Did Saakashvili Lie?: The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Original: Did Saakashvili Lie?: The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Did Saakashvili Lie?: The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International:
[The War Schedule]
"The Georgian government continues to maintain that the war began on Thursday, Aug. 7, at 11:30 p.m. According to its account, it was at this time that it received several intelligence reports that approximately 150 Russian army vehicles had entered Georgian territory"...
The details that Western intelligence agencies extracted... agree with NATO's assessments...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 t t military and government bunker positions. Russian warplanes began their first attacks on the Georgian army a short time later.

Russian 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.