| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Lady Libertarian" |
| Date: |
24 Mar 2006 02:26:21 PM |
| Object: |
The Russians are our "friends"??? |
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189050,00.html
Pentagon: Russia Gave Saddam War Intel
Friday, March 24, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Russian government provided Saddam Hussein
with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans during the
opening days of the war in 2003, according to a Pentagon report
released Friday.
The unclassified report does not assess the value of the
information or provide details beyond citing an Iraqi document
that says the battlefield intelligence was provided to Saddam
through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.
A classified version of the Pentagon report, titled "Iraqi
Perspectives Project," is not being made public.
Whether by chance or design, one piece of Russian intelligence
actually contributed to an important U.S. military deception
effort. By telling Saddam that the main attack on Baghdad would
not begin until the Army's 4th Infantry Division arrived around
April 15, the Russians reinforced an impression that U.S.
commanders were trying to create to catch the Iraqis by surprise.
The attack on Baghdad began well before the 4th Infantry arrived,
and the Saddam regime collapsed quickly.
As originally planned by Gen. Tommy Franks, the Central Command
chief who ran the war, the 4th Infantry was to attack into
northern Iraq from Turkey, but the Turkish government refused to
go along. Meanwhile the 4th Infantry's tanks and other equipment
remained on ships in the eastern Mediterranean for weeks -- a
problem that Franks sought to turn into an advantage by
assaulting Baghdad without them.
(Story continues below)
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Based on a captured Iraqi document -- a memo to Saddam from his
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, dated April 2 -- Russian
intelligence reported through its ambassador that the American
forces were moving to cut off Baghdad from the south, east and
north, with the heaviest concentration of troops in the Karbala
area. It said the Americans had 12,000 troops in the area, along
with 1,000 vehicles.
In fact, Karbala was a major step on the U.S. invasion route
along the Euphrates River to Baghdad. The Karbala assault was
launched April 1. A key bridge over the Euphrates, near Karbala,
was seized on April 2, permitting U.S. forces to approach Baghdad
from the southwest before Iraq could move sufficient forces from
the north.
The Pentagon report also said the Russians told the Iraqis that
the Americans planned to concentrate on bombing in and around
Baghdad, cutting the road to Syria and Jordan and creating enough
confusion to force Baghdad residents to flee.
The Pentagon report, designed to help U.S. officials understand
in hindsight how Saddam and his military commanders prepared for
and fought the war, paints a picture of an Iraqi regime blind to
the threat it faced from the U.S. invaders, hamstrung by Saddam's
inept military leadership and deceived by its own propaganda.
"The largest contributing factor to the complete defeat of Iraq's
military forces was the continued interference by Saddam," the
report said.
While Saddam disastrously miscalculated, the U.S. military also
erred in areas beyond the well-known failure to realize that the
Baghdad regime had no weapons of mass destruction, according to
the 210-page report.
U.S. officials believed Iraq would set its oil wells on fire as
part of a scorched-earth policy, and the invasion plan was
constructed in ways meant to get U.S. troops to the southern oil
wells before they could be torched.
The new report said, however, that while captured Iraqi documents
show that there were plans made at the regional or local level to
destroy the northern and southern oil wells, Saddam had expressly
forbidden it.
--
Lady Libertarian - United States of America
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| User: "Server 13" |
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| Title: Re: The Russians are our "friends"??? |
24 Mar 2006 02:35:30 PM |
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Lady Libertarian wrote:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189050,00.html
Pentagon: Russia Gave Saddam War Intel
Friday, March 24, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The Russian government provided Saddam Hussein
with intelligence on U.S. military movements and plans during the
opening days of the war in 2003, according to a Pentagon report
released Friday.
So what? We did the same for him while he was gassing Kurds.
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