US “Private Contractors” in Georgia
The Financial Times is reporting that two US military contractors, MPRI and American Systems, provided combat training to 80 Georgian commandos a few months before Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia. However, “here is no evidence” FT states, “that the contractors or the Pentagon, which hired them, knew that the commandos they were training were likely be used in the assault on South Ossetia.” According to one unnamed US military official, the training program began in 2006 after Georgia offered to send commandos to Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the revelation will give more weight to Putin assertion on CNN of US involvement in orchestrating the war.
This isn’t the first time MPRI trained commandos have used their skills in other matters. According to the FT,
MPRI was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees ..read more
