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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Washington File

07 May 2003

Wolfowitz Criticizes Turkey for Not Backing U.S. on Iraq

(Deputy Defense Secretary's interview with CNN Turk) (5810)
In an interview broadcast May 6 on CNN Turk, U.S. Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz criticized Turkey for not supporting the United
States in the campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime or in
post-conflict goals for the region.
Characterizing Turkey's reluctance to allow the coalition to launch a
northern offensive into Iraq as a "big disappointment," Wolfowitz said
Turkey "was prepared to make it difficult for the Iraqi people to be
liberated, was prepared to seemingly do deals with one of the worst
dictators - somebody who has probably killed a million Muslims."
"Okay that was yesterday," Wolfowitz continued. "But if we are going
to have a new page, then let's have a Turkey that instead of looking
with suspicion at everything that goes on in Northern Iraq, instead of
saying -- 'Well, we don't care what the Americans' problems are with
Iran or Syria, they are our neighbors' -- let's have a Turkey that
steps up and says, 'We made a mistake. We should have known how bad
things were in Iraq but we know now. Let's figure out how we can be as
helpful as possible to the Americans,' and frankly that's going to
help Turkey's interests, because Turkey is going to be one of the
countries that benefits most and most immediately from an Iraq that is
prosperous and free and democratic."
"I'd like to see a different sort of attitude than I have yet
detected," he said.
In his criticism, Wolfowitz singled out the Turkish military for not
playing "a leadership role" on the Iraq issue. He suggested that,
without involving itself directly in politics, the Turkish military
could have said strongly that "it was in Turkey's interest to support
the United States."
He also said "anything that Turkey does with Syria or does with Iran
should fit into an overall policy with us, of getting those countries
to change their bad behavior." For Turkey to try to improve relations
with Iran and Syria at this juncture is "absolutely the wrong way to
go," he said.
While acknowledging Turkey has an important interest in Northern Iraq,
Wolfowitz said: "We can't any longer have unilateral action" on
Turkey's part. In the long run, he said, Turkish military forces
should not be needed in Northern Iraq.
"The goal has got to be a free and democratic Iraq where Northern Iraq
is never again a sanctuary for terrorists to be attacking Turkey," he
said. "When we are confident about it, then there is absolutely no
reason for any Turkish presence. But if there's going to be a
presence, as long as it's there, it clearly has got to be under the
direction and control of the coalition."
He said that, while he "wouldn't rule out" a peacekeeping role for
Turkey in Iraq, "right now we are looking to those people who were
with us in the coalition."
Asked how long the coalition would remain in Iraq, Wolfowitz replied,
"I think we are going to be around for a while."
He said he "can imagine a situation for some period of time where
Iraqis are increasingly or may be entirely running their own affairs,
but they say, "Look, until things are really settled down, we'd like
you around -- not actively telling us what to do but just being there
to keep other people out.'"
Wolfowitz dismissed the possibility of an Iranian-style theocracy
rather than a democracy emerging in Iraq. "Democratic tyranny is not
something that we could support," he said. "And I frankly don't think
that most of the Shia want a clerical tyranny over them."
Asked about the U.S. military presence at Incirlik airbase in Turkey
and reports that it may be downgraded, Wolfowitz replied: "We are not
the ones who said get out of Incirlik."
"We were told Operation Northern Watch [in Iraq] is finished, so
leave," he said. "We don't want to be in places where we are not
wanted."
He went on to explain that no decision had yet been made with regard
to the airbase, "but certainly the experience we had in Incirlik is
not one to encourage us to think of it as an important installation in
the future."
As for repairing U.S.-Turkish relations, Wolfowitz urged a focus on
the future and "how to make Turkey safe by helping the Iraqis build a
stable democratic country."
"I think we have an opportunity for repair and cooperating on maybe
the most important project of this century, which is to build a free,
democratic Arab country to your south," the deputy secretary of
defense said. "And frankly, if we can work together to achieve that in
Iraq it will more than repair whatever damage has been done."
Following is a transcript of the interview:
(begin transcript)
United States Department of Defense 
News Transcript 
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE WOLFOWITZ INTERVIEW WITH CNN TURK 
(Interview with Cengiz Candar and M. Ali Birand of CNN Turk)
CNN Turk: Welcome Mr. Secretary with Cengiz it's been a bit tight you
can imagine to come over to Washington you know to see for 36 hours so
if jetlag I think we can manage that but thank you for giving your
time.
Wolfowitz: Thank you. To have the two distinguished journalists like
you here - it's a great privilege for us.
CNN Turk: That's great but let me fire the first shot. We've had, we
know how keen you are around Turkish American relations. We've had a
wonderful relationship starting Korea and the Cold War, Afghanistan
whatever you name it. But something went wrong, dreadfully went wrong.
We started with strategic alliance with strategic relationship.
Strategy is gone the relationship I don't know how it's going, and in
the meantime we are having two different versions, one version from
Pentagon and one version from State department, but yeah we've had a
bit of trouble but it's no problem. We want to have your view on those
relations. Where are we standing? Is it the crisis or what happened?
Wolfowitz: I think we had a big disappointment. But it remains the
case that this has been a strong alliance over many years. I think it
will continue to be a strong alliance and it remains the case that
Turkey is a very important country in this era because it's a country
with a Muslim majority that has a strong democratic tradition and I
think it remains the case that Turkey can be an important model for
that part of the world that we are trying to move in a more positive
direction. But I don't think if we want to sustain this strong
alliance and indeed strengthen it in the future then we ought to
understand what went wrong, we ought to understand the nature of that
disappointment and some of it has to do with, if you like, the
U.S.-Turkish bilateral piece of it. But I think it's more helpful to
think of the disappointment in terms of the failure to understand what
was going on in Iraq. From a U.S. Turkish point of view there is good
news and bad news. The good news is that a majority of the parliament
did vote to support us in the things that we asked for. The bad news
is that because of the procedural issues that wasn't a big enough
majority to get it done and that many of the institutions in Turkey
that we think of as the traditional strong support is the alliance
were not as forceful in leading in that direction.
CNN Turk:  Which traditional alliance are you talking about?
Wolfowitz: Well I think you know which ones I mean but I think
particularly the military. I think for whatever reason they did not
play the strong leadership role on that issue that we would have
expected. But I think the bigger disappointment has to do with the
general failure of the Turkish public reflected also in the
government, about what the stakes were in Iraq and that here you have
a neighbor with an overwhelmingly Muslim population where the people
were suffering under the worst dictators in the world. And one would
have thought that Muslim solidarity would have led people to say let's
help the Americans liberate these people and that isn't what happened.
Okay, that's past. We are now in the present and future. The present
and future is there's a spectacular opportunity in Iraq to help these
newly liberated people achieve their real potential and I think that's
what we need to work on together, Turkey and United States, and I
think what Turkey needs to do is look into its democratic soul and
say, yes we believe in democracy, we believe in democracy for Muslims
and Arabs. There's an opportunity now, whatever happened in the last
few months, there's an opportunity now to work with the Americans to
build that in Iraq. Let's seize that opportunity and do everything we
can as Turks to support it.
CNN Turk: But if you make a prognosis of what went wrong earlier,
since you mentioned for example the military -- the traditional
institution which had strong connections to the United States -- did
not play a leadership role, so for the future to repair the
relationship and bring it back to its original level that means that
you have to need a leadership role to be played by those who haven't
played it. What kind of a role the military might have because after
all the military is not working in Turkey's parliament political
parties (inaudible)?
CNN Turk: And they have been criticized by getting involved in
politics.
Wolfowitz: I'm not suggesting you get involved in politics at all. I
mean, I think, all I'm saying is that when you had a issue of Turkey's
national interest and national strategy I think it's perfectly
appropriate, especially in your system, for the military to say it was
in Turkey's interest to support the United States in that effort.
CNN Turk:  Didn't they say that?
Wolfowitz: I don't know. My impression is they didn't say it with the
kind of strength that would have made a difference. But look - let's
not dwell too much on the past.
CNN Turk:  Let's stick to the past.
(Laughter)
Wolfowitz:  No.
Voice: Were you surprised that when you heard that the Turkish
Parliament rejected it?
Wolfowitz:  They didn't reject.
CNN Turks:  Passed through?
Wolfowitz: They didn't pass through. In fact let's, I don't know how
many Americans are going to watch this program but let's not keep
mis-educating people that Turkey's parliament rejected it. They did
not get the majority that was needed and it's true we did not get the
full support that was needed.
CNN Turks:  Thanks to the Turkish constitution.
Wolfowitz: And I think at the end of the day, I think Turkey has paid
a bigger price for that than we have. I think for one thing the whole
economic package could have been something much more substantial. But
I also believe we would've achieved more rapidly the kind of stability
in Northern Iraq that is as much in Turkey's interest as it is in
ours. But we are where we are today, and achieving stability in
Northern Iraq remains in Turkey's interest, it's very much in our
interest, we need to work together to make sure that that's achieved.
I think it can be achieved.
We've been saying repeatedly and very emphatically, starting with my
trip in Ankara back in July, that we oppose an independent Kurdish
state in Northern Iraq, that we strongly support maintaining the
territorial integrity of Iraq. I think it's very interesting and
positive that today both of the key Kurdish Barzani and Talabani are
in Baghdad trying to become major forces in a future integrated Iraq.
That's a positive development, which we all ought to welcome. We need
to work together to make that happen. We need to work together,
although it's mainly going to be our responsibility, but to make sure
that the very difficult property claims that people are making in the
north get resolved peacefully and not through force.
There are going to be a lot difficult problems in the period going
forward. And I just, you know, every so often I hear some people
suggesting, well the right reaction for Turkey to this bump in our
relationship is, well we should make more friends with Iran and more
friends with Syria. Excuse me, that's absolutely the wrong way to go.
The right way to go, as I say, is to think about where the real
democrats, where does democracy need to be supported. It's going to be
a huge boon to Turkey when the sanctions are lifted from Iraq, when
trade can move easily across the borders and when Iraq begins to
realize it's real potential as a democratic neighbor of Turkey.
CNN Turk: This is also a matter of debate within Turkey itself but
whenever an argument is brought it is not the time to have a close
relations with Iran and with Syria at juncture of history. Some come
up and say that they are our neighbors, when I mean some, they are
officials following Islam, they are our neighbors, it's very natural
that we would have these kinds of relationships. And look, the
American Secretary of State goes to visit Syria and historically the
American Secretary of States like they are one of them, Warren
Christopher visited 22 times, never stepping his foot in Turkey. So if
this kind of an argument comes, we and Turkey feel that there are
different signals coming from Washington. Which kind of signal we have
to be the recipient more than the other?
Wolfowitz: I'm sorry I think there's one signal with respect to Syria.
This Secretary of State - I'm not going to talk about previous ones -
this Secretary of State went to Syria and delivered a very tough
message about how Syria needs to shape up and stop supporting
terrorism and stop interfering with Iraq. That's the message that
ought to come through and I think anything that Turkey does with Syria
or does with Iran should fit into an overall policy with us, of
getting those countries to change their bad behavior. In the meantime,
it seems to me, I know this is an American view but, if I were
Turk[ey] I'd believe I would say in spite of whatever has gone wrong
in the last year, Turkey's strongest friend in the world is the United
States. Turkey's real interests lie with the United States, and when
we look at our neighbor to the south this newly liberated country
called Iraq, we have the same interest the Americans do in keeping it
a unified country and making it a democratic country and helping to
change the economy from this sort of Stalinist structure that the
Iraqis have lived under for 30 years into the kind of free enterprise
economy that's going to be a huge boon to Turkey and all the
neighbors.
CNN Turk: So in a way, you are not against Turkey's having relations
with Syria and Iran, but you want the same message to go to those
(inaudible).
Wolfowitz: Absolutely, I mean of course they are your neighbors. But
you want them to behave as neighbors. You don't want to suggest that
well they can ignore the message of the Secretary of State of the
United States because our powerful Turkish friend is ignoring it also.
I think it's very important that we be coordinated.
CNN Turk: We need to discuss some misunderstanding as well for the
time being and for the future of Iraq between two countries, two
allies, Turkey and the United States, and they are recently. We have
two different interpretations about an incident that took place in
Northern Iraq near Kirkuk between the American forces and the Turkish
Special Forces. According to the American media, the Turkish Special
Forces were trying to bring weapons into (inaudible) Kirkuk, they were
intercepted by the American military there and then escorted back to
Turkish frontier. Why would Turkish Foreign Minister say it was a
humanitarian aid convoy which was assisted by some security personnel,
so they were there to secure the free travel of the humanitarian aid
convoy. So what's the interpretation since we are speaking here in the
Pentagon? What happened?
Wolfowitz: Well I don't think I want to get into it. You want to do
history, I want do the future. What happened shouldn't have happened.
And it was clearly something that was done ignoring everything that we
have said. But it was fixed. I don't think it'll happen again. I think
Secretary Powell and Foreign Minister Gul had a very good clear
discussion about it and hopefully we are on a better track now. But
that's a good example, I think, of where, whatever Turkey does in the
north -- and we understand Turkey has important interest in the north
-- it's got to be coordinated now through the coalition, through
General Franks. We can't any longer have unilateral action in Northern
Iraq.
CNN Turk: Why the question for the future then? On the same issue
there is a small Turkish military presence in Northern Iraq.
They had to record it with the coalition forces you are saying, right?
Wolfowitz:  Well as long as they are there, yes.
CNN Turk:  And the short coming future?
Wolfowitz: The goal ought to be, they shouldn't be needed in the long
run. But let's in the meantime...
CNN Turk: That's what I'm after, I mean now there's a Kurdish
authority - kind of a self-rule in Northern Iraq. Who happened to
become America's close allies in the last war effort there? So in the
coming future if they come up and say that we don't need anymore, the
Turkish military presence despite it's small (inaudible) military
personnel. In such a case, by being the real leader to the element in
the area, in Northern Iraq what (inaudible)?
Wolfowitz: The real military elements in Northern Iraq are the
coalition forces. We now have very substantial heavy American forces
up north and that is the real military element and everybody better
listen to the instructions of General Franks, including any armed
groups, any Kurdish groups. But I think the goal has got to be a free
and democratic Iraq where Northern Iraq is never again a sanctuary for
terrorists to be attacking Turkey. We've got to find a way to make
sure that doesn't happen again. When we are confident about it then
there is absolutely no reason for any Turkish presence. But if there's
going to be a presence, as long as it's there, it clearly has got to
be under the direction and control of the coalition.
CNN Turk: Do I understand well? You are saying that for the near
future this Turkish presence, Turkish military presence in Northern
Iraq will not be needed?
Wolfowitz: I didn't say near future, I said the goal is to get to a
situation where Northern Iraq is stable, is not a source of trouble
for Turkey, and then it certainly isn't needed. I don't know how
quickly we get to that goal. It's impossible to write timetables for
Iraq, everyone wants us to say, when are you going to be out, when is
this going to happen, when is that going to happen, and we keep saying
we'd like things to move as quickly as possible but we are going to
stay as long as we are needed and we are going to have to call signals
as we go.
I believe, I haven't kept count of the days, I think this is around 50
days since the start of the war, we are not yet two months past the
start of the war and there's a lot more work to be done.
CNN Turk: But only 15 days ago you yourself had said that minimum 6
months.
Wolfowitz: Well let me again, since what I said, it's close to what I
said, what I said more precisely, is in 1991 we left Northern Iraq
after 6 months, not without leaving some troubles behind us as you
know as well as I. But I said Northern Iraq is simple compared to the
whole country. I think we are going to be around for a while. There
are two different issues here. One is how long are we going to be
around. The other issue is how quickly can Iraqis begin to run their
own affairs. And I can imagine a situation for some period of time
where Iraqis are increasingly or may be entirely running their own
affairs but they say look, until things are really settled down, we'd
like you around - not actively telling us what to do but just being
there to keep other people out.
CNN Turk: You said that Northern Iraq should not be trouble for Turkey
as well. You touched everybody but you didn't touch PKK yet. Is it, is
PKK will be staying there because that's the main reason for Turkish
military?
Wolfowitz: PKK is a terrorist organization. I don't think we can
tolerate a terrorist organization in Northern Iraq. How we deal with
that is a difficult issue, I can't give you the answer right now but I
think we are absolutely clear in agreement with Turkey and I think
with the major Kurdish groups that these people are terrorists and
troublemakers, and we don't need that kind of trouble.
CNN Turk: As long as you are there and after the transitional period
you will let the Iraqis to administer themselves, there will be less
American military presence it seems and it's spoken that Americans,
British and Polish troops will function as peacekeeping troops there.
Now Turkish military is very enthusiastic to take part in peacekeeping
mission in Iraq but it seems that the name of Turkey is not mentioned
for the future of. Why don't you want Turks as peacekeepers?
Wolfowitz: Well let's start with what we do want. The British and
Poles were with us from the beginning. Each of them has offered to
organize a division of peacekeepers and that is going to meet our
immediate needs. I wouldn't rule out a role for Turkey, but I think
right now we are looking to those people who were with us in the
coalition to build a core of the peacekeeping function. My experience
is if you talk to Iraqis, almost every one of their neighbors,
including Turkey, is viewed from a historical perspective that is not
always positive. Let me just put it that way and I think we need to
work through....
CNN Turk:  They don't want the Turks there?
Wolfowitz: That's putting it too strongly. I'm trying to put it not
just diplomatically but with some subtlety, because I remember,
starting in 1992 and I think right up through 1996, when people said,
oh we can't possibly have Turkish peacekeepers in Bosnia because of
four centuries of history. And I kept saying, well but hasn't anyone
noticed that the history of Turkey in the last century is very
different from the Ottoman period? Well it turns out that there are
Turkish peacekeepers in Bosnia, there are Turkish peacekeepers in
Kosovo, and all that history has been put behind people, and I think
based on that I would say it's possible to get to a similar situation
in Iraq. But you don't do it overnight.
CNN Turk:  I have a commercial break.
CNN Turk: You are putting the records, I think, straight and what you
are saying is very important now in order to be really (interruption).
CNN Turk:  You understand Turkish so I don't need to.
Wolfowitz: I wish I could - a word here and there, I wouldn't
exaggerate.
CNN Turk: We've had a very interesting in order to put the mood here,
for me to understand, the mood here first is, Secretary Rumsfeld was
in Incirlik and he didn't even call people in Ankara. In
subcontracting, the Turkish firms are a bit, not too much welcomed, we
seem that there's a bad feeling, a kind of bitterness, a kind of a
punishment and now we are hearing that Incirlik is going to be
downgraded and moving on. What's going to happen?
Wolfowitz: I suppose I could say we are not the ones who said get out
of Incirlik. It was the moment when one might have expected an ally to
say, okay, all of the restrictions are off, you use Incirlik for
anything you need to. Instead we were told Operation Northern Watch is
finished, so leave. We don't want to be in places where we are not
wanted, and we don't want to be in places where we may be wanted but
are no longer needed. As you may have noticed, when the Secretary was
[in] Saudi Arabia we came to a mutual agreement that with the threat
from Iraq removed, we can bring down our military presence
substantially. And frankly we don't go around looking to have more
military presence than is necessary.
CNN Turk:  So Incirlik is fading out?
Wolfowitz: It's hard to see what the purpose is. I mean I don't want
to say anything categorical at this point because I can't say that any
decision has been made. But certainly the experience we had in
Incirlik is not one to encourage us to think of it as an important
installation in the future.
I think that, I'll come back to what bothers me personally, quite
honestly and that is, for years and continuing to this day, I admire
Turkey because of Turkey's strong efforts to develop a democracy out
of a tradition that wasn't democratic at all. And I know some people
say, oh, but Turkish democracy is very imperfect. Most democracies are
imperfect, by the way. I still like Bernard Lewis' comment that you
should measure Turkey by where it came from not where it has to go
still. But I think of Turkey as a very important representative of
free democratic traditions in the Muslim world. And I think that is a
very important thing to stand for these days.
So to me the disappointment is that that country that I admire so much
was prepared to make it difficult for the Iraqi people to be
liberated, was prepared to seemingly do deals with one of the worst
dictators - somebody who has probably killed a million Muslims. Okay
that was yesterday. But if we are going to have a new page, then let's
have a Turkey that instead of looking with suspicion at everything
that goes on in Northern Iraq, instead of saying, well, we don't care
what the Americans' problems are with Iran or Syria, they are our
neighbors. Let's have a Turkey that steps up and says we made a
mistake. We should have known how bad things were in Iraq but we know
now. Let's figure out how we can be as helpful as possible to the
Americans, and frankly that's going to help Turkey's interests,
because Turkey is going to be one of the countries that benefits most
and most immediately from an Iraq that is prosperous and free and
democratic.
CNN Turk: What Turkey should do? Let's get a little bit more concrete.
Wolfowitz:  I imagine that Turks [sic].
CNN Turks:  You have expectations.
Wolfowitz: I'd like to see a different sort of attitude than I have
yet detected and maybe it's there. I haven't been to Turkey in a
little while.
CNN Turk:  Are you intending to come?
Wolfowitz: I'd love to come. I always love to come to Turkey. But I
think that Turks are creative, imaginative, intelligent people. I
think they can think of a lot more things than I can think of for how
Turkey can be helpful to a democratic Iraq. But stop thinking of it as
something bad that has happened. Stop thinking of it as a threat to
Turkey. There was a lot of, I think, confused thinking over the last
10 years that somehow Turkey would be safer with this horrible
dictator left in power. Well, he is out of power now. Let's figure out
how to make Turkey safe by helping the Iraqis build a stable
democratic country.
CNN Turk: This dictator that you mentioned, Saddam Hussein. If you
assume that he is alive and captured, where are you going to try him,
here in the United States or Iraq, because it's all the same, a matter
of?
Wolfowitz: There are a lot of people who have claims on justice
against him there. There are the Kuwaitis, there are the Iranians,
there are Americans, and of course the Iraqi people. I'll be happy
when he's either captured or killed. I think it will be a good thing.
And if he is captured, then we will have to sort out all of those
claims. But I'm speculating.
CNN Turk:  Will the capital punishment enforce?
Wolfowitz:  I'd be speculating.
CNN Turk: Our last five minutes, I want to just wrap it up. So what
you are telling us is that this strategic alliance or partnership is
over?
Wolfowitz:  Oh no, I hope I didn't say that.
CNN Turk:  No you didn't say that, but after, that's my deduction.
Wolfowitz: No I don't think so. I think it's suffered a
disappointment, a severe disappointment.
CNN Turk:  So it needs repair?
Wolfowitz: I think we have an opportunity for repair and cooperating
on maybe the most important project of this century, which is to build
a free, democratic Arab country to your south. And frankly, if we can
work together to achieve that in Iraq it will more than repair
whatever damage has been done. So maybe that's why I keep wanting to
focus on the future.
CNN Turk: So given the Shi'ite majority of Iraq and refer to what
Secretary Rumsfeld said earlier that the repetition of any Iranian
type regime is impermissible. How do you think that theocracy, the
chance of theocracy, to prevail over democracy, and how you will
(inaudible) if it would be a majority rule?
Wolfowitz: Well democracy is about more than majority rule. It's very
much, at least the way we use the term and we insist on the term. That
is why I keep saying free and democratic. Democratic tyranny is not
something that we could support. And I frankly don't think that most
of the Shia wants a clerical tyranny over them. They got rid of one
tyrant. They are not about to have another kind of tyrant. We had a
very interesting meeting here just last week with a group of very
distinguished Shia clerics from the United States, almost every one of
whom has taught Shia Arabs, ties to major communities in Iraq, and
what came through to me is that these are people who do believe in
religious freedom who had been denied religious freedom now for
decades. It was a marvelous thing that we saw during the (inaudible)
pilgrimage in Southern Iraq, that a million or two million pilgrims
came to Najaf and Karbala for the first time in 26 years. It was
completely peaceful. There were a few thousand people that organized
an anti-American demonstration. So what runs on all of the media? The
3,000 anti-American demonstrators.
CNN Turk:  You don't see any kind of religious (inaudible) Iran?
Wolfowitz: I see some Iranian meddling which worries me and I'm sure
there are people who have agendas that are undemocratic. But I think
if we can organize conditions that are stable enough for the Iraqi
people to freely and openly express what they want, I think there will
be an overwhelming rejection of those people who want to either
restore the old Ba'athist tyranny or impose a new Iranian-style
tyranny, or come up with some other kind of tyranny. Freedom and
democracy I think will - if we can create the conditions for the Iraqi
people, to express their views freely - we will be overwhelming
(inaudible).
CNN Turk: Mr. Secretary, I just wanted to refer to your idealism to
see democracy expanding in the Middle East and just to pose a kind of
a philosophical question to you.
Wolfowitz: I think I'm a realist, not an idealist. I do believe in
those ideals.
CNN Turk: Military action brought open the roads for the establishment
of democracy in Iraq. Could this be a rule to bring democracy to a
military action kind of a Machiavellian theme that ends justify the
means?
Wolfowitz:  No, no, no.
CNN Turk: Democracy is (inaudible) the military action. Who is next?
This is the question all around the region.
Wolfowitz: I don't think military should be used to impose a political
system on anybody. And what we have done is to remove a political
system that was imposed on people. But we did it because that
political regime, that dictator, was a threat to us.
There is no one model, but if I had to say a model that I like, it's
the models that we have seen in East Asia where countries have made
peaceful transitions to democracy largely of their own volition, the
way it happened in Korea, the way it happened in the Philippines. In
its nature democracy is something that should come from the people
themselves. But in Iraq, anyone who spoke for democracy was shot. In
Iran it's a little better. Seventy-five percent of the people were
able to vote for a different government, but 5 years later they still
have the same old government. So you can't say that's truly
democratic. What I think the impact of a democratic Iraq can be on the
region, is the impact of a positive example: the impact of
demonstrating that Arabs are capable of democracy so that people can
no longer say, whether they are local rulers or whether they are
foreign powers that, well gee, this may not be a good situation but
it's the best that these miserable people are capable of. I heard that
said about Koreans, I heard it said about Filipinos, I heard it said
about Taiwanese. I think it's false.
CNN Turk: Mr. Secretary I should say thank you and thank you very much
for joining us. I want one reply, yes or no. This administration is
going to back Turkey for EU membership or is it out of (incomplete)?
Wolfowitz:  Yes.
CNN Turks:  Thank you very much.
Wolfowitz:  Thank you, it was fun.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)



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