How Taxpayer Money Is Wrapped Up in Georgian War
By Sharona Coutts, ProPublica.

Russia's announcement Tuesday morning that it will cease its offensive in Georgia has created a potential lull in what was a rapidly escalating military and diplomatic crisis.

Whether the fighting really ends, one result of the conflict is clear: it has thrown a bright light on that region's importance to global oil supplies. A pipeline that runs through Georgia is the second largest in the world.

But a little-reported fact is that American tax dollars were used to help fund big oil projects in the region.

Georgia sits between the rich oil deposits of the Caspian Sea in the East, and the friendly shores of the Mediterranean in the West. Since 2006, a 1,100 mile pipeline has pumped that crude from Baku, in Azerbaijan, westwards across the conflict-torn continent to tanker ships waiting at the Turkish city of Ceyhan. The multi-billion-dollar Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is run by an international consortium, including American oil-giants Chevron and Conoco-Phillips.

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