Re Bridging Units + the Northern Front.
Those bridging units will be incredibly important as I do believe the Iraqi's will blow all major Tigris and Euphrates crossings. Since the planning for this event has been nearly two years in the making, I do anticipate this very important consideration will not have been shirked. I also believe that the possibility of long range artillery being placed around hospitals and mosques has been considered by wartime planners. We also have an advantage in determining where and when we will cross.
Imo the Northern Front will be incredibly important in this regard. It will force Saddam to divide vitally needed resources to the north or the 101st will virtually walk into Tikrit and Baghdad. This WP report may indicate the Turks are willing to support a small divisions worth of troops on their territory, in the event of an invasion. I expect we can get by with that, as once landing bases are established in friendly Kurd country we won't need the Turks for much more than air support.
Turkey, U.S. Near Accord on Deployment
Anti-War Sentiment Likely to Limit Number of Ground Troops to 15,000
washingtonpost.com
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 17, 2003; Page A15
ANKARA, Turkey, Jan. 16 -- Negotiations between Turkish and U.S. officials over placing American ground troops here for a possible war against Iraq are moving toward agreement on a deployment less than one-fourth the size of the force Washington initially had asked Turkey to accept, sources said today.
The sources, who refused to be identified, said Turkey was close to allowing 15,000 U.S. troops to be sent to the southeastern part of the country, where they would open a northern front if the United States takes military action to unseat the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein. A force that size, made up of far fewer soldiers than the 80,000 that U.S. officials had asked Turkey to host, might be small enough to avoid enflaming strong anti-war sentiment here yet large enough "to be able to credibly present an offensive threat from the north," a Western diplomat said.
Officials in Turkey, a NATO ally, have not approved the U.S. troop deployment. Public opinion polls indicate that almost 90 percent of Turks oppose a war on the country's southern border, a formidable concern for a government elected on a populist platform just two months ago. In a high-profile quest for peace, Prime Minister Abdullah Gul recently visited each of the countries bordering Iraq, and today invited the leaders of Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia to Istanbul next week to issue a joint declaration.
The contents of a declaration would "all be decided together, of course," Gul said. Diplomats said it likely would urge Hussein to make a meaningful gesture of compliance with U.N. demands that he surrender weapons of mass destruction.
"We believe there is still a chance to work toward peace," Gul said.
The unusual Turkish effort to show Hussein a united front in his back yard follows a bluntly worded letter that Gul dispatched to the Iraqi leader last week. Delivered by a state minister who led two planeloads of Turkish businessmen on a trade mission, the letter was "very direct, maybe undiplomatic," Gul said in an interview today. "It told him, okay, here's the last chance. Don't play games."
At the same time, Turkish military planners have resumed detailed cooperation with the Pentagon, ending several weeks of what U.S. officials had termed frustrating delay.
A 150-member U.S. military team is midway through a long-delayed survey of Turkish airports, ports and military bases. The team is deciding what improvements would be needed to accommodate American forces if Turkey authorizes their arrival.
"There will be a northern front," a Western diplomat said. "The difficulty is they're not saying this in public. And these discussions are contingent upon final parliamentary approval."
Officials indicated the Bush administration would go forward with the improvements, expected to cost as much as $300 million, to signal that Washington anticipates Turkey will wave in a U.S. force.
Any such decision, however, must be made publicly.
Turkey's constitution requires its parliament to approve foreign troops on its soil. "Put yourself in our shoes," Gul said. "If you're a democratic country, it's not easy. If we were a closed regime, not democratic, it could have been different."
Yet diplomats and Turkish officials indicated the allies were working toward a formula that would accommodate the U.S. desire for a northern front and at least the most acute Turkish sensitivities.
Those sensitivities center on ground troops. Turkish officials long have signaled they would open Turkish bases to U.S. warplanes, relatively small Special Operations units and search-and-rescue stations. Turkey has hosted U.S. fighter wings at its Incirlik air base since the Cold War and recently voted to renew permission for Operation Northern Watch, under which U.S. and British jets enforce a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq.
But the prospect of as many as 80,000 land forces was judged too much for the Turkish public to digest, especially given fresh memories of the economic fallout from the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The size of the force also fed concerns that the U.S. troops would never leave.
"The Americans need a lot less than they ask for," said one Turkish official. "I think they would be happy to get 12 to 15,000."
A Western diplomat, while declining to confirm specific numbers, indicated that the Pentagon saw room to scale back from what he described as generous early estimates of necessary troop strength. While U.S. forces gather in Kuwait for a possible assault on Baghdad across the desert that dominates southern Iraq, U.S. war planners have called a northern front vital for several reasons. A U.S.-led assault launched from Turkey would secure the oil fields of northern Iraq, protect the Kurdish minority that Hussein has massacred before and force Iraq to defend a second front.
But one Turkish official said Iraqi military power in the north has been overstated. The official said Turkish intelligence indicates the Iraqi Republican Guard divisions stationed in the vital oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk are "at one-third strength."
The specifics of the U.S. force may be hammered out as early as Monday, when Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is due in Ankara.
Also next week, a congressional delegation led by Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) could reassure Turks that Congress is willing to pass legislation that would help Turkey absorb any economic shocks by providing a line of credit worth as much as $14 billion. Similar promises of compensation made before the Gulf War went unfulfilled, Gul noted, fueling skepticism about a new package.
"People don't believe it will happen," the prime minister said.
A crucial outstanding issue is the repeated public pledge by Turkey's government not to sanction a U.S. attack on Iraq without a Security Council resolution that goes beyond the one issued on Nov. 8. The Western diplomat suggested the pledge could be finessed by drawing a distinction between a second resolution as a "position" as opposed to a "condition."
Turkish officials demurred on the question, while noting that military planning is quietly progressing once more.
"What has been achieved recently, even without a resolution," said one Turkish official, "is to harmonize the U.S. requests with the circumstances in Turkey." |
