The amount of money – and how it was spent during 2004-2005 – was an important issue addressed in the report. Its authors were disturbed by the fact that so much is spent on the minister and his administration. But people in positions of power normally receive good salaries. During President Shevardnadze’s terms of office, official salaries were low and corruption was rampant. President Saakashvili is trying to root out corruption in all levels of government, including the military. By providing a real wage, which corresponds to the real cost of living, he is helping the struggle against corruption. Saakashvili has already proved through separate reforms in law enforcement that when management is earning a good wage, they think about how to do their jobs better – not how else to milk the system. By his actions, the president has already shown that those who engage in corruption when they are already well-paid are arrested.

In the report, Justice and Liberty mentions that of the 201 changes President Saakashvili has made to the defense ministry, 120 involved either changes to the personnel or to their duties. Over the past twelve months, three different civilians have served as ministers of defense: Gela Bezhuashvili, Giorgi Baramizde, and Irakli Okruashvili. On February 16, Georgian media reported that the heads of the army’s general staff all resigned at Okruashvili’s request. There has been no official announcement about the mass resignations, but according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, they were part of the ongoing reforms. Military expert and chair of Justice and Liberty, Irakli Sesiashvili, was quoted as saying that these constant changes only hinder reform. “In 2004, more than 800 people – civilians and non-civilians – were dismissed from the Defense Ministry alone. During that period, 600 people were hired and none of them was selected from among those who had been dismissed. This is [already] an indicator of instability. On top of that, some of these newly hired people were fired after just three months, before they could even get acquainted with their new job”, Sesiashvili said.

But Sesiashvili fails to take into consideration the fact that Georgians are expecting to see results quickly. President Saakashvili is searching for the right combination to reform the military as fast as possible, because the state of the country’s defense is closely related to the other problems Georgia is facing, including border disputes. During his recent address to the Parliament, he spoke about the need for a strong country in order to achieve peace in the nation. “For a country to regain peace it is very important to be strong. The army is integral to this.”

The authors of the report pose a valid question: “Why does Georgia need these reforms?” During his address to parliament, President Saakashvili described the state of the armed forces when he came into office in 2004 as follows: “[Georgia was] a country that had no defense capabilities, not a single working tank or enough ammunition to last just an hour in battle. The army had been starving for months.” The reforms have concrete goals, which are important to provide Georgia with the security it needs and the stability it has lacked. Reform of the armed forces is necessary in order for Georgia to become part of NATO and to operate as an equal among its allies. This year, Georgia sent peacekeepers to Iraq. That would never have been possible without the current push on reforms. But apart from simple political gains, the reforms serve to boost Georgian national pride. Even if the reservist program is a PR program for the army, as stated in the report, it has already proved to be a success. Prior to this administration, families paid huge sums of money so their sons could avoid the mandatory two year service in the army. Now Georgians, including women, are signing up to become reservists. Tents have been constructed in large cities to promote enlistment. A sense of pride has been returned that was lacking over the past decade.

Although critics state that there is little to show for the amount of money spent and the degree of support the president has placed behind reforms, soldiers serving in Poti interviewed for this article would disagree. Many in fact wanted to continue serving after their mandatory two years. One, Vakhtangi Gurjabidze, served under both the Shevardnadze and Saakashvili administrations. According to his parents, during the first year in service, before the Rose Revolution, he wanted to come home. Now he doesn’t want to leave. Gurjabidze said the army is now good because they feed him well, he has a new uniform and most importantly, there is order where before there was none. As he concluded, “perhaps everything has not been reformed yet and maybe there is still work to do, but now there is hope that the Georgian army will soon at least resemble the army of a developed nation.”