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Moscow Times
September 8, 2004
Heroism and Monstrous Incompetence
By Yulia Latynina

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, has taken power in Russia. A former intelligence officer runs the country. A former intelligence officer runs the Defense Ministry. A former intelligence officer runs the Interior Ministry. According to various estimates, siloviki make up 70 to 80 percent of the new Russian establishment.

The primary function of the security services is to neutralize threats to national security -- in other words, to prevent terrorist attacks. The security services are failing miserably in this task.

I know they're busy. They're carving up Yukos and going into business. They're defending Russia's interests in South Ossetia. But surely they could think a little less about South Ossetia, which is part of Georgia, and a little more about Russian North Ossetia, where Beslan is located.

More than 1,000 people were taken hostage at the school in Beslan last week. State media outlets initially put the number at 350. Upon hearing this, the terrorists immediately stopped giving water to the children, who were reduced to drinking their own urine. They threatened to leave only 350 hostages alive -- to fit the state's version of events.

The terrorists' demands were on President Vladimir Putin's desk inside of 10 minutes. Yet the state media reported that the terrorists had made no demands. The terrorists perceived this as a death sentence. If their demands weren't even being reported, negotiations were not on the cards.

The terrorists were willing to negotiate with Ingush President Murat Zyazikov -- also a chekist, by the way. Zyazikov switched off his mobile phone and disappeared. A spokesman said he was in Spain. Instead, former Ingush President Ruslan Aushev turned up uninvited. He contacted the terrorists by phone and told them he was coming in. A short while later, he emerged with 26 women and infants. Doesn't this indicate that negotiations were a viable option?

Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev and FSB director Nikolai Patrushev arrived in North Ossetia five hours after the siege began. No one knows where they went or what they did there. We do know that they didn't negotiate with the terrorists, thereby breaking the most basic rule of handling hostage situations: Negotiate, not to fulfill their demands, but to create the illusion that a peaceful resolution is close at hand. Everyone wants to live, even suicide bombers. The monstrous incompetence of these men resulted in the largest body count in the entire history of terrorism in Russia. And neither of them has even offered to resign.

In a certain newspaper office I was shown a remarkable document. A major oligarchic organization was offering to pay to have a series of articles published about the Beslan tragedy. The oligarchs wanted to put statements like the following into print: "All of those who took part in these tragic events are heroes. Russia hasn't witnessed heroism like this in a long time. For years the politicians have accused them of the seven deadly sins, calling them 'werewolves in epaulets.' But these men did not break; they did not fall."

They're all heroes, you see? The officers in the elite Alfa and Vympel special forces units who were working out a plan for storming the school when the shooting started, then rushed in without body armor, shielding the hostages with their bodies. And Nurgaliyev and Patrushev, who couldn't seal off the school or move the armed gawkers and local cops out of the way. And anyone who says differently is an accomplice in terror.

Yulia Latynina hosts a political talk show on Ekho Moskvy radio.