Hi CobaltBlue; Re: "We've got confirmation that there are a couple thousand US troops in Jordan, taking part in war games."
This is not necessarily a big deal. For example:
AMMAN, Jordan, April 5, 2000 -- The U.S. military exercise program with Jordan will grow, said Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, adding bilateral and multilateral military exercises would make the Middle East a more stable place.
...
More U.S. service members may be participating in exercises in Jordan. For example, more than 2,000 U.S. Marines and their Jordanian counterparts staged the combined arms tactical exercise Intrinsic Moonlight in March in the area around Aqabah.
...
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Also see:
October 1999
Jordan has a growing military exercise program and concrete and realistic plans for modernization. The United States will do all it can to help in these areas.
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April 2000
I'm particularly impressed by Jordan's increasing participation in multinational exercises ...
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Re: "We've got confirmation that the Russians are engaged in a massive war game exercise in the Caspian sea."
This means nothing at all. It's a great time of the year to have war games in the Caspian, I'd bet. I won't even bother to look for links.
Re: "We've got confirmation that the US has built a massive base in Qatar."
See, for example:
April 2000
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Re: "We've got confirmation that there are Turkish ground troops in Kurdish northern Iraq, presumably within our no-fly zone, and that they have seized Iraqi territory."
Iraq and Turkey have a long standing agreement allowing each other to pursue Kurdish rebels across each other's borders (hot pursuit). For example:
The Longest War
Dilip Hiro
(page 149)
Baghadad received enthusiastic co-operation from Ankara, with which it had in 1978 concluded a secret accord (made public six years later) allowing each side to pursue 'subversive elements' up to 9 miles inside each other's territory. In May 1983 Turkish troops infiltrated 18 miles into Iraqi Kurdistan to destroy the bases of its Kurdish guerillas in the KDP-occupied part of Iraq. Following this, Tariq Aziz visited Ankara to reinforce mutual security co-operation further. The outcome was the signing of an agreement in October 1984 permitting cross-border operations up to 18 miles into each other's territory.
[Bilow] In other words, it's not necessarily the case that the Turks are in there to help push over Saddam. Turkey has a problem with Northern Iraq being out of control, and this naturally has caused Turkey to move deeper and deeper into Iraqi Kurdistan to try and solve their problem.
-- Carl |
