Russia Claims US Citizen Provoked War

Cites teacher's found passport as proof of meddling in Georgia
Posted Sep 3, 2008 12:16 PM CDT
Russia Claims US Citizen Provoked War
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visits the Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok, about 5,750 miles east of Moscow, on Monday, Sept. 1, 2008.   (AP Photo/ RIA Novosti, Alexei Druzhinin, Pool )

To support its claims that US intelligence agents played a role in the Georgian conflict, the Kremlin has produced a US passport belonging to an Army veteran from Texas, the Wall Street Journal reports. They say the passport was found in an outpost used by Georgian special forces. The alleged spy, Michael White, is an English teacher in China.

White said he was in the US caring for his 85-year-old father during the Georgian conflict, which was confirmed by family. He figures the passport is one he lost on a Moscow-New York flight in 2005. The presence of US agents in Georgia fits into the narrative propagated by the Kremlin that America provoked Georgia to start the war for the benefit of John McCain’s presidential bid.
(More Russia stories.)

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