[Marxism] Russia Gave Iraq Intelligence On US Invasion

["Jeffrey Thomas Piercy, El Pato Comunista" <mqduck@xxxxxxxxx>]

My gut wants to be happy to hear this, but my brain reminds me that
Russia giving military aid to a "good cause" is no better than the US
doing so.

I like this line in particular:
"Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo of U.S. Joint Forces Command told a
briefing he viewed Russia's decision to give intelligence to Saddam's
government as 'driven by economic interests.'" What a fucking shock!


http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-03-24T203341Z_01_N24241162_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-USA-RUSSIA.xml

Pentagon report says Russia gave Iraq intelligence
Fri Mar 24, 2006 3:33 PM ET172
By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia provided intelligence to Iraq's government
on U.S. military movements in the opening days of the U.S.-led invasion
in 2003, a Pentagon report released on Friday said.

The report said an April 2, 2003, document from the Iraqi minister of
foreign affairs to President Saddam Hussein stated that Russian
intelligence had reported information on American troops plans to the
Iraqis through the Russian ambassador.

The intelligence, the document stated, was that the American forces were
moving to cut off Baghdad from the south, east and north, that U.S.
bombing would concentrate on Baghdad and that the assault on Baghdad
would not begin before around April 15. In fact, Baghdad fell about a
week before that date.

"Significantly, the regime was also receiving intelligence from the
Russians that fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a
diversion," the report stated.

Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Cucolo of U.S. Joint Forces Command told a
briefing he viewed Russia's decision to give intelligence to Saddam's
government as "driven by economic interests." The report noted Russian
business interests in Iraqi oil.

The revelations were contained in a report by the U.S. military's Joint
Forces Command assessing the Iraqi view of events in the opening months
of the war, from March to May 2003, based on interviews with senior
Iraqi officials and captured documents.

The report said a document sent to Saddam on March 24, 2003, stated,
"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 (sic) impossible, and that
they have changed their tactic," to avoid entering cities.

The report said this kind of information was "only one of the
fog-generators obscuring the minds of Iraq's senior leadership."

The report also dealt with the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction. President George W. Bush cited the threat posed by such
weapons as the prime justification for the invasion. No such weapons
ever were found.

The authors stated that the report was not intended to examine "the
technical extent of Saddam's WMD capabilities," noting that other
investigators had done so.

"But the tension created by the regime's steadfast refusal to 'come
clean' with regard to WMD shaped the actions and interactions of both
sides leading up to war," the report stated. "Saddam walked a tightrope
with WMD because as he often reminded his close advisors, they lived in
a very dangerous global neighborhood where even the perception of
weakness drew wolves."

It stated that there were benefits for Saddam to let his enemies believe
he had such weapons, even if he did not, while at the same time it was
critical to his survival for the United States and the rest of the West
to believe he did not have them.

"He had placed himself into a diplomatic and propaganda Catch-22," the
report said.

--
be-
bop
the beat
stops
and changes
over and over again
--
Join the ARMY (the nation's MOST POPULAR murder/suicide cult)!

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