At first glance, you think President George W. Bush should have peered a bit more deeply into Russian President Vladmir Putin’s soul: it turned out that the Russian may have been Putin on the US on when it came to Iraq:
As U.S. troops moved toward Iraq in 2003, Saddam Hussein received intelligence about their battle strategy and troop movements from a Russian ambassador, according to a Pentagon report.
The Russians claimed they obtained the information from sources inside the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, and conveyed it to Hussein via the Russian ambassador to Iraq, the report said.
Russia dismissed the report on Saturday. “Such unfounded accusations have been voiced regularly,” said a Russian spokesman. “We do not see fit to comment on these insinuations.”
In the 21st Century, with the death of the Cold War, Russia is supposed to be America’s friend. But with friends like these, as the saying goes…
But, wait – according to the New York Times, there could be yet another explanation:
The information in the military study, an analysis based on captured documents and interviews with Iraqi military and political leaders, makes it difficult to get a clear picture of the Russian spy operation. It says a captured Iraqi document cited “information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha,” in Qatar.
But the study notes that some information obtained by Iraq from Russian sources was false, raising at least the possibility that it was circulated as part of a deliberate American campaign intended to fool or demoralize Iraqi troops and leaders. Military officers have disclosed separately that false war plans were part of the campaign, and it remains unclear whether any Russians may have played into that strategy.
The Central Command, responsible for American military actions from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, led the Iraq war from headquarters in Qatar, where access was highly restricted. But the documents cite the Qatar headquarters as the source of the intelligence.
“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 states, citing a document sent to Mr. Hussein on March 24, 2003.
The Russian report stated — inaccurately — that the coalition thrust into Baghdad would come from the west and would await the Fourth Infantry Division, whose entry from the north was vetoed by Turkey. In fact, the main lines of the offensive moved from Kuwait in the south before the arrival of the Fourth Infantry.
So: was Russia working to tip off Iraq, which was against American policymakers’ interests? Or was it spreading disinformation to bolster the U.S. war effort and working to advance U.S. policymakers’ interests?
The Los Angeles Times quotes some experts that indicate the idea that this was disinformation is not the prevailing view in many informed quarters:
Kevin Wood, a retired Army officer who served as the senior researcher and chief author of the study, said he was surprised when he learned of the Russian actions. Although there was little corroboration of the contacts beyond the documents themselves, his team had no reason to doubt their authenticity, Wood said.
But Frederick Kagan, a Russia and defense expert at the American Enterprise Institute, said the actions would not be out of keeping with other efforts by Moscow to advance Iraq’s cause internationally.
“We knew the Russians were opposed to the sanctions; we knew they opposed the war,” Kagan said. “I’m not terribly surprised.”
Analysts also said it would be important to learn whether upper levels of the Russian government were involved, adding that the signals were more likely to have come from diplomatic and intelligence agents in the region rather than from Moscow.
It also was unclear how much of the information was genuine intelligence and how much was educated guesswork.
Regardless, the revelations could undermine efforts to forge a united front against Iran’s nuclear program.
“I think we have to assume that we can’t trust the Russians to be impartial or even honest with us,” Kagan said. “The Russians have ties with the Iranians that are also very worrying.”
In other words: the U.S. has to be careful since there could be life-and-death security issues if it takes Russian leaders into its confidence about details on military matters.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.