Bush Offers Russia Help in Time of Crisis

According to the statement issued by the Kremlin yesterday, Bush said that America is ready to take whatever means required to help resolve the issue. "The U.S. and Russia stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism," the Kremlin quotes Bush as saying.

Yesterday, in the North Ossetian city of Beslen, gunmen stormed a school and took nearly 400 people hostage. 132 children are thought to be among the hostages. Family members were accompanying their children on the first day of the school year (September 1) when the incident began.

Despite the high state of alert, the fact that rebels are able to move around freely in Russia is tied to an old habit from Soviet times when security forces would only bother with checking a citizen’s papers. Today’s Russian security officials still seem more interested in the documents of citizens rather than what they have on them.