White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. has offered Russia “any assistance they might need to counter that threat.”
The unspoken response that came back: “You can show up, but you’re just going to be window dressing,” according to David Rubincam, the FBI’s legal attache in Moscow.
In the wake of suicide bombings in Volgograd that killed 34 and the hunt for a “black widow” terrorist thought to be roaming Sochi, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for the Winter Olympics, which begin Feb. 7. Mr. Rubincam told The Washington Post he doesn’t believe Russia has made the most of its opportunity to utilize the FBI’s technical expertise.
“What they came back with was a fraction of what we offered,” Mr. Rubincam told the Post. The FBI was willing to send up to 100 of its personnel to the Winter Games, along with the advanced capabilities of its Critical Incident Response Group.
The Russians, who plan to deploy roughly 40,000 heavily armed police and security personnel in a show of force, were willing to accept “up to a dozen or so” U.S. security officers, according to the Post.
“It’s going to be hit or miss whether they’re able to stop this or not,” added Raymond Mey, a former FBI agent and deputy on-scene commander for the Athens Games in 2004, the Post reported.
SEE ALSO: White House concerned by increasing terror threats at Sochi Olympics
U.S. relations and cooperation on counter-terrorism efforts have been strained since the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013. The terrorist attack, which was hatched by two ethnic Chechen brothers, killed three people and wounded over 250 others.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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