Did Russia provide Saddam with US war plans -- and if so, what should be consequences?

JO: This is the potential of influencing US-Russian space cooperation both
in current projects and future possibilities. The Russians have got to make
a
big protestation of innocence and accusations of evil intent at the
publication
of the suspicions (and the documentation -- they've got to claim forgeries).

There are lots of discussions on this story, based on captured Iraqi
documents that provide
written proof that Russian officials provided Iraq with extremely important
tactical military
intelligence about the disposition and plans of US armed forces. What I
haven't seen discussed
is a corollary to the Russian action regarding their intentions -- since
they must have counted
on the Iraqis writing down their revelations for distribution, they must
have been relying on
the hope that Iraq would WIN the war (or at least, not lose it, and Saddam
stay in power)
and those documents would never fall into US hands. How many hundreds, or
thousands of
more US military casualties were these guys hoping to inflict on us for that
end?


http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/...ves/006600.php

Today's Washington Post coverage of the Russian perfidy in 2003 contains an
interesting revelation from the Russians themselves which makes clear the
administration's fury over their espionage on behalf of Saddam Hussein
during the invasion. The release of the Pentagon study came before the US
informed the Russians that they had discovered the smoking guns in the
captured Iraqi intelligence:

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. [emphasis mine --
CE]


Under normal circumstances with a country viewed as a diplomatic partner, if
not an ally, both nations would engage in discussions about this kind of
information before making it public, probably through high-ranking
diplomats. The aggrieved nation would at least demand an explanation prior
to showing its hand. The failure to do so by the US shows that this
development has George Bush mad enough to expose Vladimir Putin and his
government to the kind of political damage that could restart the Cold War.
That may be because Bush understands that, just as with 9/11 and its
precursor attacks, that war has already been declared by our enemy.

Make no mistake about it, this goes far beyond just a little friendly
coaching and the protection of Russian assets. Ann Tyson and Josh White
point out one specific battle where the Russians supplied excellent
intelligence not only about our positions but the strategy we used to
isolate Baghdad. The Russians accurately predicted that we would make a
dangerous move across the Karbala Gap, where the US expected an attack in
force by the supposedly premiere Republican Guard forces. An Iraqi commander
took the information to Saddam and his sons, where his counsel was ignored.
Had they reacted properly to the Russian data, we could have lost a lot of
men in the Karbala Gap.

The Post quotes Michael O'Hanlon from the center-left Brookings Institute:

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."
It's telling that we didn't do so before we made this public. The message we
sent the Russians says that we will not trust them in the next international
crisis -- the one in Iran. The remote nuclear-fuel processing deal is dead
regardless of the Moscow-Teheran talks, and the US will probably push them
out of the negotiations altogether from this point forward.


More details he
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/...ves/006599.php

ABC News has the story but adds the obligatory question mark to the end of
it:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/...1734490&page=1

Associated Press:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189050,00.html

Russia denied it a few hours ago, he
http://en.rian.ru/world/20060325/44799183.html
and their intelligence agency guys said it was 'revenge' against Russia.