Rogue Forces

“Sir, it’s exactly because they have done a lot of raids, and they haven’t succeeded in stopping or even slowing the number of PKK attacks, that will prompt them to stage an all-out assault on the PKK in Iraq—not just the strongholds, training bases, and supply dumps along the border, but on the Kurdish leadership themselves. I think they’ll want to crush the PKK problem in one lightning thrust and kill as many as they can before American and international pressure forces them to withdraw.”

“Colonel?”

“The Turks simply don’t have the manpower, sir,” Wilhelm said. “We’re talking about an operation similar in scope to Desert Storm—two hundred and fifty thousand troops, minimum. The Turkish army is approximately four hundred thousand total, mostly conscripts. They would need to commit one-third of their regular armed forces plus another one-half of their reserves for this one operation. That would take months and billions of dollars. The Turkish army is simply not an expeditionary force—they’re built for anti-insurgent operations and self-defense, not for invading other countries.”

“General?”

“The Turks would be fighting from their own soil and fighting for self-preservation and national pride,” Patrick said. “If they committed half of their regular and reserve forces, they’d have close to half a million troops available, and they have a very large pool of trained veterans to use. I see no reason why they wouldn’t order a full mobilization of all forces for a chance to destroy the PKK once and for all.

“But the new game-changing factor in play here is the Turkish air force,” Patrick went on. “In years past, the Turkish military was mostly an internal counterinsurgency force with a secondary role as a NATO trip wire against the Soviet Union. Its navy is good but it’s tasked mostly for defending the Bosporus and Dardanelles and patrolling the Aegean Sea. The air force was relatively small because it relied on the U.S. Air Force for support.

“But in just the past two years that’s changed, and now Turkey has the largest air force in Europe except for Russia. They’ve been buying a lot more than surplus F-15s, sir—they bought all sorts of surplus noncarrier qualified attack aircraft, including the A-10 Thunderbolt tactical bombers, AC-130 Spectre gunships, and Apache gunship helicopters, along with weapons such as Patriot surface-to-air missiles, AMRAAM air-to-air missiles, and Maverick and Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles. They license-build F-16 fighters right in Turkey; they have as many F-16 squadrons available for action as we did in Desert Storm, and they’ll all be fighting right from home. And I wouldn’t discount their air defenses so easily: they can move their Patriots and Rapiers to oppose any action from us very easily.”

Vice President Phoenix thought for a moment, and then nodded to both men. “You both make convincing arguments,” he said, “but I’m inclined to agree with Colonel Wilhelm.” Phoenix eyed Patrick warily, as if waiting for an argument, but Patrick kept silent. “I find it very hard to believe that—”

At that moment a phone buzzed, and it was as if a Klaxon had gone off—everyone knew that no phone calls would have been allowed during this briefing unless it was extremely urgent. Weatherly picked up the phone…and moments later, his expression made everyone in the room take notice.

Weatherly went over to a computer monitor nearby, read a dispatch silently with a quivering lip, then said, “Top-priority message from division, sir. The State Department has notified us that the president of Turkey may announce a state of emergency.”

“Crap, I was afraid something like that might happen,” Phoenix said. “We may not get a chance to meet with the Turks to investigate the shelling. Colonel, I’ll need to speak with the White House.”

“I can set that up right away, sir.” Wilhelm nodded to Weatherly, who immediately got on the phone to the communications officer.

“I’ll get the briefings from the ambassador, the Iraqis, and the Turks, but my recommendation to the president will be to step up border monitoring.” The vice president turned to Patrick. “I still can’t believe Turkey would invade Iraq with three thousand U.S. troops in the way,” he said, “but obviously things are changing fast, and we’ll need to get some eyes up there. I assume that’s what your pregnant stealth bomber is for, General?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I’d get it ready to go,” Phoenix said as Wilhelm motioned to him that his link to the White House was ready, “because I think we’ll need it…soon. Very soon.” Weatherly motioned for him that his communications setup was ready, and he and the vice president departed.

Patrick hung back with Wilhelm as everyone else filed out of the conference room. “So, what do you have in mind, General?” Wilhelm asked. “Plan on sending your pregnant stealth bomber up over Turkey this time instead of just over our sector? That’ll really calm everyone’s nerves around here.”