[Vision2020] Bush Considering Airstrikes Against Kurds

Tom Hansen thansen at moscow.com
Tue Oct 23 11:45:03 PDT 2007


Yes. George Jr. is considering an airstrike against those very same Kurds
that his daddy turned his back on back in 1991, those very same Kurds that
Gorge's daddy promised to aid in reclaiming Kurdistan if they (the Kurds)
mounted an assault against Saddam Hussein.  To make a long story short, they
did and he didn't.

 

http://tinyurl.com/2zn94p

 

Well, now George Jr. is thinking of killing some of them.

 

>From today's (October 23, 2007) Spokesman Review -

 

-----------------------------------

 

Bush considering airstrikes against Kurds, official says 

 

Bay Fang 

Chicago Tribune

October 23, 2007

 

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering airstrikes against the
Kurdish rebel group PKK in northern Iraq in an attempt to stave off a
Turkish invasion of Iraq to fight the rebels, administration officials said.

 

President Bush spoke with Turkish President Abdullah Gul by phone Monday in
an effort to ease the crisis. According to an official familiar with the
conversation, Bush assured the Turkish president that the United States was
looking seriously into options beyond diplomacy to stop the attacks coming
from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

 

"It's not 'Kumbaya' time anymore - just talking about trilateral talks is
not going to be enough," the official said. 

 

An ambush over the weekend by 200 PKK guerrillas left 12 Turkish soldiers
dead and 8 missing. The attack's sophistication and scope surprised not only
the Turks but also the United States and its Iraqi allies.

 

On Monday, an AP Television News cameraman saw a convoy of 50 Turkish army
vehicles loaded with soldiers and weapons heading from the southeastern town
of Sirnak toward Uludere, closer to the border.

 

The Pentagon has said 60,000 Turkish soldiers have deployed along the
border, the Associated Press reported. Last week, Turkey's parliament
authorized the government to send troops across the Iraqi border at any time
in pursuit of the PKK.

 

The north is one of the few relatively calm Iraqi regions, and the U.S.
fears an incursion by its ally Turkey could worsen the Iraq war. The
U.S.-Turkey alliance is particularly important to the Bush administration in
its conduct of the war. About 70 percent of the American military's air
cargo headed to Iraq is shipped through a U.S. air base in southern Turkey.

 

While the use of U.S. soldiers on the ground to root out the PKK would be
the last resort, the United States would be willing to launch airstrikes on
PKK targets, the officials said, and has discussed the use of cruise
missiles. But airstrikes using manned aircraft may be an easier option
because the U.S. controls the air space over Iraq, the officials said.

 

Another option would be to persuade the Kurdistan Regional Government, which
runs that part of Iraq, to order its pesh merga forces to form a cordon
preventing the movement of the PKK beyond its mountain camps, said U.S.
officials and experts. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with
Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani on Sunday to
request his cooperation in dealing with the PKK.

 

-----------------------------------

 

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"We're a town of about 23,000 with 10,000 college students. The college
students are not very active in local elections (thank goodness!)."

- Dale Courtney (March 28, 2007) 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20071023/adb9e2ea/attachment-0001.html 


More information about the Vision2020 mailing list