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Caucasus
US will train 1500 Georgian troops
2002-03-03
  • Around 1,500 Georgian troops will be trained by US military advisors under a joint agreement on combatting terrorism, Georgian Deputy Defence Minister Guela Bejuashvili said. Their training will begin in late March. The Georgian army currently has 20,000 troops, but a reform package aims to reduce that number to 12,000. He said the training will be for frontier troops, mountain infantry, special forces and anti-terrorist forces.

    Wednesday's announcement of the training deal and the US's donation of helicopters to Georgia continued to provoke strong reactions among some Russian politicians and newspapers, as Georgia attempted to sooth Russian concerns. Georgia is ready "to cooperate with Russia on all questions concerning the fight against terrorism," Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze told Russian security council chief Vladimir Rushaylo.
    I'm wondering how they're going to communicate. As far as I know, there's not a single Georgian-speaker in the US Army, unless it's the stray immigrant-enlistee. Relying on translators doesn't seem the best way to go - simultaneous translation is pretty hard, especially when possibly unfamiliar technical terminology's involved. I'd guess that most of the instruction will be given in Russian.
    The lingua franca will be Russian. The US Army has scores of Russian translators from the "good ole days" [as Mary Riddell would put matters] of our listening into Warsaw Pact radio communications. The Georgian military was certainly not talking behind their massa's backs in Georgian before 1992, so I'm sure they know to gavorit po russi....
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/4/2002 9:12:23 AM
    Konechno.
    Posted by Fred 3/4/2002 10:00:13 AM
    • Posted by:Fred Pruitt

    00:00