Wolfowitz Talks Turkey

ANKARA

THE INSIDE OF AN Air Force C-17 is like a warehouse. The cavernous dark green plane that shuttled Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and his delegation to England, Turkey, and NATO headquarters in Belgium last week logged more than 10,000 miles over four days, stopping for meetings with representatives of most of the U.S. allies important for the coming war in Iraq.

Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and the other "principals," as the big-wigs are called by their handlers, traveled inside a shiny silver pod that sits in the middle of the aircraft. Known as the "Silver Bullet," this chamber looks like a 1960s-vintage trailer. The inside of the pod has leather seats, a CD player, television, VCR, and secure cable and phone lines. If you have to be on a plane for 30 hours over the course of a few days, it's not a bad way to fly.

Still, the pod is luxurious only by comparison with the spartan accommodations provided for the rest of us. There are two rows of commercial-airline-style seats, each seating five, and seats for everyone else lining the walls of the plane and facing the middle. Six bunk beds are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Once the aircraft takes off, it buzzes with activity. Daily print journalists--there were five of them on this trip--transcribe interviews or write stories they'll file upon landing. Military support staff set up computer terminals and printers where they'll rewrite speeches, tinker with talking points, or draft debriefing memos after a visit. Air Force personnel in green one-piece suits dart about with the seriousness of purpose of a brain surgeon.

We took off Sunday night, December 1, and after a brief stop in London for a speech, mostly about Turkey, and a few hours of sleep on the ground, we flew to Ankara. The first thing you notice upon landing in the Turkish capital is an acrid smoky odor that hangs like a blanket over the entire city. After Wolfowitz makes a short, so-happy-to-be-here statement at the airport, we're whisked to a waiting motorcade--sedans for the principals and a small purple Hyundai van for the rest of us.

The drive to the ministry takes 45 minutes. Although the delegation has a police escort--three white Suburbans and a small fleet of euro-style Matchbox-sized cars--we're soon caught in chaotic midday Ankara traffic. The two lanes in each direction are clearly marked, but judging from the automotive anarchy around us, the signs have the force of mere suggestions. Our driver apparently knows only two speeds, too fast and stopped. A newspaper reporter who has been very quiet throughout the drive finally speaks up. He is Army green. "Anyone have a plastic or paper bag that you don't want back?" Thankfully, he's just being cautious and the delegation arrives without incident.

Secretary Wolfowitz is in Ankara to deliver an important message: We need to know where Turkey stands, and we need to know it soon. To that large end, the trip aims to accomplish several particular tasks: demonstrate U.S. support for Turkey's bid for admission to the European Union, reconfirm with the newly elected government a deal Wolfowitz negotiated with its predecessor back in July, giving the United States use of Turkish air bases for military intervention in Iraq, and push for permission to base U.S. ground troops on Turkish soil.

The Wolfowitz trip comes just one week before Saddam Hussein is required to give a "full, final and complete" declaration of his weapons of mass destruction, and is the first in a series of similar delegations intended to solidify support for removing the Iraqi dictator. The effort marks a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's public war planning--from discussing the Iraqi threat in general terms, to taking specific steps to eliminate it.

Wolfowitz explains that presenting Iraq with a serious threat of force is the only way to achieve a peaceful resolution to the conflict. "It's important that he see that he is surrounded by the international community, not only in the political sense, but in a real, practical military sense. And Turkey has a very important role to play in that regard. The more support we get from Turkey, the more chance, the better our chances are, of avoiding war."