WASHINGTON -- The United States has reached an agreement with Turkey on a package of $15 billion in immediate economic and military assistance that is expected to lead to approval in Ankara next week for American troops to use Turkey as a base in a war against Iraq, administration officials said on Friday. In another major development Friday, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix ordered Iraq to destroy dozens of its missiles with ranges that violate U.N. limits. Blix gave Baghdad a March 1 deadline to begin the demolition. The demand from Blix comes as the Security Council is preparing to receive a brief proposed resolution from the United States early next week. The resolution is likely to declare Iraq in breach of its disarmament obligations. The aid to Turkey is to include $6 billion in cash up front, with roughly $1 billion of this money used to leverage another $10 billion in American loans available for Turkey's immediate needs, the officials said. A few details on the timing and makeup of the loans remain subject to negotiations over the weekend. Despite the agreement on money, Turkey and the United States are still ironing out a separate point of contention, over the size and role of Turkish troops in northern Iraq, officials said. Large numbers of Turkish forces plan to enter Iraq with U.S. troops and carry out refugee relief efforts. American officials said they hope to resolve all the financial and military issues by Monday or Tuesday. But some acknowledged that the disagreement on the role of the Turkish military in Iraq could prove to be a long-term irritant, no matter how it is resolved in the short term. Turkey wants to send tens of thousands of troops into Iraq to prevent a repeat of what happened in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees jammed the Iraq-Turkey border and flooded into Turkey itself. But the United States is concerned that Turkey might use its troop presence to exercise control in northern Iraq. Meanwhile, in a four-page letter, Blix told Iraq to hand over to inspectors "for verifiable destruction" all Al Samoud 2 missiles and warheads, SA-2 missile engines configured for use in the missiles, machinery to produce missile motors, and a host of other items. Should Iraq fail to comply with the demand to destroy this short-range, battlefield weapons system, it would present compelling evidence of the United States' argument that Saddam never intends to disarm. American diplomats had no public comment on the letter, but some privately expressed great satisfaction. One diplomat said it was unlikely Iraq would comply with an order to destroy a missile system because it would be a strategic asset in the case of a U.S. invasion. The letter was issued after a day of back-to-back meetings and conversations as American and British diplomats pressed for quick passage of the new resolution. One council diplomat said that the initial draft of the resolution will likely declare simply that Iraq has failed to comply with U.N. demands. The United States and Britain need nine votes among the 15 Security Council members to pass a new resolution. Without referring to the missile demand directly, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Friday that if President Saddam Hussein of Iraq "complies" with weapons inspectors' requests "or leaves the country tomorrow, there will be no war." In Baghdad on Friday, Iraq's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan, offered to open talks with the United States. But there was no response from U.S. officials. Hidden within this report seems to be a catch-22 for Hussein. Blix is telling him to disarm the Al-Samoud missiles. However with Turkey on board, war is looking to be more and more inevitable. Why would Hussein want to destroy missles that could prove valuable during an American attack? If he doesn't disarm those missles, the new American/British resolution for force in Iraq could have true merit in the eyes of the rest of the U.N. Security Council. It looks like Bush "just played" Hussein and may have forced a war.
This was Turkey's only move really. There was going to be a war with or without them so they might as well take the cash and try to offset the economic damage that the war might cause.
