The Duma declared the president's decree On Crime to be unconstitutional. At the same time, law enforcement officials were preparing their first raids using their new authority. Operation Hurricane, though, was not a complete success. Moskovsky Komsomolets declared "Hurricane Misses Moscow." The chairperson of the Duma's security committee, Viktor Ilyukhin, stated that, for the first time in 50 years, law enforcement officials would be fulfilling an executive order rather than the law. "If the president decides today to suspend the Criminal-Judicial Code, how can we be sure that tomorrow he won't decide to suspend all the civil courts and introduce new courts such as we have already seen in our history?" Ilyukhin stated. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, June 23 It appears that Hurricane, comparable to the notorious Operation Desert Storm in terms of its grandiose design, did not live up to expectations. Experience shows that such large scale operations as Hurricane do not seriously impact organized crime and are really intended more to serve as advertising for law enforcement.
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