Wolfowitz Talks Turkey

THE INSIDE OF AN Air Force C-17 is like a warehouse. The cavernous dark green plane that shuttled Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and his delegation to England, Turkey, and NATO headquarters in Belgium last week logged more than 10,000 miles over four days, stopping for meetings with representatives of most of the U.S. allies important for the coming war in Iraq.

Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and the other “principals,” as the big-wigs are called by their handlers, traveled inside a shiny silver pod that sits in the middle of the aircraft. Known as the “Silver Bullet,” this chamber looks like a 1960s-vintage trailer. The inside of the pod has leather seats, a CD player, television, VCR, and secure cable and phone lines. If you have to be on a plane for 30 hours over the course of a few days, it’s not a bad way to fly.

Still, the pod is luxurious only by comparison with the spartan accommodations provided for the rest of us. There are two rows of commercial-airline-style seats, each seating five, and seats for everyone else lining the walls of the plane and facing the middle. Six bunk beds are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Once the aircraft takes off, it buzzes with activity. Daily print journalists–there were five of them on this trip–transcribe interviews or write stories they’ll file upon landing. Military support staff set up computer terminals and printers where they’ll rewrite speeches, tinker with talking points, or draft debriefing memos after a visit. Air Force personnel in green one-piece suits dart about with the seriousness of purpose of a brain surgeon.

We took off Sunday night, December 1, and after a brief stop in London for a speech, mostly about Turkey, and a few hours of sleep on the ground, we flew to Ankara. The first thing you notice upon landing in the Turkish capital is an acrid smoky odor that hangs like a blanket over the entire city. After Wolfowitz makes a short, so-happy-to-be-here statement at the airport, we’re whisked to a waiting motorcade–sedans for the principals and a small purple Hyundai van for the rest of us.

The drive to the ministry takes 45 minutes. Although the delegation has a police escort–three white Suburbans and a small fleet of euro-style Matchbox-sized cars–we’re soon caught in chaotic midday Ankara traffic. The two lanes in each direction are clearly marked, but judging from the automotive anarchy around us, the signs have the force of mere suggestions. Our driver apparently knows only two speeds, too fast and stopped. A newspaper reporter who has been very quiet throughout the drive finally speaks up. He is Army green. “Anyone have a plastic or paper bag that you don’t want back?” Thankfully, he’s just being cautious and the delegation arrives without incident.

Secretary Wolfowitz is in Ankara to deliver an important message: We need to know where Turkey stands, and we need to know it soon. To that large end, the trip aims to accomplish several particular tasks: demonstrate U.S. support for Turkey’s bid for admission to the European Union, reconfirm with the newly elected government a deal Wolfowitz negotiated with its predecessor back in July, giving the United States use of Turkish air bases for military intervention in Iraq, and push for permission to base U.S. ground troops on Turkish soil.

The Wolfowitz trip comes just one week before Saddam Hussein is required to give a “full, final and complete” declaration of his weapons of mass destruction, and is the first in a series of similar delegations intended to solidify support for removing the Iraqi dictator. The effort marks a dramatic shift in the Bush administration’s public war planning–from discussing the Iraqi threat in general terms, to taking specific steps to eliminate it.

Wolfowitz explains that presenting Iraq with a serious threat of force is the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict. “It’s important that he see that he is surrounded by the international community, not only in the political sense, but in a real, practical military sense. And Turkey has a very important role to play in that regard. The more support we get from Turkey, the more chance, the better our chances are, of avoiding war.”

Britain, of course, has long been with us. Some other members of NATO, too, are expected to be supportive. Turkey, however, with its recent change in government and its shared border with Iraq, presents a bigger challenge. Early last month, in what many observers described as a “political earthquake,” Turkey’s Justice and Development party–known here as the AK party–won control of the government. The change in government wasn’t itself surprising. Rival parties were tainted after years of trading accusations of corruption. Turkish voters were ready for a change. That they turned in large numbers to the new pro-Islamist AK party, though, was a bit startling.

So despite the fact that Turkey, a NATO member, granted us the use of its airbases in the Gulf War, winning the use of airbases there this time wouldn’t be a slam-dunk. Putting U.S. troops on the ground would be an even greater challenge. The U.S. delegation spent all day Tuesday trying to gain assurances on both fronts.

LATE TUESDAY NIGHT, the journalists traveling with the delegation gathered in a conference room at the Ankara Hilton. We were exhausted. Most of us had gotten no more than three hours of sleep in London the night before. Eighteen hours after leaving England for Turkey we had come to interview Omer Celik, a top adviser to AK party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Celik, sometimes described as Turkey’s Karl Rove, was coming to us directly from a meeting with Wolfowitz and other top U.S. officials about potential Turkish cooperation in the coming war. He explained his ruling party’s view of U.S. troops on Turkish soil.

“There could be two reasons for having U.S. military positioned in Turkey,” he told us, speaking through a translator. “One is to show some determination to Saddam Hussein to get him to clean Iraq of all weapons of mass destruction. The second is a possible operation against Iraq. Our party’s last choice is a war.”

Celik, who serves as a member of the Turkish parliament in addition to his duties advising Erdogan, came to the meeting with two advisers of his own. On the right sat his translator. And on the left, Egemen Bagis, a corpulent fellow with big hair and a mustache who represents Istanbul in parliament and also advises Erdogan on foreign policy.

I was sitting directly to the left of Bagis, at one of the corners of the rectangular seating arrangement, when I noticed a piece of graph paper about the size of a 3 x 5, facing my direction. It contained notes in English.

9 Dec – TGS briefs new government on U.S. plan.

Mid to late Dec – site surveys conducted

Early January – U.S. presents results on site surveys to government, pending approval of U.S. engineering forces on Turkish soil

15 January – construction would begin

Celik was in the middle of a lengthy explanation of why Turkey favors a second U.N. resolution expressly authorizing the use of force in Iraq when I began copying the information on the piece of paper. He finished his answer before I finished writing, so to buy time, I asked him how he felt U.N. inspections were going. When he was done answering, I asked whether the U.S. delegation had provided the Turks any kind of a timeline on war planning.

As Celik gave a meandering, evasive answer that amounted to “no,” Bagis slid the piece of paper with the timeline across the table so that Celik could see it. As the journalists bent over their notebooks recording the response, the Turks shared a quiet chuckle.

Government sources later confirmed that the notes did, in fact, reflect the timeline U.S. officials had proposed to Turkish leaders at their meeting two hours earlier. The contents are revealing, but require some interpretation.

“TGS” is short for the Turkish General Staff–the Turkish military. The first briefing on “the U.S. plan” will take place on December 9, one day after Saddam Hussein is required by U.N. Resolution 1441 to make that “full, final and complete” declaration of his arsenal. After the initial briefing, the U.S. military will spend a month in Turkey assessing the suitability of sites in southern Turkey for U.S. troops. The Turkish government would have to consult with both the parliament (controlled by the AK party) and the military before allowing U.S. troops to be based on their soil. But if approval were granted, construction would begin January 15.

That approval will be granted. Wolfowitz said Wednesday that his delegation “got very strong affirmations of Turkish support for the United States in this crisis with Iraq,” from all levels of government. “Turkey has been with us always in the past and will be with us now. Turkey’s support is assured.”

Wolfowitz wouldn’t comment on a timeline, but he spoke in general terms about planning.

“The immediate focus of our planning efforts needs to be to identify how much investment we’ve got to make in various bases if we are going to use them. We’re talking potentially about tens of millions, probably several hundred million, dollars of investment in various facilities that we might use. So it’s not a small step. It’s a step that we want to tee up for a political decision quickly, because it’s an important step to take. But I think that’s an immediate military task.”

ALL OF THIS, OF COURSE, assumes a false declaration by Saddam. Even if that weren’t a safe assumption given his long record of deception, it’s a virtual certainty based on what his government has said over the past week. Iraqi officials indicated last week that the declaration would include “dual use” materials–equipment that could be used to make chemical and biological weapons, but that also has practical, non-military applications. But those same officials continue to insist that Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction. That claim, President Bush said late last week, contradicts the “solid evidence” the United States has amassed.

“Clearly what [the Iraqis] do or don’t declare on December 8 will be crucial,” says a senior administration official. But, the official adds, “We don’t have a lot of time beyond this.”

How much time? Enough for inspectors to show that Saddam is lying, and perhaps enough time for a second U.N. Security Council resolution that would give several allies the political cover they could use in managing public opinion. But an increasing number of allies have indicated their willingness to support regime change in Iraq even without a second U.N. resolution. At NATO on Wednesday, nine of the nineteen member countries indicated that they were likely to support the United States no matter what. Among them: Britain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, and Spain.

The Bush administration will use the next several weeks to seek further commitments. But even as diplomacy continues, says a senior Pentagon official, reiterating a message delivered to Turkey, “we’re developing military plans that have a certain momentum of their own.” The military timetable Wolfowitz discussed with the Turks suggests that momentum might crest in February.

Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.