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| Axis of Evil |
| Turkey offers bases for Iraq raids |
| 2002-12-03 |
| Turkey says it will open its airbases to U.S. warplanes if the U.N. approves military action against Iraq. The United States already uses Turkish airbases to patrol a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq, in place since the end of the 1991 Gulf War. "What we mean by cooperation is opening airbases and opening facilities to use," Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis told an Ankara press conference. Yakis spoke after meeting with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who was in Turkey to lobby for support of an operation against Iraq. Turkey and Kuwait are the two essential allies in this operation. Everyone else is just window dressing. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #5 The Turkey and Iran news will shortly be followed by the Saudi's epiphany of recognising how wrong they have been to so slowly recognise the threat Sammy poses and how they will reconsider the use of the air bases and tactical control centre and other assets. Al-Jubeir is too damn British in his outlook and is taking his sweet ass time leading up to the big mea maxima culpa. Everytime Dubya opens his mouth the spincters in Soddyland just get squeezed harder and harder. |
| Posted by: Jack 2002-12-04 08:57:48 |
| #4 The shape of the post-GWII world seems to be clearing up more and more. It looks pretty certain that both Turkey and Iran will try and get as big a piece of this pie as possible. Turkey gets the north, Iran gets the south, and whomever we appoint gets the center. Not that this is any news. |
| Posted by: Tripartite 2002-12-03 23:02:17 |
| #3 sorry missed this http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/980vprie.asp |
| Posted by: john 2002-12-03 21:45:06 |
| #2 The US will not be going back to the UN. Any intelligence we have will not be presented to the Security Council where it would turn into a Franco/Sino "he says-she says" pissing contest. Look for Cheney or Powell to make a final visit to the region by Xmas to share the private intel with the Turks, Kuwait, Quatar (and the Saudis for appearance sake) |
| Posted by: john 2002-12-03 21:05:24 |
| #1 But the fine print says we need another UN resolution for this. Hopefully the Turks are flexible on this matter otherwise they will have outsourced their foreign policy to the French on this matter. |
| Posted by: John B. 2002-12-03 17:11:16 |