Detainees at Camp X-Ray, possibly including some new residents of Georgia
Foreign Policy's The Cable blog has a few more details about the Guantánamo Bay detainees now in Georgia. Most intriguing to me:
The process of organizing their emigration started last fall, when Amb. Dan Fried, the special envoy tasked with resettling Guantánamo prisoners, visited Georgia. He asked Georgian officials to consider taking Guantánamo prisoners and set up a visit for the Georgians to visit the facility in Cuba, which they did in December.
The Georgians met with several detainees at the base, reviewed their medical and psychological records, and spoke with them about what their life in Georgia would be like. In the end, there were several offers extended to prisoners who had been cleared for release, and three accepted.
So, if I read this correctly, some detainees (what exactly is "several" minus three?) were offered the chance to move to Georgia and declined. They thought Gitmo was better?
If there is any possibility to curry favor with the U.S., you can bet the Georgian government will be all over it. So it comes as little surprise that Georgia has agreed to accept three prisoners from the U.S.'s Guantanamo Bay prison. The prisoners weren't identified, though apparently two were Libyan:
Two of the three men were Libyans, according to Chicago attorney H. Candace Gorman, who identified one of them as her client Abdel Hamid al Ghazzawi, 47, a Libyan married to an Afghan with one child, a daughter. He ran a small shop in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, she said, until shortly before the American invasion, when he was handed over to U.S. forces.
The prisoners will lead "normal" lives in Georgia, Tbilisi says:
The three prisoners don’t pose a “serious danger” to Georgia and they won’t he held in detention, though their movements will be “strictly monitored” and they won’t be allowed to leave the country, Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said by telephone today in the capital Tbilisi.
Georgia's opposition Labor Party, however, objects:
At today's press conference Kakha Dzagania, one of the party leaders, said that "import of Guantanamo prisoners to Georgia, turned by Saakashvili into a concentration camp" creates a great threat, from surrounding Muslim states as well.
No, it's not rich, stable Switzerland, where two other Gitmo prisoners were sent the same day, but Georgian hospitality should more than make up for that. And given that they were picked up in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, the threat of a new war with Georgia shouldn't faze them too badly.
Remember the report that claimed that Georgia was selling its entire fleet of combat aircraft? I was skeptical, and apparently rightly so. The Georgian Air Force is disappearing -- but it's just a bureaucratic move, bringing the air forces under the control of the army. Reports Georgia Times:
Givi Targamadze, the chairman of the Committee, said in this case no redundancy was meant; just Air Forces would exist as a separate structure no longer.
"Practice revealed that the Air Forces of Georgia are usually used for support of land operations. Such examples exist in world practice - for example, there is no command of the air forces of Canada. This change will simplify the command in conditions of specific operations."
The annual SIPRI report is out, which enumerates every (known) arms sale around the world. In our humble Eurasia region, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan all got some goodies in 2009. Russia and Israel were the top suppliers.
Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan did not receive any arms imports in 2009, the report said.
Azerbaijan got 70 armored personnel carriers (of the BTR-80A variety) from Russia, and arranged with South Africa's Paramount Groups to start producing Matador and Marauder mine-protected vehicles in Azerbaijan. Baku also bought 50 missiles from Israel for use in its Lynx Modular Rocket Launcher systems.
Georgia bought 70 Ejder armored personnel carriers from Turkey and 32 tanks from Ukraine, 20 T-72s and 12 T-84s.
Kazakhstan completed its receipt of 79 armored personnel carriers from Russia, of the same variety (BTR-80A) that Azerbaijan did, as well as three ANSAT light utility helicopters and 12 Mi-8 and Mi-17 attack helicopters, all of which were bought in 2007.
Kazakhstan also last year signed agreements with Russia for 10 S-330 surface-to-air missile air defense systems and Su-27, MiG-27 and MiG-23UB combat planes.
From Israel, Kazakhstan completed its acquisitions of weapons from Israel bought in 2006 and 2007, including 18 Lynx rocket systems, six Semser 122mm self-propelled guns, and 18 CARDOM 120mm mortars for use on armored personnel carriers.
Kazakhstan also acquired 40 uparmored Humvees from the United States.
Turkmenistan bought six Smerch multiple rocket launch systems, two Tarantul fast-attack boats and ten T-90 tanks, all from Russia.
Over the weekend, I think we've all learned to take Georgian media reports with an extra grain of salt, and this report seems a bit hard to fathom: Apparently a Georgian newspaper is reporting that the country is planning to sell 12 of its Su-25 aircraft. Via GeorgiaTimes:
The media cites to the Ministry of Defense and say the merge was caused by dissatisfaction with training level of military pilots, failing to hit targets at maneuvers.
"The pilots have counter-arguments," the media says.
I imagine they would. Anyway, according to Jane's, those 12 Su-25s would represent the entire inventory of the Georgian air force's fixed-wing combat aircraft. (In fact, the Su-25 was produced in, of all places, Tbilisi.) So it seems a little skepticism is called for until we hear more reports.
A U.S. Navy frigate, the USS John L. Hall, has completed its visit to Georgia, where it spent four days making a call at the port of Batumi. These sorts of things are pretty routine for the U.S. Navy but Georgian officials portray them as something much more meaningful. As GeorgiaTimes observes:
Washington and Tbilisi provide a different appraisal of the visit. The USA officials characterize the visit as a friendly and planned one, while the Georgian security officials see it as political and moral support of Georgia on the part of the United States' government...
It was noted during the meeting between the ship commanders and the US Embassy officials that the ship arrived to Georgia with a friendly mission. "The visit is a planned one; such visits are paid by the American warships to the Georgian ports several times a year", - the Americans said. However, in three days, the vague notions of "friendship" and "planned activities" acquired a definite and a rather urgent meaning, which became clear due to the revelations of Minister of Georgia for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili, who said in his interview that the US Navy ship will evidently become a restraining factor for Russia. "There are other factors as well that Georgia will use in case of a real danger of another aggression on the part of Moscow, which possibility is quite expected. Moscow was unable to achieve its purpose in Georgia", - the minister stated....
Not so long ago, President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili suggested that Washington should use the sea ports and airports of the republic as a base for NATO's blows against the forces of the Taliban extremist movement.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Eldar Mammadyarov has expressed concern about the opening of a direct land connection between Russia and Armenia via Georgia through the Larsi checkpoint. Azerbaijani’s concern is based on the fact that through this connection Moscow could supply Yerevan with military cargo designed for the 102nd Russian military base located in Gumri, Armenia. If Azerbaijan receives information that Armenia is being supplied with arms through this route Baku will immediately react and ask Tbilisi for explanations.
The Russian media reports that Baku is thinking of taking "adequate measures" against Georgia in response to the Upper Larsi checkpoint opening. Energy and investment projects and the issue of Abkhazia and South Ossetia may be affected by these.
For its part, Georgia says “No weapons or ordinance for Russian troops in Armenia will be allowed access” through the border checkpoint. Though, technically, that doesn't preclude allowing weapons for Armenia, that seems pretty unlikely. It seems to me more likely that this is the best pretext Azerbaijan could come up with to object to the opening of the border, whose closure was causing economic problems for Armenia. But maybe I'm missing something here?
Richard Holbrooke, the U.S.'s envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, had a press conference today in which he briefly discussed his recent trip through the ex-Soviet 'stans and Georgia. He's trying to drum up support from those countries for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, and although Holbrooke's portfolio is primarily diplomatic and civilian, it seems most of the support he discussed in the former USSR was military:
In the case of Kyrgyzstan, which doesn’t have a common border with Afghanistan – the very important Manas Transit Center, which will be – which we will renew the arrangements some in the next few weeks, and I wanted to launch that process. We’ve very grateful to the Kyrgyz’s Government for that support.
...
In Tashkent, of course, we talked about the Northern Distribution Network and its importance to us. Most of the supplies coming through that entry point into Afghanistan – the Northern Distribution Network – come through Uzbekistan. In Kazakhstan, we talked about improving and increasing our over-flight facilities and improving rail transit, which is an issue we’re interested in. And in Tajikistan, we talked about also northern distribution issues. And in addition, we talked about resources. Water is a huge problem, as you all know, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And Tajikistan has one of the greatest water potentials in the world, and President Rahmon described that to us in some detail. And we have, on a separate basis we have got a water resources task force now set up in the Department to examine how we can additionally help the countries of the area, and particularly Pakistan with the water issue.
And finally, after the four Central Asian Republics, we went on to Georgia. Now, Georgia – and we visited the Georgian battalion outside Tbilisi which will – will be deployed next month to Afghanistan.
For those inclined to believe the worst about Russia's military intentions, there have been two recent developments that have aroused pundit ire: the possible sale of advanced French Mistral-class ships to Russia, along with the statement of Russia's top naval official that "a ship like this would have allowed the Black Sea fleet to accomplish its mission [invading Georgia] in 40 minutes and not 26 hours," and the new Russian military doctrine and its explicit designation of NATO as a threat.
The volume on the Mistral sale is bound to increase over the next few days, as France and Russia formally began talks today to buy not just one Mistral but up to four.
But RFE/RL has a perceptive analysis that suggests that the alleged aggressiveness of the doctrine is overblown, and that those two developments, in a way, blunt each other, that the Mistral sale in fact suggests a softer attitude toward NATO than Kremlin rhetoric can suggest:
The 600-pound gorilla hiding in the verbiage of the new doctrine is the question of how to arm the military with the high-tech weapons listed in the document. The Russian defense industry suffers from outdated plants, an aging work force, and the incompatibility of a system built by Josef Stalin with the realities of a market economy.
The new doctrine suggests that Russia somehow invigorate investment into innovative technologies and keep its independence as an arms manufacturer. While debating the best way to direct the Russian economy toward technological innovation, Russia's leaders appear to be moving away from defense industry autarky. During a meeting with Western experts on Russia last September, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin reportedly said Russia wanted to cooperate with Western nations in weapons manufacturing.
There are a lot of good details on the developing military situation in Abkhazia in the new International Crisis Group report, "Abkhazia: Deepening Dependence." Perhaps most notable is the steep decline in Georgian defense spending:
Russian officials have given various figures, from 1,700 to 3,700, for their troop numbers in Abkhazia. In the absence of international monitors on the ground, Western military analysts with access to satellite imagery estimate that between 4,000 and 5,000 Russian security personnel are there, including coast guard units, “border” forces and regular troops.
...
If Abkhazian officials harbour any reservations about the Russian presence, they do not show it. A high-ranking official told Crisis Group that Russian troops would not leave Abkhazia “even if Georgia recognised Abkhazia as an independent state. Russia is our guarantee of security”.
The number of Russians in high military and security positions in Abkhazia, according to official Abkhazian sources, seems not to have changed since 2008. They are also far less than in South Ossetia, where many Russian military or business figures with no previous ties to that region have held key posts in the past several years, including prime minister, defence minister and other top security positions.
