Des indications commencent \u00e0 se manifester sur des doutes s\u00e9rieux qui apparaissent \u00e0 l’Ouest vis-\u00e0-vis de Saakachvili et de sa version de la courte guerre de G\u00e9orgie, avec les cons\u00e9quences in\u00e9vitables sur le cr\u00e9dit qu’on peut accorder au personnage. Le Spiegel<\/em> a publi\u00e9, le 15 septembre<\/a>, une longue analyse des circonstances de la guerre telles qu’elles commencent \u00e0 \u00eatre r\u00e9vis\u00e9es, en d\u00e9faveur de la version que Saakachvili ne cesse de r\u00e9p\u00e9ter. Dans cette perspective, la confirmation, le 15 septembre<\/a>, du vu de l’UE d’une enqu\u00eate internationale ind\u00e9pendante sur les circonstances de la guerre va \u00e9videmment dans ce sens, dans la mesure o\u00f9 elle indique un besoin de clarification et une certaine distance prise \u00e0 l’\u00e9gard de la version saakachvilienne, jusqu’alors accept\u00e9e comme argent comptant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe Spiegel<\/em> signale dans les milieux politiques US et europ\u00e9ens de r\u00e9elles r\u00e9\u00e9valuations des circonstances de la guerre, d\u00e9favorables \u00e0 Saakachvili et \u00e0 sa version selon laquelle il a r\u00e9agi, avec l’attaque g\u00e9orgienne en Oss\u00e9tie du Sud, \u00e0 une offensive d’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0 en route de la 58\u00e8me Arm\u00e9e russe. Il donne aussi diverses analyses d’experts occidentaux allant dans ce sens. Notamment, le Spiegel<\/em> d\u00e9taille une \u00e9valuation faite par un groupe militaire de l’OTAN, dont il obtenu des indications tr\u00e8s pr\u00e9cises. C’est ce passage que nous reproduisons ci-dessous, le document devant \u00eatre consid\u00e9r\u00e9 par rapport \u00e0 l’\u00e9valuation occidentale initiale enti\u00e8rement favorable \u00e0 Saakachvili.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abAs SPIEGEL has learned, NATO had already hazarded a far more definitive conclusion at the time. Its International Military Staff (IMS), which does the preparatory work for the Military Committee, the highest-ranking military body in the alliance, quickly evaluated the existing material. The Military Committee includes officers from all 26 member states.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAt noon on Aug. 8, the NATO experts could not have deduced the full scope of the Russian advance, which Saakashvili later described as an attack, while Moscow called it an operation to \u00ab\u00a0secure the peace.\u00a0\u00bb Nevertheless, they were already issuing internal warnings that, in light of initial Russian attacks with warplanes and short-range missiles, Moscow was not expected to remain passive.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOne thing was already clear to the officers at NATO headquarters in Brussels: They thought that the Georgians had started the conflict and that their actions were more calculated than pure self-defense or a response to Russian provocation. In fact, the NATO officers believed that the Georgian attack was a calculated offensive against South Ossetian positions to create the facts on the ground, and they coolly treated the exchanges of fire in the preceding days as minor events. Even more clearly, NATO officials believed, looking back, that by no means could these skirmishes be seen as justification for Georgian war preparations.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe NATO experts did not question the Georgian claim that the Russians had provoked them by sending their troops through the Roki Tunnel. But their evaluation of the facts was dominated by skepticism that these were the true reasons for Saakashvili’s actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tThe details that Western intelligence agencies extracted from their signal intelligence agree with NATO’s assessments. According to this intelligence information, the Georgians amassed roughly 12,000 troops on the border with South Ossetia on the morning of Aug. 7. Seventy-five tanks and armored personnel carriers a third of the Georgian military’s arsenal were assembled near Gori. Saakashvili’s plan, apparently, was to advance to the Roki Tunnel in a 15-hour blitzkrieg and close the eye of the needle between the northern and southern Caucasus regions, effectively cutting off South Ossetia from Russia.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAt 10:35 p.m. on Aug. 7, less than an hour before Russian tanks entered the Roki Tunnel, according to Saakashvili, Georgian forces began their artillery assault on Tskhinvali. The Georgians used 27 rocket launchers, including 152-millimeter guns, as well as cluster bombs. Three brigades began the nighttime assault.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe intelligence agencies were monitoring the Russian calls for help on the airwaves. The 58th Army, part of which was stationed in North Ossetia, was apparently not ready for combat, at least not during that first night.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe Georgian army, on the other hand, consisted primarily of infantry groups, which were forced to travel along major roads. It soon became bogged down and was unable to move past Tskhinvali. Western intelligence learned that the Georgians were experiencing handling problems with their weapons. The implication was that the Georgians were not fighting well.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe intelligence agencies conclude that the Russian army did not begin firing until 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, when it launched an SS-21 short-range ballistic missile on the city of Borzhomi, southwest of Gori. The missile apparently hit military and government bunker positions. Russian warplanes began their first attacks on the Georgian army a short time later. Suddenly the airwaves came to life, as did the Russian army.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbRussian troops from North Ossetia did not begin marching through the Roki Tunnel until roughly 11 a.m. This sequence of events is now seen as evidence that Moscow did not act offensively, but merely reacted. Additional SS-21s were later moved to the south. The Russians deployed 5,500 troops to Gori and 7,000 to the border between Georgia and its second separatist region, Abkhazia.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tCette \u00e9volution est \u00e9videmment un fait important. L’Ouest se trouve devant la n\u00e9cessit\u00e9, \u00e0 la fois politique et \u00e0 la fois du simple point de vue des faits, d’envisager la r\u00e9vision de sa position radicale, suscit\u00e9 par le courant m\u00e9diatique et d’id\u00e9ologie humanitariste, manipul\u00e9 par les relais d’influence pro-g\u00e9orgien. Sur le terme, cette position radicale n’est pas tenable parce qu’elle se heurte et se heurtera \u00e0 une contestation grandissante du simple point de vue des faits d’une part, parce qu’elle nourrit d’autre part une alternative radicale difficilement supportable politiquement, entre une capitulation devant les pressions russes ou un affrontement avec la Russie dont l’Ouest n’a pas les moyens.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tIl faut observer combien cette positon radicale, qui n’existait pas dans les deux ou trois premiers jours de la crise o\u00f9 l’agression g\u00e9orgienne n’\u00e9tait pas mise en doute, qui est apparue sous la pression de la machine virtualiste de propagande, \u00e9tait grossi\u00e8re et compl\u00e8tement primaire, bas\u00e9e sur des affirmations fantaisistes de personnages douteux et sans consistance (de Saakachvili \u00e0 BHL) mais excellent manipulateurs de la pression m\u00e9diatique. Sur le terme, elle \u00e9tait difficilement tenable, dans le cadre d’une crise d’une telle importance, avec un acteur de la puissance, de la d\u00e9termination, et de l’habilet\u00e9 politique et (nouveaut\u00e9) de communication qu’est la Russie. Quoi qu’il en soit, cette \u00e9volution, qui a de fortes chances de se confirmer, repr\u00e9sentera, dans la guerre de communication qui p\u00e8se d’un poids tr\u00e8s lourd dans la crise, une d\u00e9faite de l’Ouest qui s’est plac\u00e9 lui-m\u00eame dans une position tr\u00e8s difficilement tenable sur le terme. Il est en effet singulier que, dans une crise de cette importance, la position politique d’un ensemble d’une telle puissance ait \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9termin\u00e9e \u00e0 partir de facteurs d’une telle l\u00e9g\u00e8ret\u00e9, d’une telle inconsistance, relevant d’activit\u00e9s grossi\u00e8res d’influence. Cela mesure la d\u00e9cr\u00e9pitude extraordinaire o\u00f9 est tomb\u00e9e l’activit\u00e9 politique occidentale, son emprisonnement d’activit\u00e9s d’influence terroristes. Le contraste entre la m\u00e9diocrit\u00e9 et la superficialit\u00e9 de la cause et l’importance politique consid\u00e9rable des cons\u00e9quences constituent un constat effrayant. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 16 septembre 2008 \u00e0 09H31<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Des indications commencent \u00e0 se manifester sur des doutes s\u00e9rieux qui apparaissent \u00e0 l’Ouest vis-\u00e0-vis de Saakachvili et de sa version de la courte guerre de G\u00e9orgie, avec les cons\u00e9quences in\u00e9vitables sur le cr\u00e9dit qu’on peut accorder au personnage. Le Spiegel a publi\u00e9, le 15 septembre, une longue analyse des circonstances de la guerre telles… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5519,5636,584,5314,2730,7723,5928,610],"class_list":["post-70192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-georgie","tag-mediatisme","tag-otan","tag-revision","tag-russie","tag-saakachvili","tag-spiegel","tag-virtualisme"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}