U.S. Predator Drones Could Be Based In Turkey: Report

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. and Turkey are discussing how to continue cooperation against terrorist targets in northern Iraq after U.S. forces leave Iraq in December, including the possibility of basing Predator drones in Turkey, a U.S. official said Sunday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The U.S. currently is sharing Predator surveillance data with Turkey as part of a joint effort to combat the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which the U.S. considers a terrorist group and whose fighters have launched cross-border attacks into Turkey from northern Iraq. The Predators, capable of transmitting full-motion video, are flow from bases in Iraq.

The scheduled U.S. withdrawal from Iraq by Dec. 31 is presenting a number of diplomatic and potential military complications for the Obama administration. In addition to the issue of continued cooperation with Turkey against the PKK in northern Iraq, the U.S. also is considering whether to base backup or rotational training forces in Kuwait in order to provide the additional military support that American commanders say the Iraqis will need well beyond 2011.

Turkey is a NATO ally, but the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 strained Washington's relations with Ankara.

The Washington Post was first to report Sunday that the Obama administration is considering a request from Turkey to base Predators on its territory.

The Post also cited classified diplomatic reports, obtained by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks, which reveal that Turkey has repeatedly pressed Washington to escalate their involvement in the fight against the PKK and to eliminate the group before U.S. forces leave Iraq.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984 and keeps bases in northern Iraq. In recent weeks, the Turkish military has carried out airstrikes against suspected Kurdish hideouts in northern Iraq following a series of rebel attacks that killed dozens of Turkish soldiers.

Comments

[zaydesvox]

01:55 PM on 09/18/2011

The USA should be very careful in it's dealings with Turkey, especially viv a vis the Kurds! Drones should be our (USA) weapon. Don't sell em to anyone in the Middle East..Israel will invent its own drones! Drones and robatic weapons are the answer to this menace of Islamic Jihaist terror. Tanks and infantry are secondary..as 10 years the USA has wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan..a shooting gallery against our troops! Turkey is very anger at Europe for telling them "NO" to the EU! It's like saying we remember the Ottomens!

[Greg Mirsky]

04:31 PM on 09/13/2011

Traveling to, from and over Turkey might be more dangerous after Turkey decided to switch from US-made air defense "friend-foe" detection system to a home-made one. Can only hope they've either tested it thoroughly (well, there's no such thing as 100% test coverage, ever) and their air defense takes frequent coffee breaks (more realistic).

[ZippoDee]

11:52 AM on 09/13/2011

Bradley Manning leaked a video (see "Collateral Damage" on Wikileaks) showing how flawed 'eyes on' intelligence can be...so flawed as to blow up two Reuters staff - one holding a camera mistaken for an AK-47. If that kind of situation can happen, imagine the catastrophes possible using a remote war plane with a video camera. If it's not worth dying for it's not worth fighting for.

[moutonnoir]

01:12 AM on 09/13/2011

Soon the drones will be based 'everywhere' and flown by outsourced asian pilots working for military contractors, sub-contracted to provide riot-security for large corporations..

[moutonnoir]

01:22 AM on 09/13/2011

cowards weapons for coward "wars".

robotic airplanes vs. children and peasants...

[jmusic]

02:48 PM on 09/19/2011

.. Who will then be unstopable when sabotaging services to collect illegitimate fees and un reasonable prices for goods

[BigWillyG]

12:05 AM on 09/13/2011

What's the big deal? Drones are no different then manned aircraft and we've had manned aircraft in Turkey since Ike was president. Reading some of these comments sounds like quotes from British officers in the Revolution whining about how American long riflemen were "unsporting" that they dared shoot officers.

[omobob]

01:58 PM on 09/12/2011

Predators are the cowards of the battlefield. More despicable than a sniper, Predators are reviled as products of the cowardly Americans who kill without practical certainty of on the ground intel. Every time a Predator kills innocent civilians it causes further hatred of the Americans in the field. Predators are terror weapons like flame throwing tanks and snipers.

[chayne schaetzle]

05:35 PM on 09/12/2011

Um Snipers are on the ground in the thick of the fighting, I did alot of work with the snipers in my Battalion in Iraq. How exactly are the despicable? Despicable is strapping a bomb on a 10 year old child and sending them into a crowded part of town to blow them up killing dozens.

[omobob]

05:52 PM on 09/12/2011

Snipers in any military are the scourge of the battlefield among soldiers. When the Russians wished to instill fear in Chechyna they sent in snipers and flame throwing tanks. In the ME snipers have very high prices on their heads. ( Of course having worked a lot with snipers you already know this) Why? Because they instill fear in the enemy. Fear of the unseen and all knowing. The very nature of hiding, killing and slipping away makes them reviled by those they fight. Suicide bombers are an example of what an enemy will resort to when they are given no other means of destroying the enemy. Russian soldiers who strapped explosives to themselves and dove under German tanks is the stuff of legends.

[lowrodiay65]

12:02 PM on 09/12/2011

How about a shift away from death, destructiion and war?

[tnwalker10]

12:07 PM on 09/12/2011

I agree, rainbows, glitter and unicorns would be much better.

[darubo27usa]

03:45 PM on 09/12/2011

I rather make love, not war...but i doubt someone would pay me for the act the way gov. contractors and politicians do during these times.

[bi1]

12:00 PM on 09/12/2011

The drones are an attempt to build another industry that supposedly will take vast millions out of the defense industry and save the country a lot of money to this i say BULL,it is a joke.We will still wind up with advisers ,we will still wind up with the private corporations or pirateers making millions off the engagemet ,we will still wind up giving millions to countries for rebuilding and to keep us from rebuilding something we did not destroy we will still wind up with verifiers.The drones are great if they are called in like air strikes and could possibly eliminate a lot of air force airplanes but the ground forces will still need to be there.

[darubo27usa]

03:46 PM on 09/12/2011

yeah, but a pilot cost millions, a kid with the skills of nintendo and wii controls can do the job cheaper.

[bi1]

04:02 PM on 09/12/2011

No argument and our enemies or those thinking about it with a 6 year old might think twice before doing something that might make him mad,hey we have been looking in the wrong place for elected employees maybe we need to go on down to the 3 grade.

[CDRUSNret]

04:38 PM on 09/13/2011

Flying a Pred, Reaper, or Global Hawk is no Wii or X-box. They are being flown by military aviators. I'll bet the CIA pilots are of similar background.

[Middle America]

11:52 AM on 09/12/2011

Of course, Turkey is the most trusted ally we have. Our relationship is much stronger after their huge impact in the Korean war and sacrofise for the 8th army.

[darubo27usa]

03:47 PM on 09/12/2011

hey..what are you a wise guy...mmm? lol

[mac2jr]

11:48 AM on 09/12/2011

Why don't people running states and countries get smart. If the Kurdish want a separate country, why fight if for the next ten thousand years, just give it to them and then let them be. The same should be said of Palestine and of Texas..

[darubo27usa]

03:52 PM on 09/12/2011

Because the more you give to people, the more they want and take. It's human nature. ask the native americans. ask the walfare-career people. ask the spanish conquistadors, ask the neighbour that asked you for a cup of sugar one day, you wife next day..lol

[Joseph Scott]

04:55 PM on 09/12/2011

ask the top income earners, with low tax rates, who just want lower and lower rates.
(no matter that they once paid 90% in the 1950's era that they so longingly, and in their abiding racism, want to go back to...all white, all right, all the time.)

ask the corporations, complaining about their rates, meanwhile the corporate tax loopholes are so big you can drive a Brinks through them with plenty of room to spare...Exxon makes the biggest profits in the (wait for it)....history of the world since the beginning of ever... and pays no taxes. Nada. Zilch.

They just want more and more and more. It's human nature.

Meanwhile, I know people on disability down the street and two senior citizen friends and me and no one is getting rich or demanding more and more....they just don't want to live in the poorhouse, you know, the poorhouses that would house people, the felons, the miscreants, the predators from the street, the unwashed, the recently released, to eat with your parents.....
.

yes, it's human nature, that cause such things to look alright again to people, when the big greed takes place on the other end, where the money is.

[fattrucker]

11:46 AM on 09/12/2011

turkey is an ally like pakistan is an ally, the kurds have been our real allies in the area and deserve their own homeland. it funny how the turks sent that flotilla to break the israeli blockade in gaza and yet they are doing much the same thing to their neighbors the kurds. muslims are evil and they are our enemy where ever you may find them.

[darubo27usa]

03:48 PM on 09/12/2011

fattrucker...you're a wiseman indeed.

[digital]

11:09 AM on 09/12/2011

How about ending the corporate wars for corporate profit and rebuilding America?

Instead of sending millions of dollars overseas and in the pockets of rich people, let's spread the wealth FOR ONCE.

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

11:24 AM on 09/12/2011

Yeah! Because those corporations don't employ anyone! Their products and services materialize all on their own! Or gnomes come, in the middle of the night, and make it all for them for free!

[mac2jr]

11:38 AM on 09/12/2011

Products of war should not be produced.

[Parkite]

01:00 PM on 09/12/2011

It seems like ONLY products of war are a growth industry in America. Can't we produce peaceful products?

[KMoore4318]

11:35 AM on 09/12/2011

They may consider that, the day the people needing the help start making campaign contributions, it’s only spreading the wealth, if a portion makes its way back to Washington. Help anyone that may become a new voter, but what's the point of helping those determined to vote against you; and why help the ones that you already have their vote.

[fr33d0mhawk]

10:57 AM on 09/12/2011

We are so broke... "How broke are we?". We are so broke that we can't afford healthcare for our 9-11 first responders, but we can afford to let our multi-million dollar drones be used by foreign governments for piddly regional conflicts that have nothing to do with the US. We are told the pain we must suffer while the US military spends far more fighting a few pockets of very poorly fund terrorist groups than the US military spent during the Cold War planning for a global conflict of apocplyptic proportions. I am sure Obama will have no problem growing the US military by leaps and bounds while US bridges fall into rivers, afterall, its what the Teaparty wants.

[lumleyq45]

04:02 PM on 09/12/2011

I agree, eccept for your tea party refererence. You negated your argument with the latter.

[Joseph Scott]

05:15 PM on 09/12/2011

Interesting, though, that here is common ground between left and right, or their approximates.

It's no secret that the TP sometimes wants to spend money only on two things: tax breaks for the wealthy, or on fabulous shock and awe military adventures allowing them to wrap themselves in the flag while saluting and simultaneously shouting, "Praise Jesus and pass the ammunition!"
It's a winner.
For them.

For us?
Not so much, I'm afraid.
The continued erosion of the assets of the country through a paydown to military, while visually spectacular like a great fireworks show, has been known to sink empires without , or with newly lacking, manufacturing bases.

However, I respond once again with just consider this: the Reaganesque flag wrappings on a Palin or Perry while calling out for more of the same, more of the same! and that ought to just about do it for us....

.....hello new Britain. We're right behind you guys, as usual. Empire crashing follows empire crashing,

if the TP isn't curbed, or if rationality is lost, and the economic Titanic we are all dining and dancing on continues to find Icebergs of damning mortgages under the ice -- while some are locked in steerage for the voyage -- ah, the rivets spitting one by one, popping in a line across the seam and that shock you feel is the ice of the cold world, absent markets, rice, bread and breeding only war.

I hope not.

[Pod-gers]

10:57 AM on 09/12/2011

Not sure I see a big change of strategy.

[muck-raker]

10:54 AM on 09/12/2011

for those that have not read this short extraordinary read: Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball
Capitalism is dead, but we still dance with the corpse

By Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico
As an Anglo European white guy from a very long line of white guys, I want to thank all the brown, black, yellow and red people for a marvelous three-century joy ride. During the past 300 years of the industrial age, as Europeans, and later as Americans, we have managed to consume infinitely more than we ever produced, thanks to colonialism, crooked deals with despotic potentates and good old gunboats and grapeshot. Yes, we have lived, and still live, extravagant lifestyles far above the rest of you. And so, my sincere thanks to all of you folks around the world working in sweatshops, or living on two bucks a day, even though you sit on vast oil deposits. And to those outside my window here in Mexico this morning, the two guys pruning the retired gringo's hedges with what look like pocket knives, I say, keep up the good work. It's the world's cheap labor guys like you -- the black, brown and yellow folks who take it up the shorts -- who make capitalism look like it actually works. So keep on humping. Remember: We've got predator drones.

more: 2 min: http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/07/waltzing.html#more

[imonlyhereforthelaughs]

11:28 AM on 09/12/2011

Yes...because we should all be ashamed for being so successful.

I guess we should have all stayed in the stone age like the Africans and South Americans.

And you say nothing of how the Asian cultures have consumed themselves over the millenia.

[mac2jr]

11:40 AM on 09/12/2011

So you are saying that success and greed are the same?

[Middle America]

11:53 AM on 09/12/2011

Obviously, you've never been in South America !

[george3373]

02:14 PM on 09/12/2011

beautiful just beautiful. You quote one who is our neighbor and in Mexico which is currently under attack by drug lords and militarists. Yet his people strive to come here for their ability to survive taking life risks to do so.
Why not focus on your own land and its problems rather than demonizing that which his people seek
Not a very solid quote to follow

[muck-raker]

02:33 PM on 09/12/2011

it always amazes me to see somebody take an article and twist to suit their circumstances...Joe Bageant was a resident of Virginia, USA until he died several months ago. your post is downright disturbing