Polish leader, 95 others dead in Russia jet crash

Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife, and some of the country's highest military and civilian leaders died on Saturday when the presidential plane crashed as it came in for a landing in thick fog in western Russia, killing 96, officials said. On board were the army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers, the Polish foreign ministry said. The plane was on its way to events marking the 70th anniversary of the massacre of thousands of Polish officers by Soviet secret police.

While the President is commander in chief of the military, Poland has a Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk and Kaczynski were political rivals.

Kaczynski, 60, became president in December 2005 after defeating Tusk in that year's presidential vote.

The nationalist conservative was the twin brother of Poland's opposition leader, former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Kaczynski's wife, Maria, was an economist. They had a daughter, Marta, and two granddaughters.

Kaczynski had said he would seek a second term in presidential elections this fall. He was expected to face an uphill struggle against Parliament speaker Bronislaw Komorowski, the candidate of Tusk's governing Civic Platform party. That is based on highly suspect polls and given Kaczynski's death we will never know how the election would have played out.

Poland is a member of NATO and is an EU Nation. It has become a firm U.S. ally in the region since the fall of communism — a stance that crosses party lines. The country sent troops to the U.S.-led war in Iraq and recently boosted its contingent in Afghanistan to some 2,600 soldiers.

U.S. Patriot missiles are expected to be deployed in Poland this year. That was a Polish condition for a 2008 deal — backed by both Kaczynski and Tusk — to host long-range missile defense interceptors.

The deal, which was struck by the Bush administration, angered Russia and was later reconfigured under President Barack Obama's administration.

Under the Obama plan, Poland would host a different type of missile defense interceptors as part of a more mobile system and at a later date, probably not until 2018.

Kaczynski is the first serving Polish leader to die since exiled World War II-era leader Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski in a plane crash off Gibraltar in 1943.

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This crash is a major event and can not be left to just Russia to investigate as Putin has seemed to indicate. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev both called Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk to express their condolences and they promised to work closely with Poland in investigating the crash. At the same time Putin, who has been put in charge of the commission investigating the crash, told Tusk that he would keep him fully briefed, his spokesman said. For Putin to lead the crash investigation and to be in a position of a coverup should not be acceptable to the Polish people or Western leaders.

I don't mean to be insulting toward Putin but it would be to his benefit, if there is no conspiracy, for the investigation to be by an independent commission led by Poland and officials from the United Nations and with Russian officials helping anyway they can. I would say the same if the crash had happened in the United States and suddenly Obama or any of our leaders had suggested they would oversee the investigation.