Reuters October 07, 2003
US dollar-diplomacy may have paid off in Turkey vote
By Adam Entous
Turkey's approval of peacekeepers for Iraq has put a spotlight on a key component of Bush administration policy -- dollar-diplomacy.
President George W. Bush pledged $8.5 billion in loans to Turkey in an agreement signed just two weeks before Tuesday's vote in the Turkish parliament, which will help relieve pressure on U.S. troops in Iraq.
Administration officials say there is no direct connection but that the loan deal requires Ankara to cooperate with the United States in Iraq.
Similar aid packages have been put together for Jordan and Israel as well as Pakistan, which like Turkey has been under mounting pressure from Washington to send troops to Iraq.
Bush has asked Congress to reduce Pakistan's debt by $500 million, or 25 percent, while Iraq-war allies Poland and the Czech Republic benefit from U.S. military loans, grants and contracts, officials said.
''We're not arguing virtue. We're just haggling over price,'' said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a nonprofit defense policy group.
''Bribery is probably too ugly of a word to describe it. But it's the way of the world that states do not have friends, states have interests, and we're prepared to help those who are prepared to help us,'' Pike said.
Democratic critics deride Bush for using aid as a strong-arm tactic to get less well-off countries to do the administration's bidding.
''As each new deal makes clear, it never had to be this way for our troops or for (American) taxpayers,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat. ''If we'd worked with our allies and the United Nations instead of roaring off to a trumped up war, the burden would be much lower now, and we'd be sharing it with other countries, not shouldering so much of it alone.''
Dan Feldman, a National Security Council director under former President Bill Clinton, accused the Bush administration of neglecting key alliances and says it now appears to ''the rest of the world that we're trying to buy cooperation.''
U.S. officials say the loans are needed to shore up the Turkish economy, and that parliament's vote will help repair Ankara's traditionally close ties with Washington, strained after it rejected plans in March to let U.S. troops attack Iraq from Turkish territory.
''We welcome countries coming in to provide even broader international participation in our efforts in Iraq and we will be working on the specific details with Turkey as we move forward,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
On top of the Ankara's loans and Islamabad's debt relief, Bush's $87 billion war budget includes $1.4 billion to reimburse Pakistan, Jordan and other ''key cooperating nations'' that provide logistical and military support in Iraq and Afghanistan.
That's in addition to the more than $230 million the Pentagon has already spent to airlift Polish troops into Iraq.
In the last month, Bush has also asked Congress to provide the Czech Republic with a $550 million loan to upgrade its air defenses. Meanwhile Mongolia, which has a small contingent of troops in Iraq, is pressing Washington to negotiate a free trade deal.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited.
