Mar 24 2006
Russians Spied For Saddam – For Oil?
Two plus two folks. First this:
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.
Plus this:
Sir, the Russian is coming….he is coming with the Minister of Commerce. I mean, he is coming to get his share.
Pretty much means we can conclude Saddam was bribing some people to blunt our efforts. I wonder if Iran is spending any resources to keep the UNSC off its back?
Washington, D.C.
October 9, 2002
9:30 – 12:00 A.M.
Joseph C. Wilson
Former U.S. Chargé d’Affaires, Baghdad; Strategic Advisor, Rock Creek Corporation
Geoffrey Kemp
Director of Regional Strategic Programs, The Nixon Center
MR. KEMP: Let me reinforce a couple of these points because I do think we should not lose sight of the fact that this is a terribly serious issue that Saddam Hussein will get nuclear weapons at some point in the future if he is not stopped. And whether it is done quickly through enrichment material coming in from outside or domestically, we can – you know, it can be either way. But I think the one thing the Bush administration is absolutely right on is that from 1998, when the UNSCOM left, there was no serious effort by the Clinton administration or anyone else in the international community to face up to this problem. The sanctions regime was collapsing, and aside from the British there was nobody else talking about this problem in a serious, hands-on way. So it has to be dealt with.
And what is ironic is that the most likely source for Saddam getting early supplies of enrichment material is the former Soviet Union. And before 9/11, the Bush administration was being very negligent on this score, and was in fact scaling back some of the programs that had been initiated before to help the Russians control their so-called “loose nuke” stockpiles. Now fortunately that has been reversed, and I would argue that this is as critical an issue – that is to say, getting security over the enrichment material in the former Soviet Union – as the actual Iraqi program itself. And thankfully I think we’re now focused on that.
MR. FREEMAN: Joe.
MR. WILSON: Having run into an Iraqi agent one time in my house in Baghdad, I can attest to the fact that they are pretty clumsy and not the most sophisticated or subtle.
And I think that Tony is absolutely right that if in fact they had pre-positioned weapons of mass destruction it would be a very dangerous tactic. I do think that what we need to worry about more is the potential for their using every weapon in their arsenal, and attempting to draw Israel into this broader war in the event that any military action we take against them is perceived by them as going after Saddam’s head.
Now, as for deterrence, what I would like to see us move towards is not doing anything but taking the smart military action for the right reasons rather than doing something not quite so smart. And I worry that we get bogged down when we don’t necessarily need to get bogged down, and that we go beyond tending to our knitting on this issue and get involved in something much more akin to our experience in Lebanon than we really want to do, and we turn the potential for victory into defeat. I will give this administration some credit for having mustered the political will to revisit the question of enforcement of the appropriate resolutions, of 687, on weapons of mass destruction. I think that’s important.
I think that anything that we contemplate militarily needs to be done in the context of 687, and I would argue that the problem with regime change as a rationale for military action is that it guarantees that Saddam will do everything we don’t want him to do. Disarmament is the rationale for – or disarmament or a robust military support of a U.N. inspections regime is something then that throws the onus of decision-making back onto Saddam. He can then decide whether he wishes to use weapons of mass destruction to defend against our efforts, in which case it then becomes – he then understands that it’s his head that’s at stake on this.
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:z6aTPZMUTNcJ:www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp+War+with+Iraq:+a+cost-benefit+analysis+/+Anthony+H.+Cordesman+%3B&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
“The night of August 1, Wilson had dinner with someone he describes as “Saddam’s principal arms buyer in Paris. It was so hot the air was literally shimmering right in front of the windshield. I get to this guy’s house, and it had been chilled to 45, 50 degrees … roaring fire in the fireplace and over in a corner a white baby grand piano and a guy playing classical music on it. The guy looks like a Pancho Villa figure, Mexican bandito…. We sat down to dinner, just him, myself, my wife, and five bodyguards-armed.”
In addition, I sincerely believe the Russians helped the Butcher move his WMD’s…
Still Think Diplomacy Would Have Avoided Conflict?…
Russia was actively assisting Iraq in preparing for the US led coalition effort to depose Saddam Hussein, including providing intel that was quite accurate as to composition of US forces and the battle plan that the US would use to enter Iraq and mar…..
“Evgenia Albats, a Moscow-based journalist who specializes in intelligence matters, said she suspected there was “at least a certain truth reflected in the Pentagon report”, considering Russia’s close relationship with Saddam. But she cautioned that didn’t necessarily mean the Kremlin was involved. “It is sometimes difficult to figure out whether certain steps were undertaken with the knowledge of top Russian authorities or whether those were steps undertaken by certain intelligence officers on their own”, Albats said. ”
http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=759