US quietly puts down roots in Georgia

The Caucasus has been in Russia's sphere of influence for 200 years and has always been critical bulwark against Iran (or Persia) and Turkey, a NATO country also actively developing bilateral military ties with Georgia through NATO's Partners for Peace program. For the second year in a row, Russia has not even responded to a Brussels invitation to attend the NATO exercises in Georgia as observers.

But there may be a silver lining: US training could help contain the festering lawlessness of the Pankisi Gorge, where Russia says Chechen rebels train and rearm. The 12-mile long valley near the Chechen border, where Russia wages a brutal war against separatists, is home to 10,000 people. Most are Kists, ethnic Chechens who have been "Georgianized" by living there for generations.

Georgia has hosted more than 7,000 Chechen refugees from the fighting there for the past three years, and Georgian security officials recently conceded they have tacitly allowed in armed rebels as long as they do not create trouble.

This has infuriated Russia, which asserts the right of "hot pursuit." On numerous occasions Russia has violated Georgian airspace – in some instances even dropping bombs.

In recent months Washington's view of the Chechen insurgency has come closer to Moscow's, especially as intelligence connects Al Qaeda with some Chechen leaders, including "Khattab," who was assassinated recently by a poisoned letter.

In February Philip Remler, the charge d'affairs at the US Embassy in Tbilisi, told the Georgian media that "dozens" of Islamic militants fled to Pankisi from Afghanistan.

More recent media accounts report that the American arrival has already encouraged Al Qaeda Arabs to move on.

"I will not speculate on future operations on the Pankisi," said Colonel Waltemeyer last week. At any rate it will take many months before a US-trained battalion would be able to attack Pankisi.

But many analysts say the real problems in the Pankisi are arms (reportedly mostly Russian weapons sold to Chechens to be used against Russians), Afghan heroin, and frequent kidnapping. They have their roots in the morass of corrupt government circles in Tbilisi, just three hours drive away.

Currently, security in the Pankisi is the shared responsibility of border guards, police, and state security (former KGB) forces, allegedly among the most corrupt of Georgian government agencies. A TV station secretly taped a Georgian general, Tristan Tsitelashvili, repenting for his failure to deliver a prepaid order of $50,000 worth of arms to a Chechen rebel – by offering to set up a Georgian businessman for kidnapping.

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