US embassy cable - 04ANKARA2590

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ANKARA 002590 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
 
DEPT. FOR NEA/NGA, EUR/PD AND EUR/SE 
 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL, KPAO, OPRC, KMDR, PHUM, MARR, TU, IZ 
SUBJECT: IRAQ: TURKISH PRESS REACTION TO ABU GHRAIB ABUSE 
 
 
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Summary 
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1. (SBU) Abuse of prisoners by US forces at Abu Ghraib has 
dominated the Turkish press since the photos were published 
last weekend.  Drawing from reports in US publications, all 
major papers and broadcast news channels have reported on the 
abuses in detail.  They have also reported fairly and 
accurately on statements by senior US officials expressing 
regret and outrage about events at Abu Ghraib.  President 
Bush's comments to Arab television May 5 were widely 
excerpted in Turkish dailies.  Although the media has 
reported that disciplinary action has been taken against a 
number of the soldiers responsible, the overall 
characterization of US practices and the absence of controls 
in the prison has been extremely negative.  The story has 
drowned out any positive coverage of the US, including on the 
Cyprus issue, and has hobbled our ability to press for fair 
media coverage.  End Summary. 
 
 
2. (SBU)  Not surprisingly, editorial opinion in Turkey has 
been almost uniformly scathing.  Most columnists have argued 
forcefully that the abuses at Abu Ghraib make a mockery of 
the stated US intentions of bringing freedom and democracy to 
Iraq and the wider region.  Fehmi Koru, an influential voice 
in Islamist circles, argued that the three justifications for 
the Iraq war - WMD, Saddam's ties to 9/11, and the tyrannical 
nature of Saddam's regime - have all been shown as empty. 
The abuses at Abu Ghraib, he wrote, were the final blow, as 
"Saddam's brutality has been shown as amateurish compared 
with the brutality of the occupation forces."  Many have 
likened US practices to those of Saddam Hussein.  Several 
have gone further, comparing US abuses with Milosevic's 
treatment of Muslims in Bosnia or even Hitler's Germany. 
Mehmet Ocaktan, editor-in-chief at Yeni Safak, alleged that 
the abuses have turned The Greater Middle East Project into 
"The Greater Rape Project."  The Islamist-oriented press has 
portrayed the incidents as further evidence of Western 
contempt for Islam.  A columnist in Yeni Safak on May 7, for 
example, claimed that such abuses "would never have occurred 
if the prisoners were European Christians." 
 
 
3. (SBU) Secular editorialists have been no less forgiving. 
Ergun Babahan, editor-in-chief at Sabah, wrote that the 
occupation of Iraq has turned into a "war of insanity."  He 
added that it will be difficult for the US to bring charges 
against Saddam given the "manifestation of hypocrisy" seen in 
the photographs of abuse. 
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Some Coverage in Wider Context 
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4. (SBU) Several columnists have placed the abuses 
perpetrated by US forces in a wider context.  Mehmet Yilmaz, 
editor-in-chief of Milliyet, chastises "those who are howling 
about torture by US forces in Iraq but who remained silent 
during years of systematic torture in Turkey."  Hasan Cemal, 
another respected Milliyet columnist, condemns the actions of 
US forces at Abu Ghraib, but urges readers not to lose sight 
of the broader picture in Iraq.  "Instability in Iraq," he 
wrote, "will only serve the interests of Islamic extremists." 
 He then pointed out that "the soldiers in the photos do not 
represent the entire US military, Fallujah does not represent 
all of Iraq, and al-Sadr represents only a minority of 
Shi'ites."  Cengiz Candar, a columnist in Islamic-oriented 
Tercuman, accused the international media of hypocrisy for 
its harsh criticism of the US, "when they never made an issue 
of Saddam's massacres of women and children, routine torture 
and brutality, use of chemical weapons against his own 
people, and sending more than 300,000 Iraqis to death and 
burial in mass graves." 
 
 
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Drowning Out Pro-US Stories 
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5. (SBU) The reports of torture by US forces and the ensuing 
firestorm in the press have severely damaged our credibility 
and hobbled our ability to push for fair media coverage. 
When Haftalik magazine published additional sensational 
photos allegedly depicting US abuses against Iraqi women 
prisoners but which we are virtually certain were taken from 
a pornographic web site, we were unable to respond 
effectively.  Without finding an exact match of the photos on 
a porno site, our denials are dismissed out-of-hand.  Our 
overall public message on Iraq is taking a big hit, and even 
positive coverage of the US, particularly on the Cyprus 
issue, is being drowned out in the furor caused by the Abu 
Ghraib scandal. 
 
 
6. (U) Baghdad minimize considered. 
 
 
EDELMAN