Hi Ghostrider; Here's a more complete link:
Turkey to Allow U.S. to Use Bases Under a Smaller Plan
Dexter Filkins, NYTimes, January 20, 2003
Turkey's foreign minister said today that his government had decided to allow the United States to use Turkish bases for an attack on Iraq, but that Turkish public opinion was forcing them to drastically scale back the American plans.
Yasar Yakis, the foreign minister, said in an interview that his government had instructed the Turkish military to draft a plan providing for an American force that would be just large enough to tie up Iraqi troops based in the northern part of the country so a larger American force could attack Baghdad from the south.
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"What we said for the Americans was, the northern front should not be made meaningless," Mr. Yakis said. "The importance of the northern front is to fix Iraqi military strength, which is positioned in the north. It should be a sufficiently big force to fix them there so that Iraqi soldiers do not leave the northern front and go to the southern front.
"We instructed the military authorities to negotiate with the American side and find out what is the figure which is necessary not to make the American northern front meaningless," Mr. Yakis added.
He said the American and Turkish military planners had not yet agreed on a final plan. Still, if Mr. Yakis' scenario holds true, it would represent a drastic scaling back of American military plans to confront Saddam Hussein's army outside of the main theater in Kuwait.
American military planners regard a northern front as crucial in an Iraqi operation, believing that it would make any war shorter and less bloody than one limited to a force attacking from the south.
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An American presence in northern Iraq is regarded as vital in ensuring that Iraq's Kurds, who predominate in the country's northern areas, do not try to secede from Iraq.
Mr. Yakis said one of the options considered for a scaled-down northern front is an American force of about 15,000 troops. Under that plan, Mr. Yakis said, a pair of American brigades of about 5,000 troops each would attack in separate points in northern Iraq, with another brigade standing by in reserve.
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nytimes.com
-- Carl
P.S. 15,000 would be about one division. |
