Turkish Parliament Rejects U.S. Plan to Send 62,000 Combat Troops to Turkey for Iraq War

AP ^

[TheOtherOne]

Turkish Parliament Rejects U.S. Plan to Send 62,000 Combat Troops to Turkey for Iraq War
By Louis Meixler Associated Press Writer
Published: Mar 1, 2003

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Turkey's parliament dealt a stunning blow to U.S. war planning Saturday by failing to approve a bill allowing in American combat troops to open a northern front against Iraq.

The decision, which likely will strain ties with Washington, marked a setback to U.S. efforts to show Saddam Hussein that he is surrounded and his neighbors support a U.S.-led coalition.

The parliament vote was 264-250 in favor, with 19 abstentions. But speaker Bulent Arinc said the outcome fell three votes short of the simple majority required by the constitution. He then closed parliament until Tuesday.

Prime Minister Abdullah Gul hastily met with top ministers and party leaders after the vote. Before going in, a visibly shaken and angry Gul said, "We will assess all this."

Gul did not speak after that meeting. Private NTV and CNN-Turk television stations quoted unnamed officials as saying the government was not planning to resubmit the motion to parliament.

Officials were not immediately available for comment. The leaders of Gul's Justice and Development Party are expected to meet Sunday to discuss what action to take.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Pearson rushed to the Foreign Ministry after the vote.

"We had certainly hoped for a favorable decision," he said. "We will wait for further information and advice from the government of Turkey about how we should proceed."

Turkish lawmakers had faced overwhelming public opposition to basing U.S. troops on Turkish soil. Yet Washington had been so sure of winning approval from close ally and NATO member Turkey, that ships carrying U.S. tanks are waiting off Turkey's coast for deployment and the U.S. military has thousands of tons of military equipment ready to unload at the southern Turkish port of Iskenderun.

For weeks, the Bush administration had been pressing Turkey to agree to a possible northern front, which would split Saddam Hussein's army between the north and the south, likely making a war shorter and less bloody.

The motion would have empowered Turkey's government to authorize the basing of up to 62,000 troops, 255 warplanes and 65 helicopters. In exchange, Washington promised $15 billion in loans and grants to cushion the Turkish economy from the impact of war.

Besides that funding, Turkey also risks losing Washington's support which was crucial in securing billions in loans that rescued the country during an economic crisis in 2001.

The United States has also pushed Turkey's eagerly sought candidacy in the European Union. And if Turkey does not agree to host U.S. forces, it loses a say in the future of neighboring Iraq if there is a war.

That is a critical issue for Turkey, which fears that a war could lead Kurds in northern Iraq to declare an independent state and in turn inspire Turkey's own Kurdish minority.

Nonetheless, Turkey's governing party had difficulty selling the unpopular measure to the Turkish people and could not push through the motion despite its overwhelming majority in parliament.

Polls show as much as 94 percent of the Muslim-dominated Turkish public opposes a war with Iraq. Before the vote, 50,000 Turks staged an anti-war rally near parliament as 4,000 police stood guard. They chanted "No to War" and "We don't want to be America's soldiers." Some carried banners that read: "The people will stop this war."

After the speaker nullified the vote, hundreds of Turks celebrated in the streets of central Ankara, shouting anti-U.S. slogans.

"We are all Iraqis ... We will not kill, we will not die," they chanted. They also accused the Islamic-rooted Justice party of "collaborating" with Washington.

The Justice party was planning to meet Sunday, said Reha Denemec, the party's deputy chairman. "We did not expect these results, but this is a democracy," he said.

AP-ES-03-01-03 2023EST

[snopercod]

What action was that when the US lost an F-111 crew because the French wouldn't let us overfly from bases in England?

[WOSG]

"Genocide is a term used so loosely "

Oh dear ... you really dont know what you are saying ... The Iraqi Anfal campaign was a very specific act of genocide to destroy whole Kurdish populations - several hundred thousand kurds were killed on Saddam's orders in this operation ...

http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/

Please read the whole report and understand.


" In addition to this argument of principle, many features of Anfal far transcend the realm of counterinsurgency. These include, first of all, the simple facts of what happened after the military goals of the operation had been accomplished:

· the mass murder and disappearance of many tens of thousands of non-combatants--50,000 by the most conservative estimate, and possibly twice that number;

· the use of chemical weapons against non-combatants in dozens of locations, killing thousands and terrifying many more into abandoning their homes;

· the near-total destruction of family and community assets and infrastructure, including the entire agricultural mainstay of the rural Kurdish economy;

· the literal abandonment, in punishing conditions, of thousands of women, children and elderly people, resulting in the deaths of many hundreds. Those who survived did so largely due to the clandestine help of nearby Kurdish townspeople.

Second, there is the matter of how Anfal was organized as a bureaucratic enterprise. Viewed as a counterinsurgency, each episode of Anfal had a distinct beginning and an end, and its conduct was in the hands of the regular army and the jahsh militia. But these agencies were quickly phased out of the picture, and the captured civilians were transferred to an entirely separate bureaucracy for processing and final disposal. Separate institutions were involved--such as Amn, Istikhbarat, the Popular Army (a type of home guard) and the Ba'ath Party itself. And the infrastructure of prison camps and death convoys was physicallyremote from the combat theater, lying well outside the Kurdistan Autonomous Region. Tellingly, the killings were not in any sense concurrent with the counterinsurgency: the detainees were murdered several days or even weeks after the armed forces had secured their goals. Finally, there is the question of intent, which goes to the heart of the notion of genocide. Documentary materials captured from the Iraqi intelligence agencies demonstrate with great clarity that the mass killings, disappearances and forced relocations associated with Anfal and the other anti-Kurdish campaigns of 1987-1989 were planned in coherent fashion. While power over these campaigns was highly centralized, their success depended on the orchestration of the efforts of a large number of agencies and institutions at the local, regional and national level, from the Office of the Presidency of the Republic on down to the lowliest jahsh unit.

The official at the center of this great bureaucratic web, of course, was Ali Hassan al-Majid, and in him the question of intent is apparent on a second, extremely important level. A number of audiotapes were made of meetings between al-Majid and his aides from 1987 to 1989. These tapes were examined by four independent experts, to establish their authenticity and to confirm that the principal speaker was al-Majid. Al-Majid was known to have a distinctive, high-pitched voice and the regional accent of his Tikrit district origins; both these features were recognized without hesitation by those Iraqis consulted by Middle East Watch. As a public figure who frequently appears on radio and television in Iraq6, his voice is well known to many Iraqis. One Iraqi consulted on this subject pointed out that the principal speaker on the many hours of recordings in Middle East Watch's possession spoke with authority and used obscene language. In contrast, he said: "Others in those meetings were courteous and respectful with fearful tones, especially when they addressed al-Majid himself." Al-Majid, two experts noted, was often referred to by his familiar nickname, "Abu Hassan."

The tapes contain evidence of a bitter racial animus against the Kurds on the part of the man who, above any other, plotted their destruction. "Why should I let them live there like donkeys who don't know anything?" al-Majid asks in one meeting. "What did we ever getfrom them?" On another occasion, speaking in the same vein: "I said probably we will find some good ones among [the Kurds]...but we didn't, never." And elsewhere, "I will smash their heads. These kind of dogs, we will crush their heads." And again, "Take good care of them? No, I will bury them with bulldozers."
... Almost continuously for the previous two decades, the Ba'ath-led government had engaged in a campaign of Arabization of Kurdish regions. The armed resistance this inspired was Kurdish in character and composition. In 1988, the rebels and all those deemed to be sympathizers were therefore treated as Kurds who had to be wiped out, once and for all. Whether they were combatants or not was immaterial; as far as the government was concerned they were all "bad Kurds", who had not come over to the side of the government.

To pursue Hilberg's paradigm a little further, once the concentration and seizure was complete, the annihilation could begin. The target group had already been defined with care. Now came the definition of the second, concentric circle within the group: those who were actually to be killed.

At one level, this was a straightforward matter. Under the terms of al-Majid's June 1987 directives, death was the automatic penalty for any male of an age to bear arms who was found in an Anfal area.7 At the same time, no one was supposed to go before an Anfal firing squad without first having his or her case individually examined. There is a great deal of documentary evidence to support this view, beginning with a presidential order of October 15, 1987--two days before the census--that "the names of persons who are to be subjected to a general/blanket judgment must not be listed collectively. Rather, refer to them or treat them in your correspondence on an individual basis." The effects of this order are reflected in the lists that the Army and Amn compiled of Kurds arrested during Anfal, which note each person's name, sex, age, place of residence and place of capture.

The processing of the detainees took place in a network of camps and prisons. The first temporary holding centers were in operation, under the control of military intelligence as early as March 15, 1988; by about the end of that month, the mass disappearances had begun in earnest, peaking in mid-April and early May. Most of the detainees went to a place called Topzawa, a Popular Army camp on the outskirts of Kirkuk--the city where Ali Hassan al-Majid had his headquarters. Some went to the Popular Army barracks in Tikrit. Women and children were trucked on from Topzawa to a separate camp in the town of Dibs; between 6,000 and 8,000 elderly detainees were taken to the abandoned prison of Nugra Salman in the southern desert, where hundreds of them died of neglect, starvation and disease. Badinan prisoners from the Final Anfal went through a separate but parallel system, with most being detained in the huge army fort at Dohuk and the women and children being transferred later to a prison camp in Salamiyeh on the Tigris River close to Mosul.

The majority of the women, children and elderly people were released from the camps after the September 6 amnesty. But none of theAnfal men were released. Middle East Watch's presumption, based on the testimony of a number of survivors from the Third and bloodiest Anfal, is that they went in large groups before firing squads and were interred secretly outside the Kurdish areas. During the Final Anfal in Badinan, in at least two cases groups of men were executed on the spot after capture by military officers carrying out instructions from their commanders.

The locations of at least three mass gravesites have been pinpointed through the testimony of survivors. One is near the north bank of the Euphrates River, close to the town of Ramadi and adjacent to a complex housing Iranian Kurds forcibly displaced in the early stages of the Iran-Iraq War. Another is in the vicinity of the archaeological site of Al-Hadhar (Hatra), south of Mosul. A third is in the desert outside the town of Samawah. At least two other mass graves are believed to exist on Hamrin Mountain, one between Kirkuk and Tikrit and the other west of Tuz Khurmatu.8

While the camp system is evocative of one dimension of the Nazi genocide, the range of execution methods described by Kurdish survivors is uncannily reminiscent of another--the activities of the Einsatzkommandos, or mobile killing units, in the Nazi-occupied lands of Eastern Europe. Each of the standard operating techniques used by the Einsatzkommandos is documented in the Kurdish case. Some groups of prisoners were lined up, shot from the front and dragged into pre-dug mass graves; others were shoved roughly into trenches and machinegunned where they stood; others were made to lie down in pairs, sardine-style, next to mounds of fresh corpses, before being killed; others were tied together, made to stand on the lip of the pit, and shot in the back so that they would fall forward into it--a method that was presumably more efficient from the point of view of the killers. Bulldozers then pushed earth or sand loosely over the heaps of corpses. Some of the gravesites contained dozens of separate pits, and obviously contained the bodies of thousands of victims. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the executioners were uniformed members of the Ba'ath Party, or perhaps of Iraq's General Security Directorate (Amn).

By the most conservative estimates, 50,000 rural Kurds died during Anfal. While males from approximately fourteen to fifty wereroutinely killed en masse, a number of questions surround the selection criteria that were used to order the murder of younger children and entire families."

[snopercod]

I've never heard of those cornichon pickles. I'll have to ask Bubba down at the Stop 'n Go to carry them ;-)

TurkishFood.com

[WOSG]

I dont "want" you to take a geopolitical view, I am saying you are falling into that trap somewhat - of ignoring the aspirations of the people involved in ways that create problems down the road. if we cater merely to those who are bribable to do our bidding, we hurt our long-term interests in actually *solving* the grievances that create enemies. 10 years later we'll need to intervene again, and those opposed to US power will use our failures *against us* to harm our cause and interests.

Our best long-term interest is in a free and democratic Iraq, any other Government will not be stable long-term, and that means paying attention to all the groups that actually *live there*. I trust the Bush admin to be smart enough to encourage the right kind of leaders and marginalize extremists or whackos - but Iraqi people at some point will be masters of their destiny. that includes kurds and shiites and not just the arab sunnis. (nor should we forget the small christian minority and their rights.)

"We want the Ruskies and ChiComs blocked from controlloing big oil and the Eurosocialists from benefitting from the profits. The reality? People are assets. And if you think otherwise, your as naive as the do-gooders in the Peace Corps."
Actually you are naive - we will not and we cannot get any special deal from Iraq regarding oil. look at Kuwait post Gulf war I. look at all OPEC nations: The nations control their own oil. The best we can hope for them is plenty of supply and lower prices and perhaps more production deals for US oil companies (vs. france's Elf). No more. Iraq will control its own oil. Our interest is that that money flows to the hands of a peacable democratic Baghdad Govt and not a pro-terrorist dictatorial regime. It's why those who say this is "about oil" fail to understand basic rules of the oil economy. From more on that, read "The Prize" by Daniel Yeargan. Western interests/companies havent owned midest oil since the 1950s and never will again. It's just the way it is.

[WOSG]

I dont disagree on ends on Iran, just that means to get there wont require force.Just wait 3 months and see how the post-Saddam landscape starts shaking out.

[Mr Rogers]

You are refering to the unilateral & non-UN approved attack on Libya that pretty much put an end to their terrorism campaign.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[Beck_isright]

FYI, we've already announced a policy up front to acquire profits from the Iraqi oil fields to pay for the war effort and the occupation by our forces to offset the cost. Naive? Hardly. Cynical, very.

[Beck_isright]

Regarding the Kurdish genocide, I'm sorry but yawn. We did nothing about the Tibetan genocide, the Cambodian, the South Vietnamese, Laotian, etc. We use the term for political action and convenience. If we were serious about the term "genocide" we would demand war crimes trials for the former Soviet agents in charge of the mass slaughter in their gulags; but then that would eliminate all of the people currently in power ruling that part of the world. Save the preaching for a street corner. I'm a cynical old vet who's seen too much to care much else except for our interests at this point in my life.

[snopercod]

I agree with your sentiments, and love your tag line.

It would be so refreshing if our government acted in our interest for a change.

[snopercod]

Libya. Thanks.

[Beck_isright]

If we don't start acting in our own self interests now, we lose all right to be a "superpower". We are nothing more than France with cool weapons if we fail to act now.

[RecentConvert]

The worth of a country has nothing at all to do with political leadership, political parties or ideologies, but it does have a lot to do with the quality of people comprising that country.

However, I do I agree with you on one thing: the lack of will, political or otherwise. Will does NOT emanate from inanimate objects, but from people and people make up the country.

The point I'm trying to make here is that we are where we are today because of the changing demographics of our country in the past 40 years. And, it will get worse before it will get better, unless something is done to stop the illegal immigration floodgates and reform legal immigration to a pre-1965 status. All the rest will then follow. But the premise (ie, its make-up), or foundation in which a country is based must change or we're headed Straight into the abyss.

It is clear to me that if America's demography changes into one resembling a Third World nation, we will become like those societies. We will lose our precious heritage and way of life. I have become convinced that demographics is the dominant force of society, influencing every aspect of our lives. Even if a society does not overtly state it or even acknowledge it, the make-up of a country does imprint nations and individuals with characteristics and traits that the leftist egalitarian cannot, or will not explain away.

America's continued indifference to the most critical issue facing the country has the potential to turn our society upside down and into extinction. That process is well underway in our country and is called immigration.

[WOSG]

I gotta shake my head at that... I am almost angry at your term about 'political convenience' as if 200,000 human lives are just a talking point. ggrrrr.

If we cant stand up to to one wrong, we cant stand up to other wrongs, you say.
Yet you wont stand up to this wrong. So I come back later and talk about North korea and you'll conveniently say 'heck, we didnt do anything about them kurds, why start now??"

So, in the end, you will do nothing here ... and everywhere.

And the evil doers will have one more lever to destroy freedom unhindered.

That's like saying homocide police are useless since you cant catch all the murderers

There is another way: recognize that *ALL* the Communist regimes and tyrants are evil *because* they do this kind of crap, *then* use our power to end it. Recognize that it is their regimes of violence that spill over into hurting our nation
Guess what - we will NEVER catch Joe Stalin .. too late.. he died... but it's not too late for Castro,, Mugabe, Kim jong Il, and *saddam*.

"the Cambodian, the South Vietnamese, Laotian" note that the same idiots who are saying we should do nothing now ensured defeat in those nations, which led to said crimes against humanity. The Left was wrong - again.

"I'm a cynical old vet who's seen too much to care much else except for our interests at this point in my life. "
Sad if true. You are "shocked into impotence", like Powell said of the French. Our *interests* demand ending genocide worldwide, and getting tyrants like Saddam out of power, and democratizing countries that before have supported terrorism. Our ideals and our interests are aligned!!! What interests do we have, anyway? Freedom? You think our freedoms are more secure with tyrants colluding out there? of course not. they hate us for our freedom, and actively undermine it. We can end it one tyrant at a time. It's not like you have to do everything to do good; you just have to stop the evil and tyranny that you can, before it grows like a cancer to threaten us directly. "Yawning" at 500,000 kurds killed through Saddam's genocide is just a step away from ignoring threats that could kill 200,000 Americans.

[Beck_isright]

Absolutely not. I want consistency at the top. We do not have it and have not since Reagan. We allow these slaughters to occur worldwide. We did not admonish the French as their soldiers watched 500,000 Rwandans get slaughtered. We do business with the Chinese and hell, teach them how to MIRV warheads over our west coast. We have a foreign policy with the consistency of jello. Personally speaking I've met Kurds. Most are just backwards people trying to survive. I would love to protect them. But within a structured democratic and unified Iraq. No seperate nations, no Balkanization of the Middle East. Yawn is right. I know that our State Department will find some way to screw this up. We'll send Albright or Jimmy Carter to "teach" democracy so we'll have a warm fuzzy pc campaign of looking good to the commies in the UN. Just once I wish someone with some balls would stand up and say this is how it will be done.

As far as North Korea, I have an answer for that. Blockade the nation and advise them there is a Trident II 300 miles away, loaded and ready to rock and roll. If ONE missle leaves North Korean airspace, every citizen of that nation becomes a crispy critter.

No, I believe we should do more. But we had best have a doctrine of consistency and not let the morons in the UN have ANY input from this date forward. We need to shut out the ChiComs, Ruskies, Frogs and Germans. If the Turks want input it will be to seal their border and shut up since they don't want to work with us on a political level. But if we finish this and then invite the UN to help, I will wash my hands of this administration also. More people die because we turn our backs worldwide on the true abuses of power and fail to defend our allies to the end. We sold out so many friends and let the slaughters commence and how much did you see about this on the news in the last twenty five years? Not one hell of a lot. And so this is the test for W in my book. He can make this a Pax Americana again, or he can be a waffle and "invite" the UN in to screw it up. It's his call and I'll withold judgement until then.

One more thing about your "comment" about the "communist" regimes. One of the heads of the former organizations that enabled thousands, hell probably tens of thousands to dissappear in gulags went to a BBQ at W's ranch in Texas:

Putin.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. His last name is not "Stalin" but he sure as hell has a history quite similar when he was head of the KGB.

[Beck_isright]

...that should read "a submarine full of Trident II's 300 miles away"....

[eleni121]

General Charles Horner has written (at the website below) that Turkey (Jordan and the Saudis)did not allow the US to luanch airstrikes:

"The objectives seemed fairly clear-cut: Halt, if possible, the attack on the Kurds, but definitely hit Saddam where it hurts. "Hurting" a dictator like Saddam means attacking what gives him his hold on power--his military. Presumably, top priority would be given to the Republican Guard forces arrayed on the outskirts of Irbil and to high-value (and thus well-defended) targets in and near Baghdad. Ideally, F-16s and F-15Es operating out of Turkey and Jordan would attack the Iraqi ground forces, while F-117s from Saudi Arabia would go against Baghdad.

These options never materialized. Turkey, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia probably signaled that US air strikes could not be launched from their territory. This effectively prevented us from using USAF landbased fighters and forced us to turn to our independent options: carrier airpower, bombers, and cruise missiles. http://www.afa.org/magazine/Dec1996/1296storm.html

[Mr Rogers]

Your quote came in a section titled "The Iraq crisis, September 1996, demonstrated the limits on US options." That was well after Desert Storm.

In Aug 1990, the 20th TFW (77TFS) deployed to Incirlik Turkey on a regularly scheduled weapons training deployment that turned into Desert Shield. I was one of the WSOs.

[eleni121]

NO doubt you did what you did. That has never been the pont. The truth is that during the Persian Gulf War, Turkey sat on the sidelines throughout Desert Shield, refusing to send any forces to the U.S.-led Coalition, refusing to authorize a second land front from Turkey (see Washington Post, January 16, 1991, at A6, col.5), and refusing to allow the use of the NATO air base at Incirlik, Turkey.

Desert Storm began on January 16, 1991. It was not until over 48 hours after the air war had begun on January 16, 1991, and only after the Iraqi air force and air defenses had been neutralized and the U.S. had achieved air superiority, that Turkey allowed a limited number of sorties out of the Incirlik NATO air base. Only one out of twenty coalition sorties originated in Turkey, and these were clearly unnecessary. The Turkish military and Turkish public opinion opposed the use of Incirlik NATO air base.

Yeah you flew out of Incirlik and bless you but the muslim Turks were no big help. The facts speak for themselves.