Global Policy Forum

By Stephen J. Hedges and Catherine Collins

When U.S. and Turkish officials meet this week to discuss Turkey's potential role in any war with Iraq, zthey will also review an offer of U.S. aid. The multibillion dollar offer may look like so much diplomacy but is, in fact, a bid--the price the Bush administration is willing to pay for the use of Turkey's military bases, airfields and ports.

The U.S. is offering more than $4 billion in loans and grants, according to a Western diplomat in Istanbul, which represents a "significant step forward" in the Bush administration's efforts to add a critical ally to its "coalition of the willing" against Iraq.

"The United States has presented what we consider to be a credible offer," the diplomat said. "We have tried to design a package to give Turkey as much flexibility as possible."

The package reveals Washington's eagerness to secure the use of Turkey as a vital land bridge into northern Iraq. It also illustrates the powerful economic and diplomatic levers that President Bush wields as he rallies allies against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Who's trading what

In the Persian Gulf region alone over the past two years, the United States has sold, lent or given away an estimated $7.5 billion worth of weaponry, other military equipment and training assistance, according to State Department figures. Recipients have included such vital U.S. allies as Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

The deals include advanced fighter jets, radar systems and missiles. Airfields are being expanded. Military bases are being renovated.

In return, the United States has won the right to build bases, house troops and use sovereign airspace if it wages a war against Iraq.

Many of the same countries recently provided vital support, such as airfields, during the U.S. war against Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, foreign military assistance--mostly grants to buy U.S. weaponry--has increased $500 million, to more than $4 billion for fiscal 2003, State Department documents show.

Administration officials say the aid has been one of the most effective means of finding and sustaining foreign support for the global war on terrorism.

"We provided money so they could . . . participate in doing what we were asking them to do," said an official involved in the program. "Security assistance . . . is a tool of U.S. national security and foreign policy."

Analysts and critics, however, say the administration's use of arms as a diplomatic carrot has some potentially dangerous downsides, including a lack of control over the military hardware being provided.

'A coalition of the bought off'

The coalition of the willing, said security analyst Loren Thompson, "is really a coalition of the bought off."

"If the Bush administration wants a coalition of the willing, it had better give them a reason to be willing," said Thompson, who directs the Lexington Institute, a public-policy think tank. "But when you have to buy people off to do it, you have to think about the risks."

Others contend that the United States is busy arming nations that had been prohibited from receiving lethal U.S. weapons because of poor human-rights records and abusive militaries. Those countries include Yugoslavia, Uzbekistan and Indonesia.

They also say the U.S. policy of trading arms for support may serve to fuel regional conflicts with a wave of modern and highly effective weaponry. "Who your friends are today may not be your friends tomorrow," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst with the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

"Look at India and Pakistan. They're hot and cold as U.S. friends. Do we really want to be selling them our hottest weapons?" Stohl asked. India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed archenemies engaged in an ongoing, low-intensity conflict over the border region of Kashmir. The U.S. restricted military sales to both before Sept. 11, 2001.

After the terrorist attacks in the United States, however, both have become vital American allies. And both have gotten increased U.S. military aid. Pakistan has received $1.2 billion in arms, including helicopters, radar systems, six used C-130 cargo aircraft, armored personnel carriers and F-16 fighter jets. The U.S. has given India $78million in air defense and artillery-spotting radar, Sea King helicopters and training aircraft.

Cold War strategy revisited

Swapping guns for favors is one of the oldest games in the diplomatic repertoire. It ran rampant during the Cold War, which for many nations not directly involved was not so much an ideological struggle as it was an opportunity to squeeze arms, financial aid and a convenient alliance out of the United States or the Soviet Union.

"Everybody has a shopping list when we want to come in," said Milt Bearden, a former senior CIA official who directed the supply of U.S. Stinger missiles to Osama bin Laden and other Islamic rebels fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

"This is the reality of what's going on now, and it's time-honored. But I'm not sure I'm critical of it. You've got to do stuff," Bearden added.

The war on terrorism, and the building standoff with Iraq, have reordered some of the deck chairs that were scattered when the Cold War ended. With the United States racing to find allies, countries again have been willing to go along--for a price.

Potential allies, the administration official said, "are certainly looking to see what the benefits of a relationship with United States are going to be. As we approached countries in Central Asia, where we had no national security relationship before the war [on terrorism], it was one of the things that we did to make sure that we had a security relationship that wasn't just one-way."

Nowhere have those relationships had greater ramification than in the Persian Gulf region, where for more than a decade the United States has been shipping arms and assistance.

$1 billion in aid for Jordan

Jordan's agreement last week to allow some U.S. forces on its soil points up just how effective the promise of such aid can be. In the 1991 Persian Gulf war with Iraq, then-King Hussein remained neutral; his county shared both a border and a brisk trade with Iraq. This time, however, King Abdullah II, the late monarch's son, apparently has thrown in with the Americans, and he has his reasons. For one, Abdullah's government must wrestle with the uncertainty of Saddam Hussein's presence and threats from Al Qaeda-linked cells in Jordan. For another, the Bush administration has promised to provide $1 billion in assistance to Jordan in exchange for overflight and troop-basing rights. Before that pledge, Jordan had received $223 million in U.S. military aid in the past two years, according to State Department figures.

As the possibility of war against Iraq has neared, Turkey has remained a holdout. So far, Ankara has officially refused U.S. requests to use its bases and ports, but its reluctance may be part domestic politics, part bargaining chip. And the United States is sweetening the pot.

Turkey has long been a recipient of U.S. military equipment and loans. It has an estimated $5 billion military loan debt with the United States, which might be negotiated away as part of a new aid package, and it has received $65 million in outright military grants from Washington since Sept. 11, 2001, when the terrorist hijackers struck. Also, Pentagon officials have said they are willing to spend up to $300 million to improve the facilities U.S. forces might use in Turkey. And a $324 million U.S. Export-Import Bank loan may be used to allow Turkey to buy 14 SH-60 Seahawk helicopters, according to the Pentagon.

While Turkish leaders once were adamant against cooperation, they have in recent days softened their stance. The National Security Council said Friday that it would recommend to parliament approval of the limited use of bases by U.S. forces. Turkish law requires such a vote. Though nothing is certain, it increasingly appears that Turkey will agree to the U.S. requests once the aid package is hammered out.

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