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Why US Military, NATO Are In Georgia: 'Fulcrum For East-West Pipelines'
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Rick Rozoff
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Nov 01, 2002 04:03 PST
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"Georgia's importance to the West cannot be
overstated," said B. Lynn Pascoe, deputy assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
"Georgia is a fulcrum for East-West energy pipelines.
....Georgia will have geo-strategic importance for our
international relations far into the future."
-Construction of a $3.1-billion oil pipeline is under
way, a BP-led project that will carry a million
barrels a day from the Caspian Sea across Georgia and
down to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the
Mediterranean Sea.
Beridze's men will be guarding that pipeline, as well
as a gas line that will be built alongside it. The
Caspian Sea's 10 billion barrels of proven oil
reserves are equivalent to a third of remaining U.S.
reserves.
-The Germans, British, French and Turks have the same
idea, and all have energy strategists and military
advisers in Georgia. The Germans will start training
drill sergeants next spring in the Georgian town of
Gori.
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2002/10/2-TCA/tca-311002.asp
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 31, 2002
GEORGIAN DEFENSE MINISTER ADVOCATES RESTRICTIONS ON
RUSSIAN MILITARY PERSONNEL
-Tevzadze stressed that the Russian bases may
negatively affect Georgia's aspiration to NATO
membership, as no NATO member state may host military
facilities belonging to a nonmember state.
Lieutenant General David Tevzadze told journalists in
Tbilisi on 30 October that if Georgia wants to
expedite the closure of the two remaining Russian
military bases on its territory, it must abolish the
"hothouse conditions" under which those bases
currently function, Caucasus Press reported. He
proposed imposing restrictions on the movement within
Georgia of Russian military personnel and on the
amount of supplies they might bring into the country
duty-free. Tevzadze stressed that the Russian bases
may negatively affect Georgia's aspiration to NATO
membership, as no NATO member state may host military
facilities belonging to a nonmember state. Foreign
Minister Irakli Menagharishvili told Caucasus Press
the same day that Tbilisi has proposed resuming
negotiations with Moscow on the timetable for the
closure of the bases, but has not yet received a
response. LF
-------------------------------------------------------
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/russ30_20021030.htm
[Excerpts]
Russia awakes to wider terrorism threat
Detroit Free Press
October 30, 2002
BY MARK MCDONALD
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
TBILISI, Georgia
A 120-man detachment of U.S. special forces troops is
already in Georgia, but it isn't spoiling for a fight
in the Pankisi. Instead, it's charged with whipping
the Georgian Army into shape.
The Georgia Train and Equip Program is a 2-year,
$64-million boot camp that's the centerpiece of the
Bush administration's nation-building effort there.
The program intends to give Georgia an officer corps
and five crack battalions capable of fighting drug
traffickers and arms smugglers, guarding oil and gas
pipelines, and hunting down terrorists in the Pankisi.
"We're the future of the Georgian Army," said Lt.
Lasha Beridze, 24, a battalion commander who has
trained at Ft. Benning in that other Georgia, the U.S.
state.
Why all the attention on the former Soviet republic, a
corrupt country that's barely the size of South
Carolina; a flat-broke nation of 5 million that can't
collect its own taxes, run its own electricity, pay
its teachers or defend its borders?
"Georgia's importance to the West cannot be
overstated," said B. Lynn Pascoe, deputy assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
"Georgia is a fulcrum for East-West energy pipelines.
A stable and democratic Georgia will have
geo-strategic importance for our international
relations far into the future."
That future has arrived. Construction of a
$3.1-billion oil pipeline is under way, a BP-led
project that will carry a million barrels a day from
the Caspian Sea across Georgia and down to the Turkish
port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.
Beridze's men will be guarding that pipeline, as well
as a gas line that will be built alongside it. The
Caspian Sea's 10 billion barrels of proven oil
reserves are equivalent to a third of remaining U.S.
reserves.
Senior Georgian officials say U.S. planners have not
asked to use Georgian bases in any coming war against
Iraq. But with the growing possibility of military
action and further turmoil in the Mideast, Washington
is looking at oil from the Caspian basin as a hedge
against possible interruptions of supplies from the
region.
The Germans, British, French and Turks have the same
idea, and all have energy strategists and military
advisers in Georgia. The Germans will start training
drill sergeants next spring in the Georgian town of
Gori.
"Georgia now has a function," said Tedo Japaridze,
head of Georgia's National Security Council and a
former ambassador to Washington. "We're talking about
huge amounts of Caspian hydrocarbons.
"If something bad happens in the Middle East, if Saudi
Arabia crumbles, if energy channels get blocked, this
Caspian energy will help define America's energy
security."
Russia has its own designs on all that Caspian oil and
gas, and Moscow has not been happy about Washington's
growing presence and leverage in Georgia, the Train
and Equip Program in particular.
Japaridze said U.S. officials had told him they would
work to keep Georgia's overbearing neighbor in check.
"If not for the United States," he said, "there would
be no way for us to survive."
"If the Russians control or absorb Georgia, they could
close down the entire South Caucasus and Central Asia,
too," Japaridze said. "They could make Georgia an
energy bottleneck.
"But if we preserve our independence, we can be a
gateway. Bottleneck or gateway -- that's the choice."
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