Wolfowitz ordered Turkish special forces arrested in Iraq as retaliation for Turkey's non-support for Iraq invasion
On July 4, 2003, U.S. troops took prisoner in northern Iraq a group of Turkish Special Forces personnel. The Turkish troops were hooded and brutally interrogated by U.S. military personnel. After Turkey protested their troops' detention and treatment, the U.S. released the Turks without ever issuing an apology. The "Cuval Olay" (the "Hood Event") incident still sticks in the crawl of the Turkish government.
WMR has learned from senior Turkish government sources that it was Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz who issued the order to take the Turks prisoner in retalation for Turkey's decision not to support the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The current frosty relations between Washington and Ankara began after the reformist AK Party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan took office and Wolfowitz and other Jewish and pro-Israeli neocons immediately sought to isolate Turkey after its refusal to join the anti-Iraq "Coalition of the Willing." Wolfowitz and the Pentagon neocons were also aware of and quietly supported the Operation Sledgehammer plans of the Turkish military to overthrow the Erdogan government in a coup organized by the secret Ergenekon network.
As is the case with the Ergenekon right-wing network of false flag terrorists in Turkey, the Hood Event received little attention in the neocon-controlled U.S. media.
On May 6, 2003, Wolfowitz called Turkey's refusal to allow the international "Coalition of the Willing" to launch an invasion of Iraq a "big disappointment." Speaking on CNN Turk, Wolfowitz chided the Erdogan government by stating that the Erdogan government "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."
Wolfowitz also chided the Turkish military for not playing its traditional leadership role in Turkish politics, a history of a series of military coups against elected governments over several decades. Wolfowitz stated, "I think for whatever reason they [the Turkish military] did not play the strong leadership role on that issue [the invasion of Iraq] 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 . . ."
When the Turkish Special Forces were identified in Sulaymaniya in northern Iraq, Wolfowitz gave the order for U.S. troops to capture, detain, and use enhanced interrogation techniques on the Turkish troops. It was the first example in NATO's history of U.S. forces treating allied forces in such a manner.
Wolfowitz's criticisms of Turkey came at the same time that a cabal of Turkish Army, Air Force, Naval, and intelligence officers were preparing to overthrow the Erdogan government in a military coup.
The detention and interrogation of the Turkish Special Forces in Iraq, rather than mobilize support for a military coup against the Erdogan government, solidified Turkish public opinion, as well as key members of the Armed Forces not associated with Ergenekon and Sledgehammer, against the United States.
Sledgehammer was put into play from the moment Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won the November 3, 2002 general election and at a time the Bush administration was gearing up for its invasion of Iraq. Sledgehammer plans ebbed after Erdogan's government took office on March 14, 2003. The U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003, less than a week after Erdogan took office.
Wolfowitz tipped his hand in a speech in London on December 2, 2002 at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. After the AKP victory in Turkey's election, Wolfowitz quoted from Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, the patron saint of the Ergenekon coup plotters:
