After the Siege

Mystery Gas
The repercussions of the Moscow siege were felt for a long time at home and abroad. One of the largest controversies to surround the siege was the use of the fast-acting sleeping gas that has been linked to many of the 129 deaths. Suspicions were raised within an hour of the raid, as unconscious survivors with breathing difficulties were carried out of the building. No antidote to the gas was on hand to deal with the emergency. None of the dead bodies pulled out of the building appeared to be bleeding or to have bullet wounds; the victims’ faces were white and drawn, their eyes open and blank.

State Secrets
The official line was that an ‘incapacitating’ agent had been pumped into the theatre but, in keeping with traditional Russian secrecy going back to Soviet times, senior officials refused to name it. This led to complaints from families of the dead as well as from the doctors treating the 400 or so survivors who had suffered the effects of the gas. How could they respond to the emergency and treat the survivors effectively without knowing exactly what it was that their patients had inhaled? Indeed, some of the relatives, who were not allowed to visit the hostages in hospital, were so angry that they believed that using the gas was some chemical warfare experiment in which the state had used the hostages as guinea pigs.

Security Sham
While a post-mortem of events raised questions about the chemical content and concentration of the gas, especially given the weakened condition of the hostages after more than 50 hours of horrifying captivity, it also brought into question the efficacy of the security forces. How could 50 armed rebels simply stroll into a Moscow theatre unnoticed, especially in a city full of police known for constantly checking the ID documents of foreigners and darker-skinned residents? Pointing to the corrupt nature of the city’s police force, one Muscovite comedian apparently joked that it was perfectly possible that the Moscow police had checked the Chechens' documents, taken a $100 bribe to pronounce them valid and offered to escort the gunmen to the theatre.

A Brave Face
Despite such controversies, President Putin managed to conceal any signs of weakness and exploited the siege to further secure his popularity and reputation as a man of action. He told the Russians, “We saved the lives of hundreds, yes hundreds, of people. We showed that Russia cannot be brought to her knees.” Once the siege was over Putin called for the military to draw up new plans to combat terrorism, and called on the Russians to unite against a common enemy.

Reactions Abroad
Despite their rebuffed requests for the Russian authorities to disclose the nature of the deadly gas and their concern a new weapon had been unleashed which could be adopted by other terrorists, the UK and US offered Putin their support. British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said the Russian authorities were forced to act when the Chechen rebels started to kill hostages and said there were “no easy, risk-free, safe solutions”. Linking events in Moscow to the Bali bombings and the killing of a US diplomat in Jordan, he referred to a “horrifying new brand of terrorism”.
Meanwhile White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, avoided any criticism of Putin, blaming the “hostage-takers who put people’s lives in harm’s way in the first place”. Was the line taken after the Moscow siege a continuation of the one taken after the September 11 attacks - in other words, a tacit agreement that the Americans would turn a blind eye to the war in Chechnya and the Russians would support the war on terror?