October 21, 2003

The Honorable George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Re: Use of Turkish troops in Iraq is not in the best interests of the U.S.

Dear Mr. President:

The Defense Department’s request for 10,000 Turkish troops to go to Iraq is not in the best interests of the U.S. This policy is clearly harmful to U.S. interests in building stability and democratic institutions in Iraq.

Mr. President, you are being badly misinformed regarding Turkey and the use of Turkish troops in Iraq.

Some of the reasons against putting Turkish troops in Iraq are outlined below:

1. The Iraqi Kurds, our key ally in Iraq, oppose it. The Turks have illegally invaded northern Iraq and attacked the Kurds there on many occasions. The Turks presently have armed forces illegally in northern Iraq.

Recently Turkish commandos were apprehended in northern Iraq by U.S. forces. The Turks were on a mission to assassinate Iraqi Kurdish leaders.

2. The Iraqi Governing Council strongly opposes Turkish occupation forces in Iraq. Not just the Kurds, but the Arabs, as well, oppose Turkish troops in Iraq. They remember Turkey as the former harsh colonial master for 400 years of Iraq and the Middle East.

3. Putting Turkish troops in Iraq at this time is like putting German troops in Poland or Israel or Japanese troops in Manchuria or Korea. The bombing on October 14 aimed at the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad is an example of what could happen if we allow Turkish troops in Iraq.

4. King Abdullah of Jordan has stated that Jordan would not send troops to Iraq because he believes neighboring states of Iraq have their own agendas and it would not be helpful to the goals of the U.S. to have them in Iraq.

5. Turkey has its own agenda in Iraq, which includes suppression of the Iraqi Kurds and access to Iraqi oil.

6. Turkey’s well-documented and continuing ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and genocide against its 20% Kurdish minority of 15 million is harmful to U.S. interests in building stability and democratic institutions in Iraq and the Middle East.

Since 1984, the Turkish military, according to the Turkish Ministry of Justice, have killed 35,000 Kurds; and Turkish paramilitary mercenaries, working for the security agencies have assassinated 18,500 Kurds between 1984 and 1999. (Please see the facts as set forth by former French Ambassador to Turkey, Eric Rouleau, in Foreign Affairs November/December 2000, pages 110-114, at p.112.) The Turkish military destroyed 3,000 Kurdish villages creating three million Kurdish refugees.

7. Turkey’s vote on March 1, 2003 denying U.S. troops the use of bases in Turkey to open a northern front against the Saddam Hussein dictatorship damaged U.S. interests and put U.S. troops in harms way. Turkey sought $6 billion more than the $26 billion offered by the U.S., a veto over policy regarding the Iraqi Kurds and access to Iraq oil. One senior U.S. official called Turkey’s action as “extortion in the name of alliance.”

8. Turkey is not a genuine democracy. It has a military dominated government with a record of horrendous human rights abuses and should be the last country to be used as an example for Iraq or other Muslim nations.

The New York Times in an editorial “Double Talk on Democracy” (October 6, 2002) finally shined a light on Turkey as the “most striking example of Washington’s hypocrisy” regarding “undemocratic practices” in Turkey and the need to bring the Turkish “authoritarian military leadership” under civilian rule to achieve democracy.

9. Turkey is an aggressor nation. It has 35,000 illegal occupation troops and 100,000 illegal settlers in Cyprus.

10. Turkey’s illegal economic blockage of Armenia prevents aid to Armenia including U.S. humanitarian and pharmaceutical aid.

11. Turkey has killed over two million Christians in the 20th Century and committed the Armenian Genocide, the first genocide in the 20th Century.

12. The U.S. is seeking troops and funds from other nations to support our efforts in Iraq, yet we are paying Turkey to send troops to Iraq.

Dr. Fouad Ajami, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University, wrote the following in U.S. News and World Report (Oct.20, 2003):

“Our distrust of the Iraqis, our refusal to cede them power, have led us in odd and dangerous directions. We have been casting about for allies in peculiar places—Turkey, Pakistan, India. These are deadly and futile trails. The Turks can’t be deployed in Iraq; the Ottoman Turks had governed Iraq for four centuries, and it was only British power in the First World War that blasted them out of that country. It will not do to say that the Turks have shed imperial habits and no longer claim pieces of Iraq for themselves. It will suffice that enough Iraqis will think that we have come into their midst to squander their sovereignty. Nor should we be rewarding the Turkish government with huge loan guarantees. The Turks betrayed us as we prepared to go to war. They denied us basing rights; they denied our forces the ability to strike from their country and hence crush the Iraqis with a pincer movement. They strung us along, hid behind parliamentary maneuvers, as they gave vent to an anti-Americanism that would make the French blush.”

It is superficial to claim that the deployment of Turkish troops will repair the serious damage in U.S.-Turkish relations. Dr. Bulent Aliriza, Director of the Turkish Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies stated during a TV interview on the October 7 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer at PBS:

“I’ve argued for a long time that Turkish-American relationship was a relationship born in the Cold War that really needed redefinition. The redefinition is now taking place in the heat of battle, as it were, with Iraq forcing both sides to look at what they agree and what they disagree on. You know, the dispatch of troops by themselves will not solve it. In fact, it can create a scenario in which there are Turkish casualties which heighten sensitivities in Turkey and may even exacerbate Turkish-American relations.”

The Los Angeles Times in an editorial on October 10, 2003 said “Washington’s proposal to bring in Turkish troops is just the latest in a series of bad calls.” The editorial states in part:

“U.S. troops have learned that Iraqis greet a foreign occupation army with rocket-propelled grenades, not flowers. And that was before the latest slap: the proposed addition to the occupation forces of perhaps 10,000 soldiers from Iraq’s former colonial master, Turkey. Washington is happy to have troops from a Muslim nation, but even members of the U.S.—appointed Iraq Governing Council are protesting. The United States badly underestimated reaction to the Iraqi invasion and the huge sums needed to rebuild Iraq. Misunderstanding Iraq’s suspicion of its neighbors and the hatred between Turks and Kurds populating northern Iraq threatens to make security worse and rebuilding harder.

Turkish lawmakers refused prewar pleas to let the U.S. open a second front to invade Iraq from Turkish territory. Most Turks opposed the war and don’t want their forces in Iraq. But an $8.5 billion U.S. loan to Turkey last month may have swayed Parliament, though Ankara denies any link.

Iraqis fear that the Turks will renege on promises to leave after a one-year deployment and will try to seize territory or attack Iraqi Kurds, who they fear intend to join Turkish Kurds in trying to form an independent state.”

The Economist reported the following (October 18, 2003; p.51):

“Paul Bremer, the American in charge of Iraq, is said to have told his bosses at home that any help from Turkey may not be worth the trouble it will create, not least between the Americans and the council. The British quietly agree. But Paul Wolfowitz, America’s deputy defence secretary, who favours bringing in up to 10,000 Turkish troops (their presence would let some Americans go home) is fighting back.”

The issue now for the U.S. is how best to stabilize Iraq and move ahead with reconstruction and building democratic institutions. The use of Turkish troops in Iraq will set back our efforts and cause additional problems.

Thank you for your consideration of our views on this issue of great importance to the interests of the U.S., to the constituencies we represent, and to all Americans.

Respectfully

cc: Vice President Richard B. Cheney
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snow
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Lee Armitage
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Chief of Staff Andrew Card
National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice
Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs A. Elizabeth Jones
Director of OMB Josh Bolten
The Congress