As I’d predicted yesterday, it looks like there’s
increasing concern over the end of the hostage standoff in Moscow. While using the gas was probably to only tactically efficient way to end the standoff, the fact that doctors were not informed of the nature of the gas and did not have antidotes is inexcusable.
If anything, medical staff in gas masks should have been on-scene the moment that the terrorists had been neutralized. They should have been able to begin emergency treatment immediately, and probably would have saved lives. Even so much as telling hospital personnel what to do and having supplies of antidote on hand would have prevented many deaths.
Unfortunately, none of this was done, and the reaction and the horror of these deaths will weigh heavily on President Putin. This isn’t like the Kursk in which military personnel died – these were civilians, and it is clear that some of these deaths could have been avoided by only a few simple actions.
