Exit of Georgian troops leaves gaps near border

BAGHDAD — The departure of 2,000 Georgian soldiers from Iraq leaves a question mark over the future of a series of checkpoints along smuggling routes near the Iranian border, forcing the U.S. to shuffle units to fill the vacuum.

Three Georgian checkpoints on highways surrounding the area's main city of Kut, 100 miles southeast of Baghdad, were empty on Monday, residents and Iraqi officials said.

But many Iraqis aren't sorry to see the Georgians go. They say the Georgians were rude, disrespectful and ineffective.

"They never respected us," 20-year-old college student Saad Hassan complained. He said Georgian soldiers would hold families at checkpoints for hours even in extremely hot or cold weather.

The former Soviet republic was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. After Georgia initially sent a group of 70 servicemen to Iraq in August 2003, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili agreed to increase the contingent to 2,000 servicemen as he courted U.S. support to lessen Russian influence.

But Georgia called its forces home after an outbreak of fighting with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The U.S. military began began flying the Georgians home on transport planes Sunday.

Last year, Georgia agreed to move most of its soldiers from the relatively safe Green Zone in Baghdad to a mainly Shiite desert area southeast of the capital. The purpose was to help interdict supplies allegedly smuggled to militiamen from Iran, particularly powerful roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs.

At the time, U.S. commanders said the Georgians would give their strapped forces a boost by helping search vehicles and people along highways as part of stepped-up efforts to stanch the flow of illegal arms and foreign fighters to Baghdad.

The U.S. military said Monday that the Georgian brigade had searched 175,291 vehicles, 792,859 people at checkpoints and traffic control stops and had conducted 2,469 patrols in the area since Oct. 30, 2007.

Citing security concerns, the military declined to give specifics about unit changes to make up for the absence of the Georgians.