“It seems unfathomable that US through sat imagery and sigint did not get an advance warning of Russian plans, given the amount of forces involved.”

That’s for sure…given the size of the Russian forces, the highway from Russia into SO was easily observed and monitored by our “Spys in the Skies” plus the US listening stations in Turkey had to pick up mucho sigint so US intelligence (CIA if not G2)knew that the force was massed to invade SO. Bush knew what was up “before” he went to China…which means he’s complicit in letting his old buddy Vlad have his way with the Georgians.