[Marxism] CIA: German agents in Iraq "gave us direct support. They gave us information for targeting"

[Nobby <nobbytob@xxxxxxxx>]

http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1143133&tw=wn_wire_story

German spies deny guiding US bomb raids in Iraq  Thursday, January 12, 2006 
7:57 a.m. ET

By Mark Trevelyan, Security CorrespondentBERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's foreign 
intelligence agency  denied on Thursday a report that its spies in Baghdad had  
helped U.S. warplanes select bombing targets during the  invasion of Iraq, 
which the Berlin government had strongly  opposed.
German agents "gave us direct support. They gave us  information for 
targeting," NDR television quoted a former U.S.  military official as saying in 
a preview of a programme to be  broadcast later on Thursday.
 He said that on April 7, 2003 -- 18 days after the U.S.  bombing began -- the 
Americans had received a report that a  convoy of Mercedes cars, one of them 
possibly carrying Iraqi  President Saddam Hussein, had been sighted in a 
Baghdad suburb.
  The ex-Pentagon official said the U.S. Defense Intelligence  Agency asked the 
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's  foreign spy service, to send one of 
its Baghdad agents to the  suburb of Mansur to check the tip.
  After he confirmed the presence of the convoy, the report  said, a U.S. plane 
dropped four bombs on the target area,  killing at least 12 civilians, 
according to the report.
  A BND spokesman confirmed the presence of two German  intelligence agents in 
Iraq before and during the U.S.-led  invasion. But he said the report, also 
published in the  newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, was "false and distorted."
  "Contrary to allegations... we have to record for our part  that no target 
data or bombing coordinates were made available  to the parties conducting the 
war," the spokesman said.
  FOREIGN MINISTER UNDER PRESSURE
  The report threatened to embarrass Foreign Minister  Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 
who as chief of staff to then  Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had oversight of 
the security  services at the time.
  Asked if the Schroeder government knew of any BND support  for the U.S.-led 
war, Steinmeier told reporters simply: "No."
  Schroeder was elected to a second term in 2002 on a  platform of strong 
opposition to the looming war in Iraq,  declaring that Germany would not take 
part in any military  "adventure" there.
  The new report surfaced on the day his successor Angela  Merkel, was to 
travel to Washington to meet President George W.  Bush for the first time since 
taking office last November. Her  conservatives were in opposition at the time 
of the war.
  A German security source, speaking on condition of  anonymity, acknowledged 
the BND had shared information with the  United States during the bombing phase 
of the war, but only to  identify "non-targets" such as embassies, schools and 
hospitals  in order to spare them from being hit.
  He said other countries' agents had done the same, mindful  of the mistaken 
targeting of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade  during NATO's bombing of Serbia 
in 1999.
  The opposition Greens and Left Party demanded a debate in  parliament, with 
Greens parliamentary leader Renate Kuenast  saying any German help in U.S. 
bombing raids would be a  "monstrous action."
  The opposition is already piling pressure on the  government, especially 
foreign minister Steinmeier, over the  role of Germany's security services in 
the U.S.-led war on  terrorism.
  It emerged last month that German security officials had  questioned a 
German-Syrian terrorist suspect in a Syrian prison  in 2002 at a time when the 
government had told his lawyer it  had no idea of its whereabouts and had no 
access to him.
  Steinmeier was also forced last month to defend the  previous government's 
handling of the case of Khaled el-Masri,  a German citizen who was held by the 
United States for five  months in an Afghan prison before being released in May 
2004.




                
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