Georgia has received billions in military assistance from the US [EPA]

Tamaz Demetrashvili was one of the soldiers at the sharp end of the relationship between George Bush, the US president, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

"I was 21 at the time that I first went to Iraq," he recalls.

"I wanted to see the world and I wanted to see real military life."

Working as an army translator, Demetrashvili was amongst 2,000 Georgian troops deployed to support the US-led mission in the Gulf, serving tours of duty in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, and al-Kut, near the border with Iran.

"Al-Kut was the real frontline of the war on terror, we had mortar attacks every day - it was a combat zone," he says.

"I felt like a real soldier who was doing something important."

US 'terror' fears

Tamas says he is proud of serving his country in Iraq

Demetrashvili proudly shows off photographs of himself and his Georgian comrades with US soldiers at one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the Green Zone in Baghdad.

"Of course it was dangerous, you expect that," he says.

"But at the time I never thought: 'What are we doing here so far from home?'"

The story of how Demetrashvili and his fellow soldiers came to serve in Iraq goes back to the early years of Bush's presidency and the beginning of the so-called 'war on terror'.

After the September 11 attacks in the US in 2001, there were concerns that the remote and lawless Pankisi Gorge, on Georgia's border with the Russian republic of Chechnya, had become a haven for Chechen fighters.

Washington feared that the Pankisi Gorge could be used as a training ground for extremists linked to the al-Qaeda network, and despatched military advisers to help modernise Georgia's ramshackle post-Soviet army and improve its counter-terrorism abilities.

Russian resentment

The next stage of US military assistance saw Georgian soldiers being groomed for operations in Iraq.

Since Bush came to office, Georgia has received nearly $700 million in security assistance, according to a recent report by the New America Foundation think tank.

Bush has also been the most persistent promoter of Georgia's bid to join Nato, which many Georgians see as a guarantee of their future security amid their country's long-running dispute with Russia.

But US support for Georgia's Nato ambitions caused deep resentment in Moscow.

Some analysts believe that it fuelled the war between the two neighbours in August, as the Kremlin sought to re-establish its supremacy in what its sees as its traditional sphere of influence and crush Georgian hopes of joining the Western military alliance.

US officials say they repeatedly warned the Georgian government not to get involved in any armed conflict.

Lawrence Sheets, the Caucasus project director of the International Crisis Group, suggests that US military backing may have been overestimated.

"There were Georgian troops in Iraq, but there were no US bases in Georgia, there were relatively few military advisers here and the training was pretty elementary stuff," he says.

"The support was mostly rhetorical."

'Energy corridor'

Two pipelines take oil and gas across the country from the Caspian Sea to European markets, bypassing Russia.

Bush administration officials have said they would like to see Georgia become part of a "southern energy corridor" which would counter Moscow's attempts to control the flow of natural resources in the region.

"US support for Georgia is based on both shared values and practical reasons," says Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister.

"We share the fundamental values of freedom and democracy, but that is complemented by the fact that Georgia is strategically located and crucial for wider European security - including energy security."

Matthew Bryza, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, has suggested that the Russian army's incursion into Georgia in August could have been partly intended to undermine the proposed energy corridor.

"Russia might have hoped that its war on Georgia would frighten away investors and disrupt pipelines," Bryza commented recently.

Stifling criticism?

Critics say Bush supported Saakashvili at the expense of democracy [AFP]

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets to give the US leader an enthusiastic welcome, at a time when his popularity was plummeting elsewhere in the world.

Georgians have repeatedly elected pro-Western governments as they seek to throw off their Soviet past and re-align themselves with Europe.

But the opposition alleges that Bush has bolstered the Saakashvili government at the expense of genuine democratic progress, enabling it to stifle criticism.

"The Bush administration helped to strengthen one man's power rather than helping to build a democratic state," says Tina Khidasheli of the opposition Republican party.

Khidasheli hopes that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president-elect, will continue to support her country while pressing harder for democratic reforms.

"Any fragile state needs friends in the international community, especially when it has a big, unfriendly neighbour like Russia which is trying to destroy it and take away its independence," she says.

Obama hopes

Despite Bush's imminent departure, Washington's geo-political and economic interests in Georgia are likely to continue.

This month, US officials signed a strategic partnership pact with Tbilisi aimed at boosting defence, trade and energy co-operation as well as strengthening democratic development.

But Lawrence Sheets of the International Crisis Group says that Obama could take a more pragmatic approach to foreign policy, causing concerns in Georgia that the US could be less tough on Russia.

"There's no doubt the incoming administration is going to be less ideological, and less likely to have an emotional link with the set of individuals who hold power in Georgia," says Sheets.

However, the Georgian government has already been cultivating links with Obama's team, says Giga Bokeria, the deputy foreign minister.

"I think the US will continue to support Georgia's struggle to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community," says Bokeria.

"We believe that our strategic partnership and our deep-rooted friendship will continue."