Ah, there you go again, Carl. You have a real talent for digging up masses of irrelevant material that somehow, in your own mind, proves your point. What the Turks were doing in Northern Iraq a year ago, or five years ago, is quite besides the point. The question is, what have they done lately? I went looking in the Turkish press, and look, they share debka's "fantasy":
August 10 2002
Here is 'the' airport
HURRIYET published a library photo of the Bamerni Airport on its front page and the caption said: "Turkey has brought under stricter control the flurry of activity in Northern Iraq. The Bamerni Airport near Dhohuk is completely under the control of the Turkish troops. Meanwhile, the two other airports built in the region during the Saddam era are being kept under control by the United States forces. The electronic systems that enable electronically-controlled landing and take-off procedures at these airports had reportedly been installed by Turkey. The number of Turkish troops in Northern Iraq is over 5,000 including the special units. It has been learned that thanks to its military presence in the region Turkey has set up security and intelligence assessment centers at places close to the 36th Parallel."
turkishdailynews.com
which compares very closely to debka's
2. Two days later, on Wednesday night, August 8, Turkey executed its first major military assault inside Iraq. DEBKAfile’s military sources learn from Turkish and Kurdish informants that helicopters under US, British and Turkish warplane escort flew Turkish commandos to an operation for seizing the critical Bamerni airport in northern Iraq. This airport, just outside the Kurdish region, lies 50 miles north of the big Iraqi oil cities of the north, Kirkuk and Mosul. With the Turkish commandos was a group of US special forces officers and men. Bamerni airport was captured after a brief battle in which a unit of Iraqi armored defenders was destroyed, opening the airport for giant American and Turkish transports to deliver engineering units, heavy machinery and electronic support equipment, which were put to work at once on enlarging the field and widening its landing strips.
The American unit, reinforced, went on to capture two small Iraqi military airfields nearby.
The Turkish expeditionary force in northern Iraq now numbers some 5,000 men, in addition to Turkish air force contingents.
(temp) debka.com
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