Newsweek
October 22, 2007
U.S. Edition

A Fight Over An Ugly Past

by Michael Isikoff

The House Committee vote to label Turkey’s mass killing of Armenians
during World War I as a "genocide" followed one of the most intense,
and unusual, battles on Capitol Hill in recent memory. The measure
passed despite a lobbying blitz from the Turkish government, which
hired an army of K Street lobbyists to fight it. The team included
former House majority leader Dick Gephardt, who as a congressman had
cosponsored genocide resolutions but switched sides in March when his
firm signed a $1.2 million-a-year contract to represent the Turks.
The flip-flop resulted in some awkward phone calls for Gephardt.
"Dick, if memory serves me, didn’t you used to support this?" New
York Rep. Eliot Engel says he told Gephardt during a call urging him
to oppose the measure. (Gephardt did not return calls seeking
comment.) President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates also made late appeals, fearing that the move would endanger
diplomatic relations as well as Turkish defense contracts with major
U.S. firms. Even Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, got
involved, warning visiting House members in Baghdad that the measure
would be a "big mistake," according to Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen,
because it might disrupt supply lines that run through Turkey.

But the opposition couldn’t overcome a well-organized and emotional
push by Armenian-American groups to get the U.S. government to
acknowledge the slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman
Empire, the precursor to modern Turkey. (Turkish officials call it a
"tragedy," not a "genocide.") When California Democratic Rep. Jane
Harman, a cosponsor of the resolution, suggested it was "the wrong
time" for a vote, she was confronted by protesters in her district
chanting, "Hypocrite, liar, genocide denier!"

The Armenian push was also boosted by campaign contributions: Annie
Totah, co-chair of the Armenian American Political Action Committee,
told NEWSWEEK she has raised "hundreds of thousands of dollars" for
Democratic candidates and recently joined Hillary Clinton’s finance
committee. (Clinton is a cosponsor of the resolution in the Senate.)
Totah, for her part, believes Turkey is overreacting. "They should
stop acting like this is World War III," she said. But Turkish
officials are unlikely to be mollified, especially if House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi follows through on a pledge to bring the measure to the
House floor. If that happens, Turkey is likely to retaliate, says
Egeman Bagis, a top adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan. How? By sending troops, over U.S. objections, into northern
Iraq to crack down on Kurdish rebels. "You can’t insult an entire
nation like this," he said.

–Michael Isikoff