The army that likes to go to Iraq

Davit Mukeria, a lanky 22-year-old sergeant in smart American-made fatigues, has just come home from Iraq. He is part of the Georgian Army, perhaps the only fighting force in the Coalition of the Willing that is begging to send more troops to Iraq, rather than attempting to extricate itself from the quagmire, and is volunteering to go into Afghanistan too.

Along with his 2,000-strong brigade, Mukeria returned earlier this year from a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq, where he picked up his clipped English from speaking to American soldiers.

Why are he and his colleagues so eager to return? The answer lies in the local conflict with Russia over the breakaway region of Abkhazia, where in recent months the outbreak of war has seemed close.

When Mikhail Saakashvili came to power in the Rose Revolution of 2003, he promised to bury Georgia's Soviet legacy and turn the country of five million people into a modern democratic state. To do this, he wanted Western support for Georgian entry into the EU and Nato, and assurances from the West that they would support his country in any armed conflict with Russia over Abkhazia.

He never quite got those assurances, but his buddy George W Bush (who now has a street in Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, named after him) pumped huge amounts of financial aid into Georgia to help it modernise its military. Today Nato membership, though stalled due to Russian objections, seems only a matter of time.

Last year, Georgian troop numbers in Iraq were raised from 850 to 2,000, and its relatively tame peace-keeping operations were upgraded to more dangerous combat missions intercepting weapons coming across the Iranian border.

"The experience will help me as a soldier if I am called on to defend Georgia in the future," says Mukeria, back at his base on the outskirts of Kutaisi, Georgia's second city. From here, Soviet soldiers went to fight the Nazis in World War II, and the Mujahidin in Afghanistan for 10 years from 1978.

Today, there is again the prospect of soldiers based here ending up in Afghanistan - but this time it will be as members of the Coalition of the Willing.

"For our country it's important to take part in combat operations," says Major Zaza Kvaraia, also just returned to Kutaisi from Iraq. Major Kvaraia joined the army in the early 1990s, and remembers a time of meagre salaries, brutal beatings for conscripts, and slack discipline.

"The Russian Army is still like the Soviet Army, but since 2003, we have changed," he says. He spent a year training in the US. His men wear uniforms provided by the US Army and receive regular training from visiting American teams. Salaries are now reasonable by local standards, and conscription will be fully phased out next year.

In the end, the attraction of Iraq for the Georgian Army is not the chance to spread freedom, nor is it borne of geopolitical considerations about oil or pipelines. It is first and foremost about Abkhazia.

Georgia's eagerness to support the US in Iraq is hardly going to persuade America to send troops to fight the Russians in Abkhazia. But the Georgians hope that the equipment, training and combat experience they get out of it will stand them in good stead. "After Iraq, we're ready for anything," says Major Kvaraia. ·