Turks relieved to keep out of Iraqi quagmire

[Spazito]

ANKARA (AFP) - Though Ankara officially stands ready to send troops into Iraq (news - web sites), Turks were clearly relieved that the risky mission was ruled out after Washington backed down on the idea under stiff opposition from Baghdad's interim government.


"Deep down they are very pleased with this," said Ilnur Cevik, editor-in-chief of the English-language Turkish Daily News, in comments published Thursday.


President Ahmet Necdet Sezer announced Wednesday he considered the question of whether to dispatch Turkish soldiers to join the US-led occupation force to be "closed".

<snip>

The Americans have not officially renounced Turkish help, even if a top Washington hawk Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s number two man, said Wednesday the foreign military presence in Iraq was already touchy enough without bringing in soldiers from neighboring countries.

more

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1514&e=4&u=/afp/turkey_iraq_troops_us

(note the word, quagmire, in the title - bet Rove will be on the phone about that real soon.)

[NNN0LHI]

1. Interesting headline n/t

[cliss]

2. Yes, that's what you call 'journalistic accuracy'

or, "bulls-eye". Well, the shopping goes on. What will they try next? Maybe they should call India on the phone again. Or maybe Japan? They might be able to get them interested again.

Or, why not assemble a "smorgasbord army". They should call each country, and ask them to contribute maybe 100 troops each. (after all, that's fair). We have, what 130 countries? That would be 13,000 of every race and ethnicity available. Sounds like the best idea yet.

I'm not so sure about the 100 troops from Borneo, though...

[Voltaire99]

4. Perhaps they'll follow the model of California's "drafted" firefighters...

...and start shipping the nation's record numbers of drug-war prisoners to Iraq.

[proud patriot]

3. Are they going to refund our Money ?

:grr:

[TexasPatriot]

5. exactly...

8.5 billion in loan guarantees if i'm not mistaken...

Hey George - I promise to give you 10,000 troops you wont use if you promise to cover an $8.5B loan for me... I swear I'll pay it back - really. Hell, I'll even promise to only spend the money domestically.

(why arent all those deficit hawks having fits? Hey Ivins - call HRoss - get him on Larry King, lets hear him talk about charts and graphs.)

[proud patriot]

6. Welcome Underground TexasPatriot

:hi: Cool blog :hi:

Drop By the lounge sometime and I'll but you a drink