Carved-up Map of Turkey at NATO Prompts US Apology
By Suleyman Kurt, Ankara
Friday, September 29, 2006
zaman.com
A map
prepared by a retired U.S. military officer that sketches Turkey as a
partitioned country was presented at the NATO’s Defense College in
Rome, where Turkish officers attend.
The use of the map at a conference
meeting by a colonel from the U.S. National War Academy angered
Turkish military officers.
Turkish Chief of Staff Gen. Yasar
Buyukanit called the U.S. Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Pace, and
protested the incident. U.S. military authorities admitted the
mistake, for which they apologized to Turkey.
According to the reports, the incident
took place on Sept. 15.
An American colonel who came to the
Defense College for a conference began a lecture on technology.
However, a few minutes later he
presented a map that showed Turkey as separated, and included an
“independent Kurdistan” on Turkish territories.
In reaction to the U.S. colonel’s
elaboration on the map, previously characterized by U.S. authorities
as not reflective of the American view, the Turkish officers left the
conference room.
The Belgian commander of the College
was then informed about the incident.
The commander reacted, saying that
academic freedom did not mean everybody could say anything he wanted,
and cited the incident as unacceptable.
Turkish officers also briefed Ankara
about the developments relevant to the incident.
The U.S. State Department assured
Ankara that the map did not reflect the official American view, and
denounced it as unacceptable.
The new Middle East map, prepared by
retired Col. Ralph Peters and published in the Armed Forces Journal in
June, had sparked reactions in Ankara.
|
"As I went back through the Pentagon in
November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time
for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he
said. But there was more.
This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan,
he said, and there were a
total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria,
Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan
... I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned."
General Wesley Clark
'Winning Modern Wars', p 130
NBC's 'Meet The Press' Interview With General Clark About This (16
November 2003) -
Click Here
"I told the officer, when [he] started to
tell me that, I said, 'Stop, I don't want to get into anything
that's classified. Just don't tell me that information.' But I do
know this, that in the gossip circles in Washington, among the
neo-conservative press, and in some of the statements that
Secretary Rumsfeld and Secretary Wolfowitz have made, there is an
inclination to extend this into
Syria
and maybe Lebanon.
So you never know where this is headed. The administration's never
disavowed this intent."
General Wesley Clark On US Plans To Strike Seven Countries
CNN Interview, 30 November 2003 |
"The United States is planning to establish up to four
long-term military bases in Iraq.
The proposal would transform America's
ability to project its power in the Middle East.
Future arrangements depend largely on who takes over as leader of
Iraq.... One reason senior officials in the Pentagon favour Ahmad
Chalabi, of the exile group the Iraqi National Congress, as the new
leader is that he would be pro-American and happy to facilitate US
bases.... With US troops also stationed in Afghanistan, Iran is now
almost surrounded by American forces....
The new bases would also enable America to
scale back its presence in Saudi Arabia.....
Permanent US bases in Iraq would be just one element of a dramatic
change in America's strategic posture since the September 11
attacks."
America plans military bases in Iraq
to apply pressure on Middle East
Daily Telegraph, 21 April 2003
"America
began a historic reshaping of its presence in the Middle East
yesterday, announcing
a halt to active military operations in Saudi Arabia and the
removal of almost all of its forces from the kingdom within weeks.
The withdrawal
ends a contentious 12-year-old presence in Saudi Arabia and marks the
most dramatic in a set of sweeping changes in the deployment of
American forces after the war in Iraq.
Withdrawal of 'infidel' American forces from Saudi Arabia has been one
of the demands of Osama bin Laden, although a senior US military
official said that this was 'irrelevant'.... Behind the dry talk of
rearranging America's military 'footprint' in the Gulf, the great
imponderables were bin Laden and Muslim radicals' complaints about the
presence of 'infidels' in the birthplace of Islam. That presence was
cited as one of the main justifications for the September 11 attacks.
Despite American insistence that the withdrawal had not been
'dictated' by al-Qa'eda and that bin Laden was 'irrelevant', there can
be little doubt that undercutting a central plank of al-Qa'eda's
platform is one of several advantages offered by withdrawal from Saudi
Arabia."
America to withdraw troops from Saudi
Arabia
Daily Telegraph, 30 April 2003
"... the mideast will
increasingly become the source of the world's oil, and this is a
strategic problem for us and for many other countries."
James Woolsey, Former Director of the CIA
Interview with the Council on
Foreign Relations and the Washington Post: June 7, 2000
"Iraq can be seen as
the first battle of the fourth world war. After two hot world wars and
one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe, the fourth
world war is going to be for the Middle East."
Former Director of
the CIA, James Woolsey
NATO conference, Prague, November 2002 |
