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TITLE: PRESS CONFERENCE WITH USA AND CANADA STUDIES INSTITUTE DIRECTOR SERGEI ROGOV
[AIF PRESS CENTER, 13:20, APRIL 9, 2004]
SOURCE: FEDERAL NEWS SERVICE (http://www.fednews.ru/)

Rogov: In order not to waste time I will introduce myself and then the moderator will take it on from me. I am Rogov, Sergei Mikhailovich, director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, dean of the Department of World Politics at the State University of Humanities, not to be confused with --

The Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences -- Russian journalists should know that.

Moderator: Since Sergei Mikhailovich has already introduced himself, and he is the director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies. The topic of our press conference is the -- actually there are several topics. We will be talking about the deterioration of the situation in Iraq against the background of the presidential campaign in the US, and about the investigation of the 9/11 attack and Condoleezza Rice's statement yesterday and its effect, as well as the results of the Igor Sutyagin case because many think that this is not an individual case and what is to be done to avoid his fate?

And of course we won't help talking about the expansion of NATO, and the Russian-American relationship and its development against this background.

So, Sergei Mikhailovich, take your pick. Any topic you think we should begin with. And then you can move on to the rest of them. And after that we will take questions from the press.

Rogov: Good day, once again. I want to thank you for the invitation to come here. I think I will speak for 15 minutes or so and then answer your questions.

The current year in the US is an election year. It's always very interesting not only for professionals like us at the Institute of USA and Canada Studies -- the elections take place once every four years - but also the world community, I would say. Given the US role in the world, the US claims to the role of the only super power, what has been happening in America, who leads the United States is not an academic issue, it concerns virtually everyone living on the planet.

Let us start with an analysis of the domestic political situation in the United States. I view Bush's chances to be re- elected as fifty-fifty. One gets the impression that he may share the fate of his father who in 1992 lost to Clinton, even though he was a renowned politician, won the Cold War, won the Iraq war. Then Clinton no one had known came, said the improper economy is the problem, and he defeated George Bush.

Therefore, this example shows that the outcome of US elections is mostly influenced by the domestic situation, the state of the country's economy. The US is now moving out of economic crisis, the growth rate is rather high, the productivity growth rate is very high. Actually it has never happened in the US history that it grows by 4, 5 and even 7 percent a year.

This is the result of an IT revolution. You may recall that the stock market deflated, but long-term results of that IT revolution are still there, and the US is the leader in that revolution.

But from the point of view of domestic policies, economic growth until recently had not been accompanied by liquidation of unemployment. Bush is now the only US president over the past 100 years, under whose rule unemployment has grown.

Opinions differ on why that has happened. Some analysts say this has been due to the technological revolution - productivity has grown, say, 6 percent and GDP has grown 3 percent a year. It is clear that productivity grows faster, the employment rate goes down.

But from the point of view of Democrats, this has been due to the economic policy pursued by Bush, colossal cuts in taxes and steep growth in government spending. In this respect, Bush strongly differs from his Republican predecessors. The Republicans usually favored tax cuts, while at the same time cutting down government spending. But under Bush defense spending has grown substantially, but civil spending has also grown at nearly the same rate.

Bush has favored the compassionate conservatism idea. And he proved to be a conservative president cutting taxes on the rich, first and foremost, while failing to cut social spending, having increased health spending and spending on education. It is interesting that a conservative president, unlike our liberal reformers, has increased social spending.

Therefore, Democrats have dealt the main blow on Bush in the economic sphere. They have charged him with promoting unemployment and shortages.

I realize that it is hard to perceive figures by ear, but if you write down two figure columns, it will be obvious that what has happened.

Under Reagan and George Bush, US spending -- the federal budget -- amounted to 21 percent, revenues amounted to 19 percent. That actually means a budget deficit of 2-3 percent a year. That was mostly due to defense spending which amounted to 6.5 percent of the GDP.

Clinton cut defense spending in 2000 to 3 percent. So what happened: US federal government spending was 21 percent, while revenues reached 23 percent. A budget surplus was reached.

Now let look at 2004. Government expenditures now amount to 23 percent and revenues stand at 17 percent. You can see that the balance has been swayed. So today the US administration, out of every 4-5 dollars it spends borrows one dollar.

The Iraq war is another specific feature of this election campaign. Today I was thinking what I should tell my students. I would like to remind you that if we look at history, during the war US presidents never lose elections. You may recall Roosevelt, who won the election in 1944, in 1968 Johnson decided against running, but he did not lose the election. In 1972, Nixon won the election. The nation tends to unite around the president - during the war it is necessary to be patriots and defend America.

This effect had been very strong until recently. The shock of September 11 worked, but it now tends to fade away. If you look at opinion polls, Bush's rating has gone down to the lowest level since he was elected. It is still relatively high, but after September 11 his support rating was above 90 percent - more than that for Putin here - it is now slightly above 50 percent.

On economic, domestic issues, Kerry outpaces Bush.

It is only on foreign policy issues - such as terrorism and Iraq - that Bush enjoys support of 54-55 percent. The share of supporters also tends to go down, but he is ahead of Kerry.

I think what has been happening may be a decisive factor -- it depends on what the US public thinks about the current developments in Iraq, which I would describe as Iraqi intifada.

It is like in a Russian fairy tale: "I've caught the bear." "Good, get it here." "But it would not let me."

What many analysts said in the US -- and we have said this -- okay, you overthrow Saddam, what next?

The forecast starts to justify. It looked that the Vietnam syndrome in the US public consciousness is extinct. Anyway, after the September 11 tragedy, the US public agreed to several hundred casualties. But what is happening now?

The war starts -- I would say it's an intifada, and it is also possible to draw an analogy with Chechnya, as it is a war with no front line, where there are civilian casualties. A question arises: What for do US soldiers die in Iraq? The official reason -- mass destruction weapons -- Bush no longer recalls it.

Establishing democracy? But what kind of democracy is it if the Americans would not even let Iraq hold elections. The Shi'i uprising has broken out for the reason that Shi'i who hoped to come to power -- this is my point of view -- peacefully as they make a majority of the population, having seen that the Americans want to hand power over without elections and try to observe a balance with Sunnites and Kurds -- I think this factor has featured heavily in creating preconditions for the Shi'i uprising.

While after the seizure of Saddam Hussein it looked like the opposition would soon be suppressed, it is now absolutely clear that the resistance is not limited to Ba'ath supporters. It has various sources and, in my opinion, something unexpected has happened. Certain coordination has been established between Sunnites and Shi'ites. This may be a mere coincidence, but the fact that both Sunni and Shi'i uprisings have coincided in time -- no one would dare to predict anything of the kind a year ago.

The Americans have managed to worsen relations with either party.

It is clear that this level of casualties -- then you may recall the dreadful execution pictures. By the way, they are not call-up soldiers. In the US there have emerged firms offering private military services, a kind of private armies. In particular, those private armies, private corporations trained Islamic fighters in Bosnia, in Kosovo.

They have also been invited to work in Iraq. Quite often they are armed and deal, at least, with security issues. They are not actually civilians like the poor seized Japanese or Koreans. They are actually part of the occupation regime. So you may recall the fearful pictures. You know, initially US TV companies were reluctant to broadcast them. But they eventually put them on the air.

You may recall that the mass media, by publishing frightful pictures and reports, changed the public's attitude to the Vietnam war.

Let me remind you that Kerry is a war hero, but he war the leader of an anti-war movement more than 30 years ago.

By the way, I've bought a John Lennon DVD-ROM recently with his songs. And there are several songs he wrote in the early 1970s, and there are pictures showing antiwar rallies where he is side by side with young John Kerry.

Kerry has now moved towards the center, but the Republicans, as the winner in the election will be the one getting the center's support, support by the independents -- the Bush administration is branding him as a new Kennedy, as an ultra liberal. Kerry tries to take a more moderate stand. The hearings that are taking place in America today is a fine example of American democracy in action. I am inclined to idealize American democracy. It has many shortcomings. Especially in later years, after September 11 when the Patriot Act was passed, some incredible things have been happening, arrests without trial or investigation, detentions for indefinite periods and even secret trials.

Running ahead a bit to the Sutyagin case, the kind of charges that were brought against Sutyagin are not considered in open court by a jury. It would be a closed hearing with a special grand jury, the prosecution and so on. No question of transparency.

So, the Commission. Let me remind you that there are two commissions in American at present. The Bush administration tried to sabotage the setting up of both commissions. One commission is to inquire into the terrorist act of September 11. It has been formed on the basis of parity: five Republicans and five Democrats. The Republicans were appointed by Bush and the Democrats were appointed by the leader of the Democratic faction in the Senate. This is an independent commission.

The second commission was set up after David Kay -- you know that Bush came under heavy attack from former bureaucrats such as the former Secretary of the Treasury O'Neil, David Kay who was in charge of the group that was searching for weapons of mass destruction, and when Kay said in December that we were mistaken and were no mass destruction weapons, Bush resisted but eventually set up a commission to look into the potential of the American intelligence community, a subject broader than Iraq. That commission, although it also includes Democrats, is an administration commission. Its work will be secret.

And there is also the question of the timeframe. That commission is to publish its report in a year's time, in March of next year. By that time elections will have taken place. And as regards the September 11 commission, this is the height of the election campaign and if the commission finds that the American intelligence and even American policy failed under the Bush administration in a way that makes even Pearl Harbor pale, that would deal a heavy blow on Bush. The commission was to complete its work in May but because the Bush administration denied access to documents and its leaders refused to make public statements the situation arose when even Republican members of the commission asked for the deadline to be postponed. Bush resisted, but the new deadline was set for July 26.

And what is July 26? It is the day when the Democratic Convention opens. The main star of this commission -- and in general look, the speakers included former secretaries of state and the current Secretary State, the former and the present Defense Secretary, the former and the present National Security Advisers. George Tennet was CIA Director under Clinton, and he is still Director under Bush. I think it is impressive. We have witnessed some tragic events here too. Our institutions of investigation have a secret and an open part. In the open part the whole of American watches it on television. So, it attests to the fact that for all the weaknesses and shortcomings of the American democracy, we would do well to learn some things from the Americans.

Clark. Clark is a man who was an independent for 20 years, actually in 2000 he voted Republican. He is a registered Republican. Clark was the "counterterrorism czar". The post was created by Clinton in 1998. But he joined the administration back in 1980s when he was a young member of the State Department. And by the way, he was the man who proposed in 1984 to deliver Stingers to the Mujahedeen and then the CIS found bin Laden and bin Laden because the main recipient of Stingers and all the other weapons. He was not a turncoat. He himself fostered the monster that has now turned against America. But later he became a character who "cried wolf" and nobody paid attention. And this was particularly manifest under the Bush administration. He kept his post but in fact he was shoved aside. How does the National Security Council work? The level of ministers, the Principals' Committee, basically ministers who make decision on the day to day basis who should be given Stingers and so on.

He was chased out of that group and relegated to the group of deputy principals. As director I can tell you that not all issues can be solved at the level of Deputy Director. He served the Bush administration loyally, but resigned in January of last year and now in his speeches he openly accuses Bush of overlooking a terrorist attack when it was coming. Why? Because Iraq was given priority. This is not to be questioned. From the beginning the present administration was committed to "rubbing out" Iraq.

But there is yet another point. This administration thinks in terms of traditional geopolitical principles and its main idea when it came to power was not Iraq, but to name China as America's new number one enemy. And on the eve of September 11, the Bush administration was very close to it. Then some adjustments were made and so on.

Well, Clark's testimony was a powerful blow at the Bush administration. He broke all the bureaucratic rules, he gave listeners an inside look at the kitchen. And yesterday's testimony Condoleezza Rice was to pay the decision role in the Bush Administration's attempts to limit the damage.

Q: Has she succeeded?

Rogov: I don't know, I watched it on the Internet and my personal opinion is that of course she was very nervous. I have known her well and for a long time, but she is "an iron lady". She can stand her grounds when she is under fire. She was like "Stonewall Jackson", a hero of the American Civil War. She made no mistakes. But this morning I looked at the reaction in the New York Times and the Washington Post and they single out several weak points in her position.

It's also the August 6 Memorandum that said seemingly clearly that al-Qaeda was preparing an attack against America. And now demands will be made for this memorandum to be declassified. I think the Bush administration will die but not do that. There are several other things like, as it has been written, "he said", "she said". Clarke says that he requested an audience with Bush, and he had actually met with Clinton quite often, his position empowered him to do that as a special presidential aide, but he was not allowed to meet with Bush. In other words, he was basically demoted two ranks. Only once he was let meet with Bush, but even then he was told clearly that he should discuss cyber terrorism and nothing else.

She says he didn't request a meeting with Bush. Who is to believe? So, I don't think that Condoleezza has closed the question. The scandal will grow, and the outcome of the elections will hang by a thread. These will be very dirty elections, very personified. That may be very interesting for an expert from the Institute of USA and Canada Studies. But is it so interesting from the point of view of Russian-US relations. In principle, election years have always been bad for the Russian-US relations. In Soviet times there were always attacks from the right, and the administration had to show that it was not soft. Now we are no longer a major enemy for America. WE are not even item No. 10 on the agenda. We are a way down at the bottom.

There is criticism of Russia, primarily from Democrats. There are three issues: human rights, the freedom of the press, and Chechnya. The Bush administration has basically not responded to this criticism .And I think a decision made a week ago was quite symptomatic. By the way, it was made immediately after the passage by the House Committee on International Relations of the resolution. I don't want to censure journalists. I know that it would be totally wrong to do, but some journalists don't know what the Institute of USA and Canada Studies is and some journalists do not know that there is no such a thing as the Congress Committee on International Relations. Kommersant said it once, and all the others picked it up. There is the Committee on International Relations in the House of Representatives and there is the Committee on Foreign Relations in the Senate. But there is no single committee.

At the end of last year McCain of the Republican Party and Lieberman of the Democratic Party, and Cox of the Republican Party and Lantos of the Democratic Party submitted, to the Senate Committee and to the House Committee respectively, a resolution demanding that Russia be kicked out of the Group of Eight as failing to meet democratic principles. The administration blocked that and the Senate adopted an alternative Lugar-Biden resolution that begins as follows: Since Russia has joined the community of democratic states... and the rest doesn't really matter. It mentions Khodorkovsky and all other things, of course, but the very first line says that Russia is a democratic country and therefore there is no need to expel it from anywhere.

So, the resolution in the Senate was blocked, but the Cox- Lantos resolution was adopted by the committee, not by the whole House, but by the committee. Apparently, it will not be put to vote because the Republicans will not let that happen unless they get word from the White House, I mean the resolution that demands that Russia be expelled from the Group of Eight. And just two days later the State Department announced the lifting of the sanctions on Russian firms, institutes and people over Iran.

An election year is not a year of sharp moves. But I think that Bush and Putin, when they meet at the G-8 summit, and this year it will be not a bilateral summit, but there will be several multilateral forums where the two presidents will meet, and I do not rule out that they may reach some new Russian-American agreements and may be even sign joint legal documents. If you are interested in this, I will answer this question if you ask it.

Now Sutyagin.

Moderator: Maybe we should let the audience ask their questions first.

Rogov: Very well, then. I just want to say that I am not trying to dodge questions about Sutyagin and I am ready to tell you everything I know and express my position.

Moderator: Your questions, please. Do you want to go on and talk about Sutyagin? I thought that you wanted to ask questions.

Rogov: Sutyagin spent his entire career in the institute under my direction. I know him from work. I am not his close friend. We are of different ages. And then I always was his boss. He joined the institute as a post-graduate in 1988. Six months after that I became head of the military policy section. He was working on a dissertation. His supervisor was Kokoshin. But when Kokoshin was appointed first deputy defense minister in 1992, he had other things on his mind rather than the dissertation, and I helped him informally. When he defended his dissertation Kokoshin was officially listed as his supervisor, but in reality I was helping him. Then I was elected deputy director and then I became director, and I promoted him first to the post of junior researcher and then senior researcher and it was I who appointed him section head. And if this tragedy had not happened, he would not have been deputy director of the Institute but he would certainly have been head of the military policy section.

He is a very talented person. Unlike most of us in the institute who specialize in humanities because we are political scientists and economists, he is technically-minded. There was actually a whole group of post-graduate like him in the institute, but only he stayed. All others left. The idea was that while working on arms control he would know not only political aspects but also the hardware. He grew rapidly. And if I tried to evaluate him as a researcher, I would say that he was an excellent expert in his field. But he was immature as a political analyst. He had a fanatical interest in the hardware but he was weak in terms of political analysis.

If we take, for example, weapons -- we study the US, and particularly missile defense -- his position was that if some system was being created, it would certainly be deployed. But it's not necessarily so. There are political factors, there are financial and budgetary factors, and very often -- almost all of his papers left the institute, and I as director -- we write monographs, articles and memoranda. A memorandum is accompanied by a rider: "Mr. so and so, please find enclosed the memorandum on the prospects, say, of the deployment of NMD by the USA." And it is signed by me. So, I have read all his materials and I almost invariably made corrections in the political sense because he tended to overestimate the technical aspects and underestimate the political aspects. This is part of daily routine. Nothing wrong there. To become a first-class expert takes years and decades.

Moderator: Just a remark. There is much talk about his analytical abilities which helped the Pentagon to save billions of dollars.

Rogov: Rubbish. Rubbish.

In the Soviet times we had, as required, the First Department and we had classified papers. But you understand that in those times everything was classified. There were special rooms in libraries where you could read Western press. Vladimir Lukin, for example, wrote a dissertation on Soviet-Chinese-American relations which was itself so heavily classified that he had no access to reading it.

By the time Igor joined the Institute, all that was over. We don't have the First Department. I have access to classified documents, he hasn't. Accordingly, he couldn't have seen some secret documents. But in terms of analysis, how do we study the United States. Of course we are not the GRU, we are not the KGB, we draw only on open sources and channels and on our links in the academic world. And this gives us an almost 100 percent chance to analyze the turn in American policy.

I must say that in these external exchanges -- conferences, seminars and so on -- there is much talk about an attempt to curtail links. Well, last year the number of our business trips doubled or trebled, and, in a new development, our students are now traveling abroad. I told you that I am Dean of World Politics Department and I have 4 groups. And between them they logged about 100 foreign trips. We have held conferences here and there with Rand, with the Heritage Foundation, with the Atlantic Council, with the Naval Analysis Center. I have arranged for our students to make weekly visits to the NATO school almost free of charge, they have to pay 50 euros.

You know, the Garmisch school that deals with peacekeeping for middle-level NATO bureaucrats, the level of colonels and lieutenant colonels. And I am proud that my students go there for weekly courses in European security. They have good command of English. So much for exchanges.

I can tell you from my own experience that about 20-30 percent of those taking part in these external exchanges are intelligence agents. I won't specify whose intelligence. I see nothing wrong there. Intelligence also gathers information and it would be better if they did not invent thing but knew the real situation. This is my personal opinion, but of course, it is a factor.

Naturally, dealing with military issues, arms control, one has to know not only American hardware and American policy, but also our own. Otherwise, how can you assess whether certain American proposals are good or bad for us? We must provide our own analysis of the national interests of Russia.

So, not having access to any secret sources -- by the way we did not have such access in the Soviet times either, for example, what the industry was doing, what the General Staff was planning -- nevertheless, we had a good idea of the Russian position and the Russian weapons systems and he has a very good grasp of these matters, certainly better than I have because of his educational background. I am a humanities man and I don't understand how electricity works, for example. Electrons, neutrons, protons. And he did much useful and interesting work for us because he understood the technical side.

What happened to him? You know, the life of a scientist or a scholar in Russia today is very hard. The salary is meager. It was particularly bad in the 1990s, but it isn't much better now. My salary with all the bonuses is less than my driver gets. Even though I am director of the Institute. But I am not starving because I get royalties, I can earn money, I have my reputation and authority. But for the people who just start on science the problem of survival is very acute. They have no name recognition. So, many researchers do consultancy work, give lectures. For example, I have set up my mini- university so that they could deliver their lectures without leaving the building.

And I have tried to bring Igor into this circle of scholars by brining him in to the conferences that I conducted and I began gradually to send him to stand in for me. In 1998 he went to Birmingham alone to attend a conference. He never told me what happened there. By the way, this is an administrative offense.

Moderator: He is obliged to report all his contacts?

Rogov: Well, you work in the media. You go on a trip on business. What is the procedure? You write to the chief editor, that you are going on a business trip from such and such date and you go to the treasurer to get money to pay your fare and per diem. The Academy practically doesn't pay for our external links. So, almost all of our trips with few exceptions, are paid for by the host side. So, you write an application addressed to me, but it is signed by deputy director and all the formalities are taken care of by the international relations sector. And an executive order lands on my desk: So and so is to deemed to be on a business trip starting from such and such a date under the auspices of such and such organization at the expense of the host party. I sign the executive order. Upon his return he reports that he is back and submits a report on what he has been doing. A short report, but it does contain the name of the organization, the conference and the main issues discussed.

If the report contains something interesting he indicates that he is going to write a memorandum or an article or has gathered materials for a monograph. Occasionally, he may address the Institute council if he has something interesting to say.

Well, he was approached by some people. It was not a large- scale conference, I myself took part in such conference. It's about this kind of room, there are tables. There is a panel of four or five people at the head table and there are chairs for the audience about 30-40 people. This way, for example, George Robertson, he was defense secretary then and also took part in the conference, we were sitting together with him. And Igor was also there. It turned out that he was approached by a man who said he was Sean Keith (SP?) and then another one came up, Nadya Lock -- beautiful names - and they asked him to consult them.

They said they were an investment company and wanted him to consult as they knew he was a knowledgeable individual -- he never tried to conceal his knowledge. One could see he knew hardware well. And they offered money.

What happened next? That was at the end of January or in early February 1998. I asked him about the conference, whether or not there was anything of interest. He said no, usual verbiage.

I said: Look it looks like the Clinton administration. I spoke formally with him, he is much younger. I said I had had conversations at the White House and had been told the US would review positions on the ABM treaty, the US would propose amendments. I asked him to prepare a brochure, around 50 pages of analyses of all programs and what the Bush administration would do.

We prepare reports quarterly. The first quarter ended and on April 1 I could not find his paper in a quarterly report. Usually he had brought it to me personally. Then April 2, 3. I asked my colleagues to find him. I do not insist that people should stay there at the institute every day. It does not matter where you catch mice, just complete work to set deadlines.

I asked the section head about Sutyagin's whereabouts. He said he had not seen him for several days. I asked him to phone him. We are on familiar terms, we are of the same age, we were in post- graduate studies together. Call him -- he lives at Obninsk.

He comes up to me then and asks: "Why have you let him go on a business trip without my signature?" "Valery, I have not let anyone go, there is no business trip," I said. "His wife says he is in Britain." He appeared several days later. I told him to some to my office and started shouting at him: "Why have you left and failed to prepare a report? Write an explanation."

He did write it: on the Kings College's invitation, I was there, sorry.

It's an outrage, I said and it was the first time as director that I reprimanded an employee, Sutyagin. For absence from work, because it was not a business trip. Instead of work, he...

It turned out he met with them during the trip. What followed? They started... Yes, he had not written a word about alternative futures in his explanatory note.

What I know now -- I found it out after the arrest, and this shocked me. I was witness during the investigation and I was often interrogated, like many of my colleagues. One signs a promise not to disclose, I also attended court hearings, and I also pledged not to disclose. So what I am telling you, I know more, but I and under an obligation.

It turned out that they started asking him questions about military hardware, under the pretext that they wanted to have investment projects in Russia. And they asked questions about technologies, namely tactical and technical properties of Russian weapon systems.

And he got certain instructions: he should not write anything for them, he should not send anything by the Internet, should not make phone calls. They said they would arrange invitations to him and they would meet then.

And during a year and a half, he met with them in London, Budapest, Bucharest, Rome, Brussels.

I can tell you the following. I went with him to Birmingham University at the start of 1999; there were three of us there. A conference ended on Saturday and we had return tickets for Sunday. And the organizers told us: If you like, it takes half an hour to get to Shakespeare's birthplace, his home. Naturally we went there, had some beer.

But Igor said he had been there during an earlier visit and he refused to come with us. In some way they had warned him that the rest of us would leave and he would stay to meet them. They had agreed that during his visits he would be asked questions and would answer them on words.

No articles. According to some reports, he published certain articles. No, no articles.

As I have told you, their questions concerned weapon properties. He has no access to restricted, secret materials. From this point of view what he could tell them was not secret materials, but rather his idea -- like I told you about the Bush administration today, he spoke to them on questions they asked.

What can I tell? So I am invited somewhere. The hosts pay for economy class air fares, a three-star hotel. I am a director and I am quite well known. So when you read excerpts from newspapers: he flew in the first class, lived in five-star hotels, and I doubt that Nadya Lock and Sea Keith were in the economy class when flying in here and I don't think they lived in motels. One such meeting must have cost around 10,000 dollars.

He realized that he should not do such things. But he must have believed that as he did not disclose any secrets to them he did not breach the law. But I have to tell you that I have several times talked to him seriously.

About five years ago I had some problems with my newspaper article -- members of Gennady Andreyevich's faction in parliament, not on their own initiative, actually, launched an attack against me, claiming that I had disclosed a state secret in my article.

I talked to him; I said there is an invisible line. Some things that are not secret -- still, one has to understand how they should be interpreted.

Another one. With Americans during conferences, he would glue to them and start asking all sorts of questions. I said: Igor, what do you think they think about your questions. We deal with politics, but your questions give the impression that you are interested in different things.

His arrest is a shock, a severe blow. I have pledged not to disclose certain things, therefore I cannot tell you everything, but certainly do not know everything about the case, about charges, etc. Therefore, I am giving you my assessment as the director of the institute and my personal view as his senior colleague. First, what Igor did with Alternative Futures has nothing to do with scientific exchanges. We have hundreds of ties, and that's not how we do things. It's abnormal irregular practice when things get done behind the back, bypassing all rules.

Let's assume that you are foreign journalists who are working in Moscow. One day you are approached by a Vasya Ptichkin, who tells you, you know I need your consultation and clips. Only don't say a word to anyone. We will pay you ten times your current salary, we will travel to Budapest and Bucharest and you will tell us there -- I mean we have some questions and we want to make some investments.

What would you do in this case? These are not normal scientific ties. Alternative Futures does not exist. I tried to find them. I asked the British Ambassador to find them. I told him that British citizens had recruited him, and would you please, help us find Nadya Lock and Sean Keith (sp.?). Just imagine for a second that I have been accused -- and I have known Ames. By the way, Ames recruited our employee, Sergei Fedorenko, in 1973 -- of having recruited such and such American and he supplied the Russian Intelligence Service with classified information through me. What would I have done? I would have run to Argumenty i Fakty and say, let's hold a press conference. Yes, I have met with that person, I have received such and such articles and such and such materials, but it had nothing to do with espionage. What espionage are you taking about? Are you crazy?

I have spent four and a half years trying to locate these people, but they simply vanished without a trace. Not a single press conference, not a single interview as to what they did with Igor. This is why all responsibility for what Igor did -- it was his decision, he did it behind my back, he did it bypassing the established bureaucratic practices.

The second thing is money. He received more than $20,000 in cash and did not pay taxes on that. But that is not espionage. This is an administrative offense and it's a non-payment of taxes. But Al Capone did not pay taxes either. But was there espionage? Investigators claim that there was. The information I have does not allow me to confirm that. I only know that Sean Keith and Nadya Lock have nothing to do with science.

Now, investigators claim that information was passed for a reward. That is true. As a result of that, damage was caused to Russia's national interests. I don't know what he told them. This is why I do not know what kind of damage was caused and whether there was any damage at all. I am a citizen of this country, he stood a trial by jury, I cannot contest the court ruling, but I must say that if he is found guilty, I have to dismiss him. But as long as he is under investigation, it's not a reason for me to dismiss him. I have to dismiss him when the court ruling becomes effective. Since an appeal has been filed, the court ruling has not entered into force, he remains to be an employee of the institute, and he gets his salary.

I think the sentence of 15 years that was given to him is too harsh and does not match the damage that he might have caused. I think he might have given them his own ideas, not state secrets. Does that serve as proof of espionage? That is something that has to be decided by the court. In my view, the damage caused by his ideas, and I more or less know what his assessments could be, is not very big. This is why I hope that the Supreme Court will revisit this decision.

Apparently, I should stop and answer your questions because I have a lecture to deliver at 15:00. I may come later but not much later.

Q: You mentioned the situation in Iraq. How do you think the situation will develop? And if the situation worsens, will the Americans leave Iraq?

Rogov: I envision three scenarios. First, Americans suppress the rebellion by fire and sword. Some sort of pacification in Iraq by Ariel Sharon's scenario. We have seen how Sharon is making peace in the Middle East. The Americans may do the same. The second scenario is the American version of Khasavyurt. In other words, the Americans will announce their victory and quickly go home. The third scenario is to transfer the issue to the UN. You may remember that there was the UN mandate system after World War II, when a mandate was issued to prepare a country for independence.

It's obvious now that Iraq must not be left to the mercy of fate. There must be some process and assistance from the international community, there must be funding and order must be ensured. I personally prefer the third scenario. The Bush administration has so far been implementing the first scenario. It is most likely to fail just as what Sharon is doing will fail. But I do not rule out that if land starts burning under their feet, Bush may announce a unilateral withdrawal of US troops. As you probably remember, that's what Nixon did in 1972.

Moderator: But may that happen before the elections in November? Or, will this happen after the elections?

Rogov: It will depend on how things go. If the current level of casualties that the Americans have sustained so far remains throughout the summer, and that basically is a city guerrilla war , and the more Americans get attacked, the more they fire in all directions, the more hated they are, the more they are killed. It's a vicious circle that is only too well known to us. I do not rule out that this may happen before the elections. But it would be too early to forecast this now.

In 1968, during the Tet celebrations, when the Vietcong launched an offensive, the Americans defeated them and won that military campaign but sustained such political damage that they had, belatedly, to go out. Perhaps, this time the Americans will manage to defeat the Shiite militia, and catch the former Sunni officials, but it is too early yet to make forecasts.

Q: Going back to the case of Igor Sutyagin, do you think it will reflect in some way on the reputation of your Institute? I mean this sentence. And another question. Doesn't it seem to you that the representatives of foreign intelligence services have been exhibiting extraordinary interest in your Institute?

Rogov: Of course, what Igor Sutyagin was doing has nothing to do with his official duties. You know that when you are hired you sign your job description and he had to do that and that and that and not what he was doing with Nadya Lock (sp.-FNS) and Sean Keith (sp.--FNS) and of course he shouldn't have violated the administrative rules.

Of course, I am very distressed when the name of our institute is flogged as a CIA nest and so on. I am not pleased with the attention of intelligence services. We have over 35 years built up a unique academic team, high-class specialists. And in the 1980s the CIA twice managed to recruit two members of the Institute. They were also in the military political department. One was Patashov, the Academic Secretary of the military-political department and the other was Sergei Fedorenko. I know them well, we worked together. It came as a total surprise to me. And I must say that it caused us a lot of trouble in the 1980s. And even now some people's attitude to the institute, especially when all sorts of delirious rubbish is being put about when some utterly incompetent people write about some aircraft carriers that the Americans canceled by withdrawing from the ABM.

But the fact that there is such interest in our staff and the interest displayed in Igor Sutyagin by Nadya Lock and Sean Keith -- this is not right. This is not normal; it impedes scientific exchanges and research work. I can only express my protest over such things. But as regards our scientific exchanges as I told you, they are not being curtailed, they are broadening. What I find very unfortunately and forgive me for again criticizing the media, during these four and a half years I was approached by journalists with elementary questions only a few times: we know about your fellow worker and could you explain what happened?

For example, yesterday a newspaper carried an article by chief of the desk devoted to military-technical cooperation. This means arms sales. It means the person whose job essentially is to sell arms and he is supposed to know their secret and not secret performance characteristics. That is a garbling of facts. Next claim, he was writing articles. But why don't you come and ask what he was doing and whether he was writing them as part of his scholarly exchanges?

I very much hope -- we discussed this situation on Wednesday at our Institute Council when we made the decision -- that his fate will not take such a tragic turn as it appears to have taken, that we will be able to normally pursue our scholarly activities. And the new generation -- a group of students is flying on Monday to Washington, to Maryland University, I have arranged for them to travel free, and they will attend a week-long seminar on -- they are to write a joint memorandum together with American students, we contacted them on the Internet, a memorandum on "The Problems of Non- Proliferation and North Korea." Can you imagine how I feel when I have to explain to my students what is happening?

So, I am not saying that the Sutyagin case casts a shadow on the reputation of the Institute, but this is not a simple period for all of us. And for myself, of course, because I know more than anyone else and I have worked with him more closely than anyone, I know his strengthens and weaknesses as a specialist better than anyone.

Q: You said that there was interest on the part of foreign intelligence services in your institute in the 1980s. Has it increased or diminished since then?

Rogov: How do you detect the interest on the part of intelligence services? When Patashov was Academic Secretary, I was chief of a sector and how could I know what he was up to? And Fedorenko when I was appointed deputy director -- I was thinking of appointing him to succeed me as chief of department. He had some problems. To cut a long story short, he went abroad and did not return and it transpired that he was recruited by foreign intelligence in 1973.

I told you about the English Ambassador. I told him, This is my official request to you, some British people are accused of recruiting a member of our staff. Please, could you help us to find him and establish facts? Because we have placed telephone calls and sent fax messages and there was no reply. I have talked with the organizers of the conference in Birmingham. The organizer is retired vice-Air Force Marshal Tony Mason, former NATO Air Force Commander. I know him quite well, he is a soldier, a decent man who has nothing to do with intelligence. This was done behind his back. I also asked him to track down and find out the identities of the people.

So, I can't say that interest of the intelligence services in our institute has increased dramatically, but these are just instances and we can only guess what the intelligence is actually doing. I would like to just say one thing. In these matters you should play by the rules, both written and unwritten. Igor broke the written rules. That in itself constitutes an administrative offense and is punishable by reprimand.

Q: May we go back to Condoleezza Rice's report and the Russian- US relationship because there is a view that the policy of double standards continues. I mean while Americans criticize us for human rights, the freedom of the press and Chechnya, as you said, they themselves do things that are incompatible with international moral principles, including in Iraq. While saying that they have lifted sanctions on individuals, they forget to say that these sanctions were lifted because these individuals have died. What kind of future is there for the Russian-US relationship from the point of view of joint fight against terrorism and the policy of double standards?

Rogov: Obviously, double standards do exist. As far as Russia is concerned, I would say Americans use two double standards. First of all, they use double standards to the whole world. Bush's America has proclaimed its right to preventive strikes. But that applied only to America. However what if India delivers such a strike or Russia? What Americans proclaim as permissible for themselves is not permissible for anyone else.

Second, there are double standards against Russia too. I have mentioned sanctions over Iran. It is well known that American and European firms also traded with Iran. There is this "oil for food" scandal that is still going on. Yes, we did some wrong things, but others did wrong things, too. That does not justify us, but we face sanctions whereas others -- for example, no sanctions have been imposed upon France because of Iran. They start trade wars against each other, but that is slightly different. However, the sanctions against Russia are evidence of double standards.

One other thing. I'll be very careful because I am the director of the Institute of USA and Canada Studies. I can speak here only as a citizen. There are many things in the Russian policy that I don't like. But look at the criticism of Russia over Chechnya and at what Israel is doing in Palestine and what the Americans are doing today in Iraq. The suppression of the Intifada is interpreted in a totally different way. You will find very few people in America who know that the Americans, that thousands of civilians died at the hands of the Americans and from their bullets during the war a year ago and that hundreds are continuing to die. Americans don't know that. They think that this is a surgical operation.

I must say that some human rights organizations do not use double standards. But if a Human Watch Report on violations in Chechnya is frontpaged, a similar report on violations in Iraq is published on the last page. I mean The New York Times. You may not even find any mention of it at all. And there are also people like Gluksman of France, the way he evaluates Russian democracy and Chechnya and the zeal with which he supports what America and Israel are doing. That is, of course, an example of double standards. The Bush administration pays less attention to these things, compared to a Democratic administration. It's a traditional difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Let's have the last question.

Q: Condoleezza Rice said yesterday that there would be no success and that only small victories were in store. I talked yesterday with one of Russian Islamic leaders and he said the following: Condoleezza Rice is wrong because even small victories are not in store for America. Do you agree with this?

Rogov: It's a big problem - the reasons of new international terrorism. Terrorism is a means of attaining certain political goals. From this point of view, combating terrorism, the very notion is senseless, as if there are reasons used by various political circles as a means of their struggle, if they choose terrorism, rather than other non-violent means, the problem will remain and grow.

This concerns traditional terrorism and new terrorism, for which there are several reasons. One of them is that during the Cold War both we and the Americans created a global network of 'freedom fighters'. We regarded them as freedom fighters and they saw them as terrorists and vice versa.

A school near Simferopol alone has trained 26,000 'freedom fighters'. The Americans, via Bin Laden, near Peshawar have trained 89,000 Mujahedeen fighters. The Soviet Union and America realized that we cannot wage a war if we wanted to survive. But such things were possible.

The Cold War ended, we've pulled out, and the Americans left them. But those organizations -- Bin Laden is one example -- formed by the CIA, started their independent life.

Another aspect is globalization. Big regions of the world have proved losers due to globalization. They are few winners. Even for us, for example, with our resources, it is not clear whether or not we can benefit from globalization.

Take Afghanistan. It is clear that it cannot compete -- it can only compete in terms of drugs and terrorism. So huge regions have no future. A substantial share of those nations are Islamic nations, not only Islamic, but the Islamic world makes a majority. And they react to this challenge of globalization and secularization, Westernization, tending to go back to the Golden Age, to fundamental things -- this was also the case in Europe in the past, in particular Protestantism emerged as reaction to challenges.

Islam is younger than Christianity. And this challenge is very serious. Hence the emergence of kamikaze terrorists on a mass scale. What the Americans have done has nothing to do with the roots of the problem. And on the surface they have tried to cut off -- they kill someone and there emerges another one in that place. It's the same as with Israel. One shakhid is replaced by ten or a hundred.

For the time being, there has been no sign indicating that the Americans have any strategy for combating international terrorism. It is necessary to deal with more complex issues -- integrate those losers or victims of globalization. Just look, during the past year and a half, the Bush administration has requested an additional 160 billion dollars for war in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Imagine that the money is spent in, say, Afghanistan for other purposes to let poor peasant do some other things than grow drugs. Unfortunately, this has not happened.

Moderator: Thank you very much. That was the last question. I would like to thank Sergei Mikhailovich for interesting information.