The Turkish aircraft carrier are the land bases in Eskishir and Incerlink.
Remember how the Turks turned down 17 billion dollars in aid for access to Iraq via the northern route.
Now its payback time.
Bush I promised aid to Turkey in light of the grievous results of this economic warfare, but no details were agreed upon. Ultimately Turkey was allowed to sell more towels to the USA. This could not realistically be expected to offset the economic hardship caused by increased terrorism, masses of starving refugees, and the lack of Iraqi trade. Turks interpreted this as a broken deal.
This time around, with the attack on Iraq becoming more and more imminent, Turkey decided that she would send several tens of thousands of soldiers into Northern Iraq in order to ensure that there would be no repeat of what happened after the last war against Iraq, in terms of both economic and military security.
A proposed $8.5 billion loan was tied to a condition that Turkish troops not enter Northern Iraq due to, in all seriousness, congressional anxiety over "possible instability in the region due to a Turkish army operation." Turks found Congressional notions of stability interesting indeed, especially since it was felt in US Congressional circles that Turkish military action would not solve the terrorist organization Kurdish Workers Party - Kurdistan Freedom and Democracy Congress (PKK-KADEK) problem. There was a US government consensus that felt that new methods were needed against KADEK.
To make a long story short, Turks were willing to spend blood and treasure on a major invasion of Northern Iraq, thus destroying for once and for all a Communist insurgency and in the process form a strategic anvil to the US hammer.
Thus, I do not interpret these actions as being stabbed in the back by the wily, unscrupulous, and untrustworthy Turk. Instead, I see a lot of incompetent US geo-political theorizing and experimentation in the Bush administration based on the same sort of adolescent college dorm bull session world view which characterized the Kennedy and Johnson admnistrations during the Vietnam War, and which also characterized US policy during the Clinton administration.
Once again, as in Vietnam, we are proving our expert ability to snatch defeat from the very jaws of victory. Once again, countries fighting for their lives against Communism and worse are finding their hands tied by US policies which can have only one outcome: victory for the guerillas, and, like in South Vietnam, the victims are being blamed for the consequences.