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#1 - JRL 8027
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004
From: John Dunlop <dunlop@hoover.stanford.edu>
Subject: Letters by Peter Rutland and Robert Bruce Ware (JRL 8021)

Due to the heavy press of various writing commitments, I will be able to make just this one contribution to the discussion of my long article “The Moscow Hostage-Taking Incident,” which appeared in JRL 8017. Let me stress at the outset that those interested in the subject covered in my essay need to consult the 145 rather meaty footnotes that accompany the text. Readers may obtain the footnotes either by availing themselves of David Johnson’s generous offer to provide them to those who make such a request or by accessing them at the RFE/RL URLs listed at the bottom of this letter.

I will deal with Professor Rutland’s letter first. Rutland maintains that he is “unconvinced that elements within the FSB were the organizers of the October 2002 hostage taking.” But I don’t make such a sweeping claim. Rather than being the organizers of the Dubrovka incident, elements among the special services evidently served, in my opinion, as junior partners in an operation mounted by Shamil’ Basaev and his minions. From the large amount of evidence I produce, it seems likely that the special services possessed assets among the ranks of the hostage-takers, including, apparently, the de facto leader of the group, Abubakar.

The “likely benefits to the FSB from the hostage-taking,” Rutland asserts, “were close to zero,” while “the likely costs to them were high.” I vigorously disagree. The FSB, like other Russian siloviki, had in fact a strong financial interest in the war’s continuing since they were benefiting in a major way from the so-called “Black Hole of Chechnya.” That the FSB were prepared to break off efforts, including those seemingly approved by President Putin, aimed at a negotiated peace settlement is shown by one of the incidents I discuss in my paper (the one involving Abdul-Khakim Sultygov). I don’t agree, incidentally, with Rutland’s claim that personnel of the FSB worry overly much about being shown to be incompetent. Who among their ranks has been punished in recent years for incompetence?

Shamil’ Basaev, Rutland avers, “wanted to restore [Maskhadov’s] leadership credentials.” Hardly. As I underline in my piece, the hostage-takers repeatedly evidenced a low opinion of Maskhadov and of his fellow moderate separatists. What they detested above all was Maskhadov’s persistent interest in negotiating a peace settlement with Russia.

Rutland is right, of course, when he notes that security services the world over “try to infiltrate terrorist and organized crime groups.” But the good ones, presumably, understand that this is a tricky and potentially ruinous endeavor. If the de facto head of the hostage-takers, Abubakar, was actually an asset of the Russian special services, and if he and his followers took 1,000 innocent residents of the Russian capital hostage, then that presumably should have constituted a catastrophe for his handlers. But it is unclear that they did in fact view it as a catastrophe. One can well imagine what the public reaction in this country would be if it emerged that, say, the leader of the 9/11 plane hijackers had been an FBI asset.

Five of the questions posed by Robert Ware focus on the peripheral issue of the 1999 invasion of Dagestan. In my essay, I devote but a single paragraph to that topic. Let me assure Ware, however, that he will in time receive an answer from me concerning his questions. Peter Reddaway of George Washington University and I are currently writing a book, provisionally entitled “Operation Successor,” which will take a hard look, inter alia, at the events of 1999, including the incursions into Dagestan, the Moscow, Buinaksk and Volgodonsk bombings, and the so-called “Ryazan’ incident.”

As for Ware’s five other questions, Shamil’ Basaev, as I see it, was forced to suffer the strong opprobrium of Chechen society following the politically embarrassing hostage-taking event. Polls taken by Validata Polling Agency, which is based in Chechnya, show that his commitment to terrorism is not in fact shared by a majority of Chechens. In political terms, Dubrovka hurt Basaev quite badly at home.

Why, Ware asks, did Maskhadov not condemn the hostage-taking incident while it was in progress? But, as I noted in my piece, he in fact did so, through his trusted aide and leading spokesman in the West, Akhmed Zakaev (letter of 24 October—that is, the day following the taking of the theater by the terrorists--to Lord Judd, rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe).

Ware also apparently fails to grasp that the terrorist leaders Basaev and Khaskhanov understood the likely consequences of having the blood of close to a thousand innocent Russian civilians, residents of the nation’s capital, on their hands. It could predictably have resulted in drastic military and police reprisals directed against all Chechens living in the Russian Federation. That was clearly not their goal.

Finally, Ware fails to understand how retired GRU major Arman Menkeev could have been arrested if he were involved in assisting the FSB. But Menkeev, as I stress in my article, was arrested not by the FSB but by a special unit (MUR) of the MVD. Even in the United States, the “locals” and the “feds” have been known at times not to get along. In Russia, the mutual animosity of many of the personnel of the MVD and FSB is well known and is even on occasion aired in the press.

In closing, let me underscore that the aim behind my essay was to reawaken interest in this country in “Dubrovka Studies.” In Russia, the interest in Dubrovka appears not to have faded since October 2002. It is noteworthy, for example, that three of the announced candidates for the Russian presidency—Irina Khakamada, Ivan Rybkin, and Nikolai Kharitonov—have already raised important questions concerning the events at Dubrovka (Novaya Gazeta, 15 January).

Here are the URLs mentioned in my opening paragraph:

Part 1: http://www.rferl.org/reports/corruptionwatch/2003/12/42-181203.asp

Part 2: http://www.rferl.org/reports/corruptionwatch/2004/01/1-080104.asp

Part 3: http://www.rferl.org/reports/corruptionwatch/2004/01/2-150104.asp