February 20, 2003
Ankara's Dance of Politics and Cash
By PATRICK E. TYLER
WASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — Though the Bush administration is withholding public judgment, the potential loss of Turkey on the northern flank of a military campaign against Iraq is regarded within the government as a potentially serious political calamity.
Ankara's decision to put off a parliamentary vote inviting American forces into the country put Turkey on the roster of states expressing reservations about going to war in the next several weeks. It also raised the question of who would secure northern Iraq in the event of war between opposition groups and Islamic extremists vying for territory and influence.
The Turkish decision also represents a military complication for Washington because it may force last-minute redeployments of American and British military units and could push the earliest starting date for any combat operations deeper into March, military experts said.
"I would say we are on a political and diplomatic knife's edge," said Fritz Ermarth, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
A number of experts said, however, that Turkey's new government, under Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, needs most of all to demonstrate at home that it is working to avert war and protect Turkey's financial exposure to the costs of military action, which were enormous during the Persian Gulf war. For that reason, despite White House pessimism, there was a sense that Turkey's resistance to Bush administration entreaties could be reversed.
"Basically, the biggest problem is that 94 percent of the Turks are opposed to war," said Morton Abramowitz, who nurtured America's military cooperation with Turkey as a Pentagon planner during the cold war and later served as United States ambassador to Turkey.
Turkey's new leaders, he said, "want to delay this as much as possible to reduce their political problems and give diplomacy a greater opportunity while at the same time they want to show their own people that they are making every effort to bring home the bacon." Their rewards, he added, would be financial assistance or long-term access to Iraqi oil at a discount.
At the same time, said Zeyno Baran, a Turkish scholar at the Nixon Center, "the Turks do not want to get ahead of the curve when they see that Europe is split."
Any delay will have inevitable effects on military planning in the view of Walter P. Lang, the former defense intelligence official who was the Pentagon's leading expert on the Iraqi Army in the gulf war.
"There are certain space-time realities in play here and they are threatening to mess that up," he said after hearing of the Turkish decision. "A whole division is hanging up, and so, if the operation D-Day was the first week of March, it may well have to be delayed because of this, so the Turks are endangering the timing of the operation."
The White House and Pentagon were resolute today in stating that the administration intends to press for a new United Nations resolution to declare Iraq in further "material breach" of disarmament resolutions, thus paving the way for war.
Others in the administration said they were alarmed that the "air was rushing out of the balloon" and were hoping that the United Nations inspectors under Hans Blix and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei would bolster the American and British case for disarmament by armed force when they next report to the Security Council at the end of the month.
United Nations officials said, however, that Mr. Blix's next report was likely to be very similar to his reports of Jan. 27 and Feb. 14, noting improvements in access to information, but concluding that Iraq has yet to make a fundamental decision for the kind of full and complete disclosure necessary to satisfy disarmament requirements.
The only message Mr. Bush issued today was to stay the course, meaning to keep the pressure on Turkey and other allies to accept the White House logic that Saddam Hussein has already demonstrated that he will not cooperate in Iraq's full disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.
"Turkey has heard authoritatively what the position of the United States government is and now Turkey has a decision to make, and we look forward to hearing that decision," the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said today.
Whatever decision Turkey makes, Mr. Bush seems poised to press ahead for war to disarm and remove Mr. Hussein, according to administration insiders, key allies and diplomats at the United Nations.
But the question now turns on the final step, a question that diplomats in New York said is beginning to strike deep concerns among Security Council members.
One European ambassador to the United Nations said that after a day of consultations, a firm "coalition has stabilized that supports the French and German approach that the inspectors should have the time that they need for effective and intrusive inspections."
In this situation, the ambassador said, "there is not much readiness to go for a resolution that authorizes military action."
Other diplomats, however, say the French are becoming increasingly "uncomfortable" with where their opposition to Washington leads them.
"A lot of us are talking to them and urging them to think clearly about the consequences" of unrelenting opposition to a resolution because any American decision to go to war without United Nations approval will be attributed to French resistance that has attracted Chinese, Russian and German support.
"The French have enjoyed their applause," the diplomat said. "They have spoken up for world public opinion, but they cannot completely alienate the United States from this institution." ------------------------------------------------------ Yeah right. Notice how 'diplomats' shifts to 'diplomat'. Who is this dipliomat? The NYT anallust won't tell us.
-Brad Mayer