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CNN Sunday Morning
What Is the Significance of Turkey in War With Iraq?
Aired February 23, 2003 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the showdown with Iraq. President Bush met yesterday at his Texas ranch with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, to discuss the language of the new U.N. resolution that can pave the way for on Iraq.
U.S. officials say the next few weeks could be crucial.
The new resolution will be introduced to the Security Council this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow.
Iraq faces a March 1 deadline to prove it will destroy prohibited missiles, and chief inspector Hans Blix is due to address the Security Council again on March 7.
Well, if it does come down to war, the big question remains, will U.S. troops be allowed to launch an attack on Iraq from Turkey? The U.S. is offering Turkey an economic package worth billions of dollars if it gets the green light. If the U.S. gets a red light, how will that affect any military plans?
Let's get some perspective now from CNN's military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange. He joins us this morning from Oakbrook, Illinois.
Good morning to you, sir, thanks for being with us today.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.
COLLINS: I want to go head and start by asking a question -- if this is common place, to be offering -- the U.S. offering such huge amounts of money to a country, sort of as a usage fee -- would that be a fair way to term it?
GRANGE: Well, the United States provides a lot of support, a lot of security assistance and other aid to Turkey, as well as Egypt and Israel, as an example, in that region. A lot of money has gone to those countries, both for the military, as well as for economic and other civil type requirements.
I believe that the concern, of course, is the offset of economic problems in Turkey once a war starts. But there's a lot of other things that are not discussed that involves the use of Turkey in regards to attacking Iraq.
COLLINS: Well, let's talk about what it would mean to be able to go in through Turkey. Obviously that would give us the advantage of coming in from coming in from the south in Kuwait, and then from the north, right?
GRANGE: Well, exactly. You want to have the enemy focus -- you don't want the enemy to focus in one direction, you want the enemy to have to deal with multiple directions from an allied force -- both south, north, and hopefully, as well, west.
And so, Turkey is key to that. It gives you the land bridge that borders, of course, Iraq, and a capability to come in from the north by ground, not just by air.
COLLINS: And, you know, we're looking at a map right now, General Grange, of all of the different installations there in Turkey. There are eight, I didn't realize that there was so many, I'm familiar with Incirlik, but there are eight different installations there.
What can we get out of all of those?
GRANGE: Well, a lot of the installations that you're looking at right now for air support, to launch either fighter aircraft, or helicopters, but there's also ports involved. So, in other words, let's say that we send over several ships to offload a division of troops of their equipment, thousands of vehicles, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, et cetera, then they have to move by land, all the way across Turkey from west to east, to get to the area where they would cross the border into Iraq.
So, there's a time challenge here, offloading, assembling, test flying, test driving, test firing equipment, as well as moving to a launch site north of Iraq, across the border.
So, it's going to take several weeks to do that, if it's approved.
COLLINS: And if it's not approved, surely there are some alternatives as far as basing somewhere else to go in from the north?
GRANGE: Our armed forces always has alternatives.
COLLINS: Yes.
GRANGE: And we have a force projection capability that could what's known as a forced entry. In other words, you force your way into some place in Iraq's territory, the north or the west, and establish a lodgement, and then build up forces.
But again, though you can get a capability on the ground very rapidly, it takes a while to get a robust force built up.
COLLINS: Let's talk, just real quickly, General Grange, about the Gulf War here. Clearly the Iraqi soldiers went and hid in the desert; this did not work well for them. They probably are not going to do that again, and that's why we've been training so diligently for urban warfare.
Can you ever really be prepared for urban warfare, in such a complex and unpredictable sort of environment? And what sort of advantage do the Iraqi soldiers have?
GRANGE: Well, for our forces and our allied forces that are going to participate with us if we go, you never 100 percent, you know, in other words, there's always something you have to do, because information comes in, it changes your planning, it changes some of the requirements, whether it be the type of enemy you're facing, or the terrain you have to move in, or rivers you have to cross, or villages you have to go in and clear, whatever the case may be.
So, it's always requirements that come up, and it's a constant challenge to maintain this peak of readiness. I don't believe -- going back to your other point -- I don't believe that the Iraqi military will do much in the desert itself, they'll take advantage of the villages, or river crossing sights, built up areas, where, again, they can hide among civilians and they can use the structures of the buildings for cover.
COLLINS: All right, General David Grange, thank you so much for being with us this morning. As always, we appreciate your insight.
GRANGE: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired February 23, 2003 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the showdown with Iraq. President Bush met yesterday at his Texas ranch with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, to discuss the language of the new U.N. resolution that can pave the way for on Iraq.
U.S. officials say the next few weeks could be crucial.
The new resolution will be introduced to the Security Council this week, perhaps as early as tomorrow.
Iraq faces a March 1 deadline to prove it will destroy prohibited missiles, and chief inspector Hans Blix is due to address the Security Council again on March 7.
Well, if it does come down to war, the big question remains, will U.S. troops be allowed to launch an attack on Iraq from Turkey? The U.S. is offering Turkey an economic package worth billions of dollars if it gets the green light. If the U.S. gets a red light, how will that affect any military plans?
Let's get some perspective now from CNN's military analyst, Brigadier General David Grange. He joins us this morning from Oakbrook, Illinois.
Good morning to you, sir, thanks for being with us today.
BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.
COLLINS: I want to go head and start by asking a question -- if this is common place, to be offering -- the U.S. offering such huge amounts of money to a country, sort of as a usage fee -- would that be a fair way to term it?
GRANGE: Well, the United States provides a lot of support, a lot of security assistance and other aid to Turkey, as well as Egypt and Israel, as an example, in that region. A lot of money has gone to those countries, both for the military, as well as for economic and other civil type requirements.
I believe that the concern, of course, is the offset of economic problems in Turkey once a war starts. But there's a lot of other things that are not discussed that involves the use of Turkey in regards to attacking Iraq.
COLLINS: Well, let's talk about what it would mean to be able to go in through Turkey. Obviously that would give us the advantage of coming in from coming in from the south in Kuwait, and then from the north, right?
GRANGE: Well, exactly. You want to have the enemy focus -- you don't want the enemy to focus in one direction, you want the enemy to have to deal with multiple directions from an allied force -- both south, north, and hopefully, as well, west.
And so, Turkey is key to that. It gives you the land bridge that borders, of course, Iraq, and a capability to come in from the north by ground, not just by air.
COLLINS: And, you know, we're looking at a map right now, General Grange, of all of the different installations there in Turkey. There are eight, I didn't realize that there was so many, I'm familiar with Incirlik, but there are eight different installations there.
What can we get out of all of those?
GRANGE: Well, a lot of the installations that you're looking at right now for air support, to launch either fighter aircraft, or helicopters, but there's also ports involved. So, in other words, let's say that we send over several ships to offload a division of troops of their equipment, thousands of vehicles, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, trucks, et cetera, then they have to move by land, all the way across Turkey from west to east, to get to the area where they would cross the border into Iraq.
So, there's a time challenge here, offloading, assembling, test flying, test driving, test firing equipment, as well as moving to a launch site north of Iraq, across the border.
So, it's going to take several weeks to do that, if it's approved.
COLLINS: And if it's not approved, surely there are some alternatives as far as basing somewhere else to go in from the north?
GRANGE: Our armed forces always has alternatives.
COLLINS: Yes.
GRANGE: And we have a force projection capability that could what's known as a forced entry. In other words, you force your way into some place in Iraq's territory, the north or the west, and establish a lodgement, and then build up forces.
But again, though you can get a capability on the ground very rapidly, it takes a while to get a robust force built up.
COLLINS: Let's talk, just real quickly, General Grange, about the Gulf War here. Clearly the Iraqi soldiers went and hid in the desert; this did not work well for them. They probably are not going to do that again, and that's why we've been training so diligently for urban warfare.
Can you ever really be prepared for urban warfare, in such a complex and unpredictable sort of environment? And what sort of advantage do the Iraqi soldiers have?
GRANGE: Well, for our forces and our allied forces that are going to participate with us if we go, you never 100 percent, you know, in other words, there's always something you have to do, because information comes in, it changes your planning, it changes some of the requirements, whether it be the type of enemy you're facing, or the terrain you have to move in, or rivers you have to cross, or villages you have to go in and clear, whatever the case may be.
So, it's always requirements that come up, and it's a constant challenge to maintain this peak of readiness. I don't believe -- going back to your other point -- I don't believe that the Iraqi military will do much in the desert itself, they'll take advantage of the villages, or river crossing sights, built up areas, where, again, they can hide among civilians and they can use the structures of the buildings for cover.
COLLINS: All right, General David Grange, thank you so much for being with us this morning. As always, we appreciate your insight.
GRANGE: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
