GEORGIA SPAT GRABS U.S. INTEREST

White House Rejects Attack Threat By Russia, Trains Georgia Officers

PANKISI GORGE, Georgia - They call it a gorge, but the newest front on the
war on terrorism looks more like a wide and verdant valley, with cornfields
and grape arbors down low on the gentle slopes, and sheep, goats and
terrorists above.

The Pankisi Gorge, barely seven miles long, is home to five villages,
10,000 peasants and various covens of kidnappers, spies, thieves, drug
lords and arms dealers -- plus several hundred Chechen guerrilla fighters,
Al-Qaida commanders and Islamist holy warriors. U.S. intelligence officials
say they have tracked several Al-Qaida leaders to the gorge, and the
regional governor calls the Pankisi "a terrorist enclave."

Russia has accused Georgia, a former Soviet republic, of allowing rebel
separatists who are battling Russian troops in Chechnya to use the Pankisi
as a haven and staging area. Russian President Vladimir Putin, embracing
President Bush's new doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against terrorists,
has threatened to attack the gorge.

The United States, while careful to acknowledge Russia's cooperation in the
global war on terrorism, firmly rejects Putin's version of its own
pre-emptive doctrine, saying Georgia's territorial sovereignty should not
be violated.

Improved relations

Tensions eased appreciably Sunday afternoon after Putin met with Georgian
President Eduard Shevardnadze before a regional summit in Moldova.

"Everything we have done was aimed against bandits hiding in Georgia, never
against Georgia itself," Putin said. He indicated Monday that the two
countries are considering joint border patrols. Shevardnadze, a former
Soviet foreign minister who is well-liked in the West but much reviled in
Russia, au-thorized the extradition of 13 captured Chechen fighters whom
Russia wanted. The United States welcomed both developments, State
Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Monday.

Washington has its own interests in Georgia, which has a population of 5
million in a country the size of South Carolina. The fledgling democracy is
unabashedly pro-Western, and construction of a $3.1 billion oil pipeline is
scheduled to begin in the spring. The pipeline, transporting oil from the
Caspian Sea to the Turkish port of Ceyhan in the Mediterranean, will travel
all the way across Georgia. As one Western analyst put it, "Georgia will be
threading the needle for a lot of Caspian oil -- a million barrels a day."

At an old Soviet military base outside Georgia's capital of Tbilisi, U.S.
special forces are busily training the next generation of Georgian army
officers in what amounts to a $64 million boot camp. The program's two-year
goal: 200 newly minted officers and at least four crack battalions.

"If we had three or four of these trained battalions right now, there would
be no more problem in the Pankisi Gorge and Mr. Putin would be speaking in
quite a different way," said Col. Jimmy Zaridze, deputy commander of
Georgian land forces.

Depending On U.S.

But Georgia doesn't have those battalions, not yet, and Tedo Japaridze,
Georgia's national security adviser, admitted that the Georgian defense
ministry and military are shot through with corruption and incompetence. So
what can Georgia do if bilateral relations go sour again and Russia
launches those strikes in the Pankisi?

"The American military will have to say something," said Alexander Rondeli,
a foreign-policy adviser to Shevardnadze. "Without the people from the
Pentagon, it will be difficult to defend our independence."

Georgian-Russian relations are fragile at best, and some analysts even
worry about possible diplomatic fallout from an upcoming soccer match
between the countries. The much-anticipated match is scheduled Saturday in
Tbilisi, and the home crowd is not expected to react well to the pregame
playing of the old Soviet anthem, a tune Russia has resurrected as its own.

Before Sunday, neither side had talked directly with the other for many
weeks. The United States serves as the designated diplomatic back channel.

Regional analysts and Western diplomats think Putin has been using the
Pankisi situation as a scapegoat for the brutal and increasingly unpopular
war in Chechnya. But the residents of the gorge don't think Putin is
bluffing: They have been attacked before -- by high-flying bombers,
apparently Russian -- and many have tried to flee the gorge in recent days.

Humanitarian Problems

"We've been terrified that the Russians are going to come through and kill
all the women and children," said a European diplomat who works on Pankisi
and border issues, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The humanitarian
problem has been completely omitted from any discussion of the Pankisi
situation."

Georgian security forces have sealed off both ends of the valley's single
roadway, trapping the locals. The roadblocks are part of an "anti-criminal
operation" that Georgian troops recently launched. American military
planners and U.S-trained officers participated in the operation, and FBI,
CIA and drug-enforcement agents have been working in the area as well.

Shevardnadze said the unprecedented sweep was not a response to Putin's
threats. But Georgia had been helpless to control the Pankisi. Bandits,
drug smugglers and Chechen fighters have always had free run. Shevardnadze
had been reluctant to move against the Chechens in the valley for fear they
might descend on the Georgian capital.

A former senior Georgian army officer theorized that a force of just 100
battle-toughened Chechens could easily take Tbilisi.

The new sweep resulted in 40 arrests, mostly drug runners and local
bandits. No kidnap victims or weapons caches were found.