By Louis Meixler
The Associated Press, 03 March 2003.
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Turkey's surprise rejection of a U.S. troop deployment is forcing American planners to rethink a strategy that called for attacks from two fronts to hit Saddam Hussein's army so ferociously his forces would have quickly collapsed.
Turkey's parliament rejected the U.S. request on Saturday, leaving the U.S. plan to base 62,000 U.S. soldiers on Iraq's northern border in disarray.
Washington was so sure that it would gain Turkey's support that cargo ships carrying U.S. armor are waiting off the Turkish shore and hundreds of jeeps and trucks have already been unloaded in southern Turkey.
Turkish leaders gave conflicting signs about whether Parliament will reconsider its decision. A top official in Turkey's governing Justice and Development Party, Eyup Fatsa, said Parliament isn't planning to take up the issue in the "foreseeable future." But Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis appeared to leave the door open for a new vote, saying leaders will conduct a "process of evaluation."
Basing troops in Turkey, on Iraq's northern border, is so crucial to U.S. war plans that American negotiators offered some $15 billion in aid to try to win over Turkish approval.
U.S. and Turkish generals agree that a northern front would lead to a shorter and less bloody war, but Turkish public opinion is overwhelmingly against a war. Legislators failed to approve the measure by just three votes, despite lobbying by Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The northern front was also considered vital to maintaining stability in northern Iraq. Turkey has said it will send troops into the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq if there is a war, a move that Iraqi Kurds who have autonomy there have vowed to resist.
With a northern front a war "would be quicker, there would certainly be far fewer casualties ... and far less risk of civil tensions in Iraq," said Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
The northern plan called for the 4th Infantry "Ironhorse" Division and parts of the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles" Division to seize the oil-rich cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and drive toward the south when war started, experts said.
Taking the oil cities would be a sharp blow to Saddam and would also be politically important. Both Kurds and Turks have claims to the cities and each side wants to make sure the other does not gain control.
Meanwhile, the 255 U.S. strike fighters that would be based in Turkey would fly bombing missions in Iraq.
Aircraft including attack helicopters carrying anti-tank missiles and machine guns would fly out of Turkish border areas to strafe Iraqi troops and paralyze transport on Iraqi roads, experts said.
"The idea is to seize as much territory as possible," said Toby Dodge, a Middle East specialist at Warwick University in England. "All of this is designed to ... break the command and control of the army and lead to a coup."
After seizing the oil cities, the northern troops would be poised to start moving south toward Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and later Baghdad, experts said.
Without the northern front, an attack could only take place from the south, giving Iraq's army a chance to concentrate its resources and leaving the Tikrit area, a heartland of support for the Iraqi regime, out of reach of U.S. forces until late in the war.
"If the U.S. could not launch from Turkey it would be a major although not fatal blow," Dodge said.
Turkish cooperation would have a large price in addition to the billions of dollars in aid and grants.
U.S. war plans are already leading to serious tensions between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds, and Ankara wants to make sure that if it gives its support, Washington guarantees that there will not be a Kurdish state in Iraq after a war.
Turkey has also demanded that any Iraqi Kurdish fighters who are armed by the United States during a war are disarmed afterward in the presence of a Turkish military officer, reports said. The United States was looking to use the Kurds as scouts, reports said.
Without a northern front, however, tensions could be even greater with less coordination between the sides, in part because Turkey is likely to still move its forces into Iraq if there is a war.
"In the north you have the prospects of a three or four cornered fight between the Iraqis, the Kurds, the Americans and the Turks," said Dan Plesch, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
"Without (U.S. tanks) on the ground it would be very risky to control that," Plesch said.
Kurdish factions in the north can mobilize about 70,000 lightly-armed guerrillas.
A revised war strategy is likely to call for a far reduced northern front.
During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States based hundreds of aircraft and commandos in Turkey, forces that might be acceptable if a new, scaled back agreement is adopted.
There are also reports that Washington is looking to fly commandos into the Kurdish autonomous regions of Iraq if there is a war.
Those forces would likely aim to maintain order in the Kurdish areas and could possibly seize the oil cities. But they would not pose the same threat to Iraq as the heavy armored troops.
Citation: Louis Meixler. "U.S. Forced to Rethink Iraq War Strategy," The Associated Press, 03 March 2003.
Original URL: http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/2002/12/02/news/5302905.htm