Russia funnelled intelligence on United States troop movements in Iraq to Saddam Hussein during the early days of the war, according to documents contained in a Pentagon report released on Friday night.
Documents apparently from Saddam’s regime, seized by the Americans, described how Russia collected crucial plans from ”inside the American central command”, and channelled it via Moscow’s ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko.
The Pentagon did not explicitly vouch for the authenticity of the documents, but a spokesperson said they seemed to be part of a pattern of Russia acting in accord with its economic interests.
The 210-page report, which the Pentagon said was undertaken as part of an effort to understand the psychology of Iraq’s military response to the US attack, also portrayed a regime that was doomed as a result of Saddam’s poor leadership and his belief in his own propaganda. ”The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq’s military forces was the continued interference by Saddam,” it said.
One document, dated after the start of the air assault, claimed the US had decided that occupying Iraqi cities would be ”impossible”, and had changed their plans accordingly. Another seemed to have provided faulty information on the exact timing of the American assault on Baghdad that would have aided American forces.
A document dated April 2 2003 from Iraq’s foreign minister to Saddam said the attack would not begin until the US 4th Infantry Division, which had become stranded on ships in the Mediterranean after Turkey refused to cooperate in the invasion, arrived around April 15. This helped the US military to give the impression that the invasion was still some way off, in order to catch Saddam’s regime by surprise, the Pentagon report said. In fact, the US military began the attack before the division was in place and the Iraqi capital fell on April 9.
US forces moved into Iraq across the border with Kuwait but the report said the Iraqis were receiving intelligence which ”fed suspicions that the attack out of Kuwait was merely a diversion”. Another document, dated April 2, claimed Russia told Iraq that the US would cut Baghdad off from the south, east and north, concentrating its efforts around Karbala, where it would amass 12 000 troops and 1 000 vehicles — a claim that bears more resemblance to what actually happened.
”I don’t see it as an aberration [on Russia’s part],” Brigadier-General Anthony Cucolo, who was closely involved with the Pentagon’s Iraq Perspectives report, told a press conference. ”I see it as a follow-on to economic engagement and economic interests.” The report concluded that Saddam’s regime believed Russia and France ”would act on behalf of their own economic interests in Iraq to block any UN security council actions to authorise an invasion.”
Russia’s foreign and defence ministries were not answering reporters’ inquiries last night, and a spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Washington did not return calls seeking comment.
The report also found that ”the public confidence of so many western governments” in the existence of weapons of mass destruction had convinced even some senior Iraqi officials that such weapons must exist. ”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 added. ”Saddam walked a tightrope with WMD because as he often reminded his close advisers, they lived in a very dangerous global neighbourhood where even the perception of weakness drew wolves.”
It also said that Iraqi Fedayeen fighters had intended to carry out attacks in Europe, including in London.
Backstory
Russia was one of the most vigorous opponents of the US invasion of Iraq and vowed to veto any war-sanctioning UN resolution — not least because of its extensive economic ties to the Saddam regime. Moscow had trade deals worth many billions of dollars in progress with Baghdad, while its oil giant Lukoil had a large stake in the Iraqi oil industry, and Iraq owed Russia $7-billion in debt. Russia is also home to many of the officials and companies cited in the Volcker report on the oil-for-food scandal, whereby Saddam allegedly paid foreign politicians to lobby on his behalf.
Top Russian government ministers regularly visited Baghdad, and Russian military intelligence was thought to have operated in Iraq well after the invasion on March 20 2003. The Russian diplomatic mission fled Baghdad on the eve of the US assault on the city. Four people were injured when the convoy came under fire. The ambassador, Vladimir Titorenko, accused the Americans of firing the shots. – Guardian Unlimited Â