mr. Putin from the position of one of a succession of prime ministers, a somewhat obscure figure, to the position of a popular president and a man who has shown toughness in handling this issue and who, by restarting the war, has gained the height of popularity that he now enjoys.

I don't think we can solve the issue of who is behind some of the terrorist attacks in Chechnya without going back to those original ghastly attacks on Russian civilians, and I therefore would like David Satter to tell us what his investigations have led him to believe.

MR. SATTER: Thank you.

Well, as we know, the Russian government has attempted to depict the war in Chechnya as part of a struggle against universal terrorism to connect their conflict with our conflict and with the conflict of all of those who are fighting against fanatical terrorists, and suicide bombers, and genocidal maniacs.

Is it accurate? That's the question I'd like to try to take up. But it's important, first of all, to bear in mind that the very formulation of the question is potentially insidious. Because if, indeed, the people we're fighting in Chechnya are genocidal terrorists, then, of course, there can be no compromise with them, and it's ridiculous to think in terms of finding moderate interlocutors or compromising on any issue because compromise with such people is impossible.

That's how the Chechens have been depicted. That's how the Russians would like us to view them. But is that really what they are?

The basis for the Russian interpretation of the Chechens is really the events of 1999. It's important to bear in mind that by the summer of 1999, Yeltsin, and the corrupt system that he created--that he and his family helped to create in Russia--was universally detested.

Opinion polls showed that only 2 percent of the population supported Yeltsin and his prime minister, who was the then-unknown Vladimir Putin. And it's well known that, in fact, in any opinion poll, 6 percent of the respondents don't understand the question, which raises the possibility whether anyone in Russia really supported Yeltsin at that point.

There was--I was in Moscow at the time--there was a mood of panic among those people in Yeltsin's entourage who feared for their wealth, their freedom, and I think, in some cases, even for their lives. If a new administration came into power, they were put into real or punitive opposition and had to answer for the pillaging of the country that had taken place in the previous seven years.

The first indication that the situation was changing was a mysterious invasion of Dagestan by 6,000 Chechen militants or supposed Islamic militants. What was surprising about this invasion was that the Russian army, which was well equipped to repulse it, made no effort to do so; that the border guards, in the area of the border where the invading forces crossed over, had been removed in advance, and that when the invaders were finally beaten back by the local police, there was no effort to pursue, harass or destroy them by the Russian forces, who were perfectly capable of doing so.

There were, in the aftermath of that invasion, which was depicted as aggression by Chechnya against Russia, in the aftermath of the invasion, there were calls for taking action against Chechnya and doing something about Chechnya's 3-year-old quasi independence won as a result of the first Chechen war.

The Russian population, however, was exhausted by war and exhausted by the hardships of the so-called reform period and had no desire for another war.

Shortly after that, there was a strange explosion in the Manezh shopping plaza next to the Kremlin. Only one person was killed. There were many injuries. The explosion was attributed to a previously unheard of anticonsumer group, which left a note saying that any uneaten hamburger is a revolutionary hamburger.

[Technical interruption to fix microphone problems.]

MR. SATTER: On the basis of my experience, idiotic claims of responsibility in the aftermath of acts of violence in the Soviet Union are the hallmark of the security services. There was no consumer group, and there was no nonsense about uneaten hamburgers. That explosion killed only one person, but it was a test of the reaction of the population to the planned terrorist attacks to come.

There were four explosions that killed 300 people: First, in Budenovsk, in Dageston, two explosions in Moscow and one in Volgodonsk. The effect of the explosions was to galvanize the population. They were attributed to a so-called Chechen "trail."

No one ever explained what is this trail, what it consists of, what the evidence for it is, but on the basis of this so-called unverified--this so-called trail, a new war was launched, and the previously unknown Vladimir Putin--virtually unknown--Vladimir Putin, who had never run for office, who had made his career exclusively in the security services, and who was one of a series of prime ministers, picked by an increasingly unpopular president, was catapulted to the lead of presidential candidates and eventually won the election.

In fact, it was that war which changed the whole landscape of Russian politics. Because during the Yeltsin years, the oppositional Duma, the oppositional Duma at least represented some sort of a check on presidential power. In the aftermath of the war and the elections which followed it, there was no longer opposition even in the Duma.

However, all scenarios or many scenarios are imperfect, and it may reflect the current lack of expertise or lack of great expertise on the part of the FSB that the apartment bombing scenario began to unravel as a result of the events in Ryazan.

In Ryazan, a truck with explosives, rather, two cars with bags of explosives were seen by attentive neighbors. They called the police. They insisted that the police go down into the basement that had been used as a toilet by the local drunks. The police went down and saw that a bomb had been placed in the basement. They ran out. The entire, not only the building, but the entire area was evacuated, and the entire city was put under marshal law.

The following day, three people were arrested, on the basis of photo portraits, for placing the explosives, which tested positive for hexagen, the same material that was used in the other apartment bombings, and they turned out to be not Chechen terrorists, but agents of the FSB. In fact, they were overhead by a local telephone operator when they called on an interurban phone and said, "The whole city is surrounded by police. There's no way out of here. What do we do?"

And the message back was, "Break up. Leave as individuals. Get out any way you can."

The local police, including the local FSB, none the wiser as to what was happening, traced the calls, expecting to find Chechen terrorists. In fact, they found the headquarters of the FSB.

The FSB, no longer able to deny that they had placed the bombs, claimed that the bombs were a fake, and this was a training exercised, organized in a terror-stricken country, to test the vigilance of the population. Now, this is in a country in which false bomb reports were coming in every hour.

There is no plausibility to this explanation, and there is a mass of serious evidence that it was a real bomb: a live detonator which was time-stamped and photographed, a test run by the highly experienced Ryazan bomb squad which determined that the material in the sacks was hexagen.

And had the bomb gone off, not only would the 250 people in the building in Ryazan been killed, but because the building was constructed on a slope, it would have hit the neighboring building with the force of an avalanche, taking that building with it, with the result that 500 people would have been killed, and the overall death toll from the explosions would have been not 300, but 800. The next day, the Russian air force began bombing Grozny.

Investigation of the events in Ryazan is going on. Unfortunately, bad things have been happening to the people who have attempted to investigate these events. Sergei Yushenkov was murdered. He was the deputy chairman of the independent commission which is trying to investigate within Russia what the real story is behind the Ryazan bombing, which had the exact same handwriting as the successful bombings which justified the Chechen war, changed the political landscape of Russia and are responsible for galvanizing the population behind a war which has cost maybe 100,000 lives, 50,000 lives--we don't know.

Yelena Morozov, whose mother was killed in the bombing on Guryanov Street, asked for political asylum in the United States the day after Yushenkov was killed, arguing that she was no longer safe in Russia.

Shortly afterward, Yuri Shchekochikhin, an investigative journalist for "Novaya Gazeta," who has also investigated the apartment bombings, was mysteriously poisoned.

All of this suggests to me that there is an important role for the international community, and it is directly related to the origin of the second Chechnya war. If this is a war, as the Russians claim, against terrorists, then of course no compromise is possible. But if the war is the result of a deliberate provocation organized by the Russian government itself, then moderation, compromise, and a speedy end to the conflict becomes obligatory.

Those in Russia who are trying to investigate this conflict, in physical danger themselves, and in a country where the media is increasingly controlled by the authorities, do not have the means to make their findings public and influential without the international community.

On the other hand, a serious effort by the international community, using the facts which are available and the facts which are not available, which are the testimony of the three FSB agents who were arrested and an analysis of the bomb itself, which is in the hands of the FSB, and which they refused to release, can have decisive influence in affecting the course of the conflict.

Therefore, I'd like to close by suggesting that this forum, in which we are considering, among other things, not only the origins and the nature of the conflict, but also possible ways to bring it to a close, that such an international commission be formed, composed of people either in government or out, who can support the efforts of those brave individuals in Russia who are trying to get to the truth about the origins of this war. And getting to the truth about the origins, take those steps that are necessary to moderate the conflict, eventually end it and purify the atmosphere in Russia itself.

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you very much, David.

And I would like now to turn to one of the brave individuals, Russian journalist, Andrei Babitsky. By the way, we have all of the bios of our speakers so, for the sake of time, I will be very brief in introducing people.

Please, Mr. Babitsky, the floor is yours.

MR. BABITSKY: [Remarks made in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Mr. Meier is a former Moscow correspondent and the author of--

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: --of "Black Earth: A Journey Through Russia After the Fall." What do you think? A national liberation struggle? A secret service provocation? A terrorist threat? What are the facts and myths about Chechnya.

MR. MEIER: Thank you. First of all, I wanted to thank AEI and all of the organizations for holding this conference today. I've been back in Washington for almost two years now, and this is, by far and away, the most important and impressive conference put together on Chechnya. So thank you for doing that, and thank you for inviting me to speak.

At the same time, unfortunately, your timing is also superb. Never, in the last two years, has Chechnya been a more important issue, both in U.S.-Russia relations and also in Moscow. What I'd like to do, in the brief time--5-10 minutes--is return a little bit to Chechnya and give you two stories from the region.

Mr. Putin, and this is a gross simplification, and I appreciate that most of you in the room know the details very well. And Mr. Satter, and certainly Mr. Babitsky, have already gone over I think both the origins and the current status very nicely.

One thing I think that is a fundamental error, certainly in the Western media, is that Putin, and the Siloviki, and the Kremlin, that they have no strategy with regard to Chechnya. This is one thing that I think they do have a strategy, and he's been very frank about it. He's called it Chechenization and normalization.

What we see, however, is, in the two stories I'll try to give from Chechnya is not Chechenization, not normalization, but what I fear will be Palestinianization. There are two fundamental forces at play in Chechnya. One is from the Moscow perspective, the search for the good Chechen. At the beginning of the second war, General Troshev [audio break] the search for the good Chechen goes back not only to "Haji Murad," but even before.

Mr. Kadyrov, now, has taken over, essentially privatized, what was, and remains, the Chechen OMON, the heavily armed riot police who have conducted the zachistki operations.

The Chechen OMON was formed in February of 2000. It originally had about 300, 400 very heavily armed, extremely trained, loyal-to-Moscow forces. They initially did a very good job of understanding these zachistki operations, and even many Chechens I spoke with said, if there have to be zachistki, which are hard in themselves, let it be done by Chechen OMON, not by the federal forces.

However, being a Chechen OMON has proven to be one of the most dangerous jobs in all of Chechnya. There is no accurate count, but as of a month or so ago, more than 70 of those 300, 400 Chechen OMON were assassinated, including a young woman named Katya Batayva [ph], who was 18 years old. She was simply the secretary to the commander, and she was killed with 16 bullet wounds.

The man who was in charge of the Chechen OMON, who was very close to the Kremlin, a man named Moussa Gadjimuganadov [ph] died in a car crash earlier this year.

The man who now runs it is the former head of Mr. Kadyrov's [?], his personal guard. So, essentially, you have a paramilitary organization sanctioned by Russian law, organized by Mr. Kadyrov and ruling at his whim.

On the other hand, the central force, one of the main forces at play, is the rise, as Andrei described, of the Wahabi fighters. And I think I agree with him. I would only underscore it, that if the in the first war anyone who went to Chechnya, anyone who reported from there, had no trouble who spoke about independence, freedom fighters, sovereignty, and the great tragedy in the second war, and in the regnum[?] as well, is that more and more Chechens spoke about leaving. There was not only the mass exodus through the mountains to Georgia and to Ingushetia, but also abroad. Russians today don't talk about leaving Russia--Chechens do. And the tragedy that we have such a great panel today and so many of the important players from the first war are in Washington speaks to that.

However, what you do have, and without getting into too much detail in the 1999 bombings, and yesterday's bombing in front of the National Hotel, and in the origins thereof, and the corners of speculation, what I can say, as a reporter, is that when I was last in Moscow earlier this fall, I looked into the so-called phenomenon of the "Black Widows." And I had been there earlier in the year reporting on the aftermath of the Nord-Ost hostage taking. And what struck everybody during Nord-Ost was that 18 of the 42 hostage-takers were women. Journalists, of course, were stunned. Chechens were stunned. Russians were stunned.

Well, the FSB, to date ,has not given a final breakdown. There have been partial breakdowns, a list of who these people actually were, who these women were. What we do know is that one was a pregnant woman, the youngest was 16 years old, one had left a newborn baby at home in Chechnya, two were sisters, and one girl had lost four brothers.

What motivates these women? Who are they? Are they controlled? What is it about? Is it about sovereignty? Is it about freedom? Is it about national recognition? And I'm afraid that what Andrei said is that it's about revenge. Very clearly, these are women, and as they said in the interview with NTV, inside the Dubrovka Theater, "We have come to die. We are on the puti [ph]. We are on the way to Allah. You can stop us, but you cannot stop those who come after us."

And I think that we can talk about the origins--and it's important to talk about the 1999 bombings--but let there be no mistake that the Black Widows are for real.

I, myself, went back to Moscow this last time in September, thinking that it was an inflated story, leaving an open mind that it was also an orchestration by the Russian authorities.

Unfortunately, in my book, many of those people I interviewed and profiled have died since I wrote it. One young man, however, who did not have the best chances for living a long life, did not die. In the book, I call him Ilyas, and he is the closest example I could find to a young Wahabi fighter, a self-proclaimed Wahabi fighter.

He was in his early twenties when we met in the Year 2000. He was extremely intelligent. He spoke excellent Russian. He had fair skin, lightish-red hair. His proudest possession was a digital Alpine mountaineering watch, which I had never seen before. What he hadn't seen before was what I showed him, was a map of Chechnya. I had bought it on the street a block away from Lubyanka, the headquarters of the FSB. He had never seen it, and yet he could describe to me in great detail each of the turns, where the hills are, where the mountains were, where the path in and out of Grozny were.

He called himself an amir. As many of you know, that is the name of a leader. It's a spiritual title which he had given himself, but what he really was, was one of the many leaders of a group of gorilla fighters, small groups--four, five, six, ten. And he told me very openly what I had seen that day, which was the bombing of a train between the Russian base Khankala and Gugernesk [ph]. He described it in great detail as I had seen it that day.

As I said [audio break]. Much to my surprise, and I had received word, through intermediaries, of his whereabouts and others whom I had met in Chechnya in the intervening years, much to my surprise this fall, when I was in Moscow, I got word that not only was Ilyas alive, he was in Moscow and that he had, in some fashion, taken part in the Nord-Ost hostage-taking. At the very least, he arranged the purchase of what the Russians call passports or documents for the vehicles that brought--the vehicles used in the hostage-taking.

To my great dismay, and I won't say shock, he is also now one of the squadron leaders of the Black Widows. He now has graduated from an amir to a dahovaniatetz [ph], a spiritual father or a spiritual leader of the women, and he has between four and six women under his control. And the word I got in September is that these will continue. They are for real.

And now, and I'll end with this, is when I said, okay, I'd like to talk with him. I'd like to meet with him, he no longer wants to meet with Western reporters, which of course I take to be a very good sign that he's telling the truth.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: A distressing reality of terrorism.

Professor Menon is also the author of numerous books on the region, is the Monroe Rathbone Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University, and he will give us his academic perspective.

MR. MENON: Thank you, Mr. Sikorski, for inviting me.

I am tempted to begin with an offering to the "God of microphones," given that we're having a bad run with the sound here.

[Laughter.]

MR. MENON: There are some crumbs on the table, and I'd like to address this question of myth and reality. There is a lot of reality, and there is a lot of myth. The difficulty is distinguishing between the two.

I might begin with a thread-bare cliche that history is written by the victors. It's applicable, in a sense, to the war in Chechnya--not that there is a victory, because despite what Mr. Putin, and General Troshev, Sergei Ivanov, and countless others tell you, there is no Russian military or political victory remotely in sight.

And as for the Chechens, regrettably, they are no closer to achieving their objective than they were when they took up arms under the first of the charismatic warrior Imam Sheikh Mansour in the 1780s.

As for history, no definitive account can be written because we don't know how it will end, but I am certain of this much, alas, that there will be much more carnage, much more bloodshed, and what the worst of it will be is what the Russian army, in its current, barbarianized state is doing to the Chechen people, but the other side of the story is what Russia is doing to itself. Many of the disturbing trends I think we see in terms of the erosion of civil liberties, and the reining in of the press, cannot be put at the feet of the war in Chechnya, but certainly begins with the second war, the alarming signs.

The story line on Chechnya, to the extent that the average person in the West has it, is a story line that has largely been written by the Kremlin. It has enormous advantages over the Chechen resistance. It is a sovereign state with enormous resources. It is a great power, despite its precipitous fall in prestige and stature, and no one--not the United States, no Western government, no one in Western Europe, no Islamic country, all of the talk about Islamic solidary notwithstanding--is going to wreck the relationship with Russia for the Chechens. Let's be absolutely clear about that.

Chechens, once again, find themselves in a familiar place, which is to say that they are friendless. There is, therefore, a fundamental imbalance, an asymmetry in the information flow, and one is reminded of the Melian Dialogue, where Thuydides told us that the strong do what they will, and the weak do what they must.

Putin has made the most of the opportunity to spin the story, and he's done it with supreme aplomb and very little resistance from his interlocutors in the West. The Chechens are called criminals, bandits, fanatics, terrorists. He threatens to kill them in their outhouses--that's sort of a loose translation from Russian--somewhat more colorful in Russia.

What strikes me is how utterly similar this reflex, this vocabulary, this discourse, if you will, is to the language used by the 19th century generals who conducted the roughly 50-year war against the Chechens. Yermolov could be speaking because he used exactly these kinds of words.

The net effect of this is that in the popular mind, because people don't have the chance to spend a lot of time studying Chechnya--most of my students don't know where it is when they start the course--is that Chechnya has become synonymous with--

[Audio break.]

MR. MENON: American policy, which has not given a lot of priority to Chechnya anyway, has changed dramatically, and President Bush sees Putin standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States and as a fellow defender against terrorism, and I think this has helped Putin enormously.

But even worse than the ability of the Kremlin to tailor the story line has been the absolute indifference. It strikes me, when I read the press, that few people care any more. The war in Chechnya, to the extent that it's reported, has taken on a sort of "pity," and, "Well, this sort of thing happens," or what we hear are spectacular suicide bombings that the Kremlin immediately rushes to identify as being of Chechen prominence.

So there isn't much attention. No one is holding the Kremlin's feet to the fire, and frankly I don't think that will happen.

Now, I don't mean for a moment to deny that terrorism is being practiced by both sides. The Chechens have certainly or a ring of the Chechen resistance movement used terrorism. It is my belief that somewhere in the spring of 2000 or so, some elements of the resistance took a tactical decision, which was that the war had to be fought at the front, but that it also had to be fought in the rear; that it had to be brought to Russian cities so that Russian people would feel the pain and that the war would become politically unsustainable, as was the case with the first Chechen war.

Now, whether they're wrong or right, doesn't make a difference. It also may well be the case that some of these suicide attacks are staged by people who are not Chechen, but there is no question that terror has become an instrument of the war, at least in the hands of some Chechens.

So it would be politically indefensible and morally obtuse to say there is no terrorist component to Chechen resistance. The problem really begins with the periodization of terrorism. Where does one begin when one looks at terrorism? Does one focus only on what's happened since 1994 and in recent years? What about the 19th century? The 50-year Russian war killed approximately 70,000 people. At the end of that war, in 1856, about 600,000 people from the Western North Caucasus, primarily Cherkess, were deported to the Ottoman empire.

The generals who waged the war openly spoke about terror as an instrument of policy. There were mass graves, killings, abductions, the massacres of women and children. Perhaps the most celebrated incident in certain Chechen memory is the incident that surrounds Dada youth in the year 1819, when an entire Chechen village was massacred, and 300 people were put to death.

Now, the Soviets were no more charitable. In fact, given the ability to harness technology to terror, they were much worse. As Stalin's great purges were beginning in 1937, in that year alone, 14,000 Chechens and Ingush, together called the Vaynakh--they're closely related people--were killed.

In 1944, there was, as you know, the mass deportation of 500,000 or so Chechen and Ingush, and many other besides. One-quarter of the population died.

And in February of 1944, a certain Russian NKVD officer, deciding that some of the people could not be transported to exile--they were put in railroad cars, many of them died of shock and suffocation before even getting to their destination--this particular NKVD officer, Gishyoni [ph]. decided that some of them could not be transported. He put 600 of them in a building and set the building ablaze.

So the question really becomes when does one speak about terrorism? My point is not that terrorism is a good thing, that when the Chechens practice it, we should condone it. It's not that at all. I'm in agreement with Steve Solarz. My point is not that today's young, innocent Russian men and women should pay the price for what General Yermolov and his entourage did. My point is that if one takes a long, historical view, the balance sheet of terrorism, defined as the killing of innocents on a mass scale, looks rather different and more complicated. And if you ask the question in sheer, crass body count, who has killed more of the others, Chechens Russians or Russians Chechens, I think the answer is not too far to seek.

Now, you may think that all of this is misty past history, and it doesn't matter. But Yermolov, Grabov, Mansour, Shamil, Hamsa Deg [ph], the deportation, all of these are etched in the Chechen memory.

I will remind you that in 1989, when the Chechen national movement began, there were very few signs of Wahabis, very few people wearing green bandannas and armbands with inscriptions from the Koran. It was a nationalist movement, and the deportation played a major role.

That incident I told you about in 1944, where 600 people were set ablaze in a building. One of the people who lost an aunt and several cousins that day was none other than Jachov Gadayev [ph]. So to the Chechens this is a very real problem, and what they're facing now is part of a long tapestry, it seems to me.

So here we are. Now, what to do? Everyone who is in favor of solving this problem talks about negotiations, and I've been to my share of workshops where lots of pointy-headed academics and policy wonks have tried to settle the Chechen problem. It takes either incredible stupidity or supreme arrogance to do that because we're in a very bad place. It's rather like a Greek tragedy, where you don't choose a good solution, but you choose the one that's least terrible.

The problem for the Chechen resistance is that it is unlikely to defeat the Russian army, nor in the near term make the war so unpopular that Putin will be forced to cut a deal. I see no empirical evidence of that happening.

Their other problem is that in a world of sovereign territorial states, no one really is going to make the claim to Russia that they should let the Chechens go. My own belief is the Chechens have a stronger claim to independence than the Uzbeks and the Kazakhs, who showed actually very little of a mass movement for independence. Whereas, if there's one people that have consistently, since the late 18th century shown that they do not want to be part of Russia, it's the Chechens. They didn't get independence because they were not a union republic, but an autonomous republic under whose Constitution? Joseph Stalin's. That's nothing but legal chicanery.

What the Chechens I think have to realize, that it's going to be difficult to achieve a military victory. For the Russians, the problem is, if you want to negotiate, who do you negotiate with? If you reach an agreement with Maskhadov, and under the best of circumstances he would settle for a loose autonomy, a confederation, something that was far beyond Tatarstan in the 1994 formula, in which only foreign affairs and defense would be in the hands of the Kremlin, can Maskhadov make that deal stick, given that there is no Chechen resistance of a unified nature any more, but there is a panoply of groups over whom he, at best, has imperfect control?

So I leave you with that difficult problem. I think that the war is going to continue. I think it'll take an enormous toll on Chechen citizenry. About between 100,000 and 200,000 of them have died. Maybe 15- to 20,000 young Russian soldiers have died. But I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. What I see is the further barbarization of the Russian military, the erosion of Russian democracy and a Chechnya that breeds exactly what the Kremlin says it's fighting; i.e., radicalism and terrorism because Thomas Jefferson sure as hell is not going to rise from the ashes of what is now Chechnya.

Thank you.

[Applause.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, Professor Menon.

We will have a panel, "Search for Peace," and it looks as bright as my face at this moment.

[Laughter.]

MR. SIKORSKI: We are still looking at the facts and myths about Chechnya. We are still trying to analyze the roots of this conflict and the facts on the ground, and it's in that spirit that I welcome questions from the floor.

QUESTION: Hi. I'm Jonas [?] with Voice of America. I'd like to direct this to Mr. Babitsky, since you were most recently in the mountains with the rebels.

What's your take, overall, on the extremely controversial issue of foreign fighters, Nyum Niki [ph], and that sort of thing, among the rebels? Of course, that's a very big issue here, and in Russia, of course, and there's a lot of debate about it.

MR. BABITSKY: [Remarks made in Russian. No interpretation available on recording.]

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you. And if I may add a footnote to what Mr. Babitsky has just said, the flip side of foreigners in Chechnya is Chechens in Afghanistan. They were supposed to be fighting on the side of the Taliban with al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Well, we had a check on that because U.S. forces moved in and arrested many of the suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. And to the best of my knowledge, we have in custody, in Guantanamo, for example, we have Egyptians, we have Pakistanis, we have British citizens, German citizens, but so far as I know, we don't have a single Chechen.

QUESTION: I'm Sarah Harder, and I'm president of the National Peace Foundation.

We have worked, since 1995, with women of the Don Region in a network that they have established across the North Caucasus called "Women for Life Without War and Violence." Of course, it's an enormously implausible hope, but on the other hand, they continue to work with refugee situations and other peace-building mechanisms.

What is clear to them is that there are,in fact, training camps for young women in Chechnya now that are, as Andrew Meier suggested, actively working to recruit particularly young women to be, if not Black Widows, to perform a terrorist role. And one of our objectives, as a matter of fact, is to build upon the contacts that have been made, bringing together young Chechens with others in areas such as Rostov to begin to figure out ways to build on the leadership potential of young women and to avoid the exploitation of women which, frankly, is what the Black Widow movement represents.

I'd be interested in anybody's comments about this situation.

MR. : Thank you. I haven't been able to do enough firsthand reporting on this, but what I have been able to do, and it's something I'm working on right now, is establish that it's both young women going in on their own, and it has also, at least in one case I know of, in the Nord-Ost hostage-taking siege, a woman who was, I don't know of she was coerced initially, but then she was held for a period of time apparently against her will.

[Audio break.]

MR. : This seems to be buzzing, so you must be able to hear me.

As I said, it doesn't really matter because the end mission is the same. Training seems to be the same. The organization seems to be extremely good. And in some cases [audio break]--off again? How about if I just scream?

[Laughter.]

MR. : That some of the women have been leading parallel lives; that is, they have a life at home and a life that is running parallel to that which will lead them to this mission.

But I think there's no mistake on this. This is right now one of the most fundamental issues at play in Chechnya and in the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, I don't see any end in sight because these, all Chechens, well, the vast majority of Chechens are in pain and, as Dr. Baiev said, the post-war syndrome is something that inflicts Chechens everywhere, whether they're in Chechnya or beyond the bonds of the Chechen Republic. But that young Chechen women leaving, you know, a baby behind, how do you explain that? And it's nothing that anything Mr. Putin can do--we can talk about negotiations till we're blue in the face, they're not going to stop this.

MR. : Just a quick word. I actually had serious Russian officials tell me that the so-called Black Widow movement is not a movement at all, but you know these Chechens, they're a fundamentalist, crazy people. They're forcing these women to commit suicide.

Now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I hear that because it tells me how far removed the Kremlin is from reality or how gullible it thinks we are.

The bottom line, in terms of your question, is this is the latest phenomenon we're dealing with, but it's a product of a dirty war. If you take Grozny, which used to be the largest city in the North Caucasus, and turn it to a pile of rubble, if you go into villages and brutalize young men in what is a very patriarchal society, if you find people showing up in mass graves time and time again, if you rape Chechen women, then you have an endless supply of wives who lost husbands, and sisters who have lost brothers, who are willing to do this, and many young men who are willing to do it besides.

So as long as this kind of war continues, this will be the result, and the opening up and the democratization of Russian society and Russia's decision to, as it were, engage globalization, makes it much more vulnerable to this kind of thing. This is not a game that can be won, but I don't think either side is convinced that they are losing it.

QUESTION: Miriam Lanskoy, National Endowment for Democracy.

I think that the topic of the Black Widows is almost ideal for a discussion of what is fact and what is myth. And my question goes to Andrew Meier. There are some real doubts that the women in Nord-Ost had, in fact, intended to die, and that is revealed by the fact that so many of them had families and were pregnant.

There was a couple, there was a man who apparently brought his pregnant wife along on what was supposedly a suicide terrorist mission. The suggestion that they may not have intended to die is revealed in that they sat for two hours, as the theater was filling up with smoke, and didn't detonate [audio break].

But this man that you referred to as Ilyas, it sounds like you didn't actually meet him this time. So somebody told you something about him that ultimately can you verify or not? If, indeed, you think that the man you met had taken part in forging documents on a terrorist mission, if this is really something that you're asserting as fact, doesn't it create a duty upon you to report him?

And I'm wondering, as a journalist, when you take up this topic, what is the level of fact that you need to establish on this topic? And I know how difficult it is.

MR. MEIER: Thank you.

The question of why didn't the women pull their detonators is a very good one. And in part of that reporting comes from interviews with former hostages. And I think that the best answer is--and we don't know the answer--first of all, it wasn't two hours. It was more like half an hour. The best answer is they did not get the order. They didn't get the command to do so, and they had told the hostages, a number of them, we will not blow it up until we get the order.

And, yes, they were afraid. There were times when the women apparently did talk about their fear, but they were also--and the videotape exists--where one young woman very clearly says, "We have come here to die." Now, you can dispute that, and I can say she wanted--you know, fair enough.

I just say that I think, unlike the 19-- my basic point is that unlike the apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999, and I was there for it, I mean, I lived through that terror, the terror was very real, but rather than engage in corners of speculation and try to dig through the past, I think we ought to deal with the present and the future. And that's why I brought up the example of this young man, Ilyas. He did not claim to forge the documents. The documents were real. And this gets into an immense complexity and talks about the corruption in Moscow, and the various barriers that are so porous that would allow a small truck loaded with small arms to go from Chechnya to Moscow, a Gazel, if anyone knows the Russian--and that for a price of, reportedly, $5,000, that Gazel made it to Moscow.

Again, as I said, it's something I'm working on. I did not meet with him because he did not want to meet with me, but of course it's something that I would certainly like to do in the future.

It gets to the point raised by the earlier panel, that it is extremely difficult now, above and beyond the total press ban, which has been in existence, as Andrei can testify to perhaps better than anyone on this planet, by the Kremlin. Unless you go on a Kremlin-sponsored press tour, which are few and far between now, and I have never done that, it's very, very difficult to get to Chechnya.

The extraordinary fact was that he was in Moscow, and that I do take to be true. That, alone, to me speaks to the porous nature of security between Chechnya and Moscow. As I said, he is very light-skinned. He has sort of a fair hair. He passes as a Russian.

Does that help at all?

QUESTION: [Inaudible.]

MR. MEIER: In terms of his participation in Nord-Ost, yes, I believe that to be true. In terms of the Black Widows and his organization, yes, I do believe that to be true. But have I met with a woman who was being prepared to become a suicide bomber? No, I have not yet.

And you're absolutely right--it's a very, very sensitive issue, and the motivations that lay behind that are something that we can dispute.

MR. LUKASHEVICH: Thank you very much, Mr. Sikorski. Aleksandr Lukashevich from the Russian Embassy.

I thank you twice, looking at another direction of thoughts, finally. I tried to be visible, but not to be an alien, but a real participant in the discussion.

I can't proceed my statement later today. I wish to speak Russian, of course, that everybody understands because there is quite a difference between the audience, which we are presiding here, but I don't want to make any remarks now and any questions posed, but simply an appeal to be reasonable and very responsible for the statements you are making, especially Mr. Satter.

I would wish to say that, as a human being, as a citizen of the Russian Federation, I have been very much offended by your statements and [audio break.]

I have lost two of my relatives in those blasts, and I can't hide from this audience the organizers who are they. The materials are very open after the investigation. There is no need for any further additional thoughts on this, but simply to understand the sensitivity of the question and the human nature of those events which we're trying to analyze here.

And one final remark. I am a newcomer to Washington. I joined the embassy just four months ago, but I saw the sensitivity for the American public was going on abroad, especially from the point of view of human losses abroad, and that's very sensitive, and we understood, and we stood together with the administration and the American people.

I can't appeal to stand by Russian federal authorities in this totally, but to be more objective and more sensible to what's going on, and your statements should be very responsible and reasonable, even from the point of view of history.

I will present something very interesting today as a presentation from our party as a participant in this great panel. So it will be a little surprise.

Thank you.

MR. SIKORSKI: Thank you, Mr. Lukashevich, and we are very glad to have the official Russian view present here, and for your presence.

I think, Mr. Satter, you should defend your remarks. Who killed Mr. Lukashevich's relatives?

MR. SATTER: I don't know. [Audio break.] Sorry. There are legitimate doubts as to the origin of these bombings. They have been raised in the Russian press themselves. It's in the Russian press itself. And what I would like to say to Mr. Lukashevich is that no one need fear an objective inquiry into the origins of a second Chechen war [audio break]. Hold on a second. Is that better? Yeah. Okay.

There's no reason to fear an inquiry into the 1999 Moscow terrorist bombings. On the contrary, it's in the interests of the Russian [audio break] which indicate 40 to 50 percent of the Russian population believed that it was the FSB that was responsible for those bombings.

It's a momentous question. There are legitimate reasons to believe that it was not the Chechens who were responsible for those bombings, and the real doubts about them ought to be cleared up. And I would think that the people who would be most interested and most concerned to see those doubts dispelled would be the members of the Russian government itself.

MR. SIKORSKI: We'll take a couple more.

QUESTION: I'm Nicholas Daniloff, professor at Northeastern University, and this question goes to the topic that we're discussing. These explosions that took place in Ryazan were connected with hexagen, and I would like David Satter to comment on this. Is this not a controlled substance which would not be available to ordinary citizens?

MR. SATTER: Well, according to the prosecutor who interviewed one of the people who is being--who rented out one of the basements in which the hexagen was placed, there are four tons of hexagen that are necessary for military needs in Russia that are produced in two plants that are guarded by the FSB. One-and-a-half tons of hexagen was used in the explosions on Guryanov Street and Kashirskoye Shosse.

So there is a real question, it is one of the many unanswered questions about the bombings. How was it possible for Chechen terrorist groups to obtain that hexagen, if indeed they did obtain it, given the fact that the factories in which the hexagen is produced are so tightly guarded and tightly guarded by the FSB.

MR. SIKORSKI: Last question over there.

QUESTION: Hi. Kathy [?], Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

David, I'm quite prepared to believe that some rogue element of the FSB could have, when Steposhyn [ph] was in charge could have done something of this sort, but what I don't hear is the journalistic research on the Moscow bombings. What I'm hearing from this presentation, and other films that we saw, is a lot of material on Ryazan, and there it seems that there could have been a motive where the FSB faked--staged a bombing in order to look valorous in solving it. This is another option to analyze.

What I don't hear is information about Moscow. Where are the eyewitnesses? Where are the people who turned up dead if they investigated it? I mean, that's always a clue. There's only reasoning by analogy. So I would like to hear more about what you have on Moscow.

MR. SATTER: The evidence on Moscow is all circumstantial because the rubble was cleared away, over the protests of the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, in three days.

We know that in the case of the bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam that the arrests were made of the people responsible for those bombings as a result of the careful, minute sifting of the rubble.

In the case of the bombings in Moscow, the rubble was cleared away in three days, which had the effect of destroying the crime scene. The [audio break]. I'm sorry.

The point about the bombing in Ryazan is that the FSB does not seek to be valorous in the case of the Ryazan events. They claimed that this was a training exercise and that it was all done to test the vigilance of the population. So there's no such claim.

The reason why the--because so much of the evidence was destroyed in the case of the bombings which were successful, it's particularly important to look at the bombing which didn't take place because it's the modus operandi for the Ryazan bombings, including the explosives used, the placement of