[Mb-civic] Russians Helped Iraq, Study Says - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Russians Helped Iraq, Study Says
Papers Show Hussein Was Tipped Off About U.S. Strategy During Invasion

By Ann Scott Tyson and Josh White
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, March 25, 2006; A01

Russian officials collected intelligence on U.S. troop movements and 
attack plans from inside the American military command leading the 2003 
invasion of Iraq and passed that information to Iraqi leader Saddam 
Hussein, according to a U.S. military study released yesterday.

The intelligence reports, which the study said were provided to Hussein 
through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad at the height of the U.S. 
assault, warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass 
Iraqi cities on their thrust toward Baghdad. The reports provided some 
specific numbers on U.S. troops, units and locations, according to Iraqi 
documents dated March and April 2003 and later captured by the United 
States.

"The information that the Russians have collected from their sources 
inside the American Central Command in Doha is that the United States is 
convinced that occupying Iraqi cities are impossible, and that they have 
changed their tactic," said one captured Iraqi document titled "Letter 
from Russian Official to Presidential Secretary Concerning American 
Intentions in Iraq" and dated March 25, 2003.

A Russian official at the United Nations strongly rejected the 
allegations that Russian officials gave information to Baghdad. "This is 
absolutely nonsense," said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the 
Russian mission to the United Nations. She said the allegations were 
never presented to the Russian government before being issued to the 
news media.

Russia was among the nations opposed to the U.S. war with Iraq. Russian 
President Vladimir Putin warned on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion in 
March 2003 that an American attack would have grave consequences. He 
urged Washington to resolve its conflicts with Baghdad peacefully.

The study gives no indication who the alleged sources inside the U.S. 
Central Command might have been, or whether American officials believe 
the Kremlin authorized the transfer of information to Hussein's government.

The Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle 
East and is headquartered in Tampa, did not respond to requests for 
comment. A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

The U.S. military and defense officials who released the study said the 
revelations about Russia in the captured documents came as a surprise. 
They said they believe the captured Iraqi documents are authentic.

"Certainly, sure, I was surprised," said Army Brig. Gen. Anthony A. 
Cucolo III, director of the Joint Center for Operational Analysis and 
Lessons Learned under the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk. He said he 
thinks the alleged Russian intelligence-sharing was linked to Moscow's 
commercial interests in Iraq. "Essentially, it's driven by economic 
interests," he told reporters at the Pentagon. "I don't see it as an 
aberration. I see it as a follow-on to economic engagement." Retired Lt. 
Col. Kevin M. Woods, the project director, said he has "no reason to 
doubt the Iraqi documents."

The 210-page study, called the Iraqi Perspectives Project, draws on 
declassified information from an internal U.S. military report that was 
based on the examination of more than half a million files of Iraqi 
documents and dozens of interviews with former senior Iraqi military and 
political leaders. Some of that information remains classified.

The study offers little analysis of the consequences for the U.S. 
military of the alleged Russian-supplied intelligence, which was 
received by what the study depicts as a hopelessly confused Iraqi chain 
of command.

One document, for example, was sent to Hussein as rumors swirled in 
Baghdad that the main American military push would come not from the 
south -- as it in fact did -- but through Jordan into western Iraq, a 
misperception that U.S. Special Forces units operating throughout the 
western desert were seeking to create.

"Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the 
Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a 
diversion," the study says, citing the March 25 document.

Another captured Iraqi document, dated April 2, 2003, said Russian 
intelligence had reported to Hussein more detailed and potentially 
damaging information: The Americans had their heaviest concentration of 
forces, 12,000 troops and 1,000 vehicles, near the Iraqi city of Karbala 
and were moving to cut off Baghdad.

In fact, the Army's 3rd Infantry Division and other U.S. forces at the 
time were making a precarious move through a narrow strip of land known 
as the Karbala Gap, where they anticipated major resistance from the 
Iraqi Republican Guard and possible chemical or biological weapons attacks.

One senior Republican Guard commander, Raad Majid Rashid al-Hamdani, 
issued a warning in line with the Russian intelligence when he told 
Hussein's son Qusay that the main U.S. attack was coming past Karbala. 
But Hamdani was largely ignored by Qusay Hussein and other generals, to 
his dismay, he told the authors of the study while describing the 
internal debates in an interview. "It was the kind of arguments that I 
imagine took place in Hitler's bunker in Berlin. Were all these men on 
drugs?" he said.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution, said 
the passing of information on U.S. troop movements during combat, if 
true, constituted "a stark betrayal." He added: "I think we should be 
demanding a fairly clear explanation from Moscow."

But Celeste A. Wallander, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at 
the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that although 
Russia probably had intelligence on U.S. war plans, she is skeptical 
that the Kremlin would have ordered that it be passed to Hussein's 
government.

It is more likely that a "freelancing" Russian official such as the 
ambassador in Baghdad personally shuttled the information, she said.

"If it were the case that the Kremlin had approved passing along what 
the Russian military knew about American war planning, that would be 
extraordinary," Wallander said.

"If it were ordered, it would be a direct action that would in effect 
help another country to use more effectively their military forces 
against U.S. forces."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/24/AR2006032400996.html?referrer=email
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