Posted on 02/27/2006 8:22:02 AM PST by george wythe
Germany denied on Monday that its intelligence officials obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's defence plan for Baghdad and passed it on to U.S. commanders a month before the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The allegation that two German spies operating in the Iraqi capital before the war provided key military information to the United States -- at a time when the Berlin government was voicing strong public opposition to a U.S. invasion -- appeared on Monday in an article in the New York Times.
[snip]
A BND spokesman was even more categorical: "I would say the article is incorrect on all points."
(Excerpt) Read more at in.today.reuters.com ...
Two German intelligence agents in Baghdad obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's plan to defend the Iraqi capital, which a German official passed on to American commanders a month before the invasion, according to a classified study by the United States military.Somebody is not telling the truth.In providing the Iraqi document, German intelligence officials offered more significant assistance to the United States than their government has publicly acknowledged. The plan gave the American military an extraordinary window into Iraq's top-level deliberations, including where and how Mr. Hussein planned to deploy his most loyal troops.
We've been told Saddam never believed the US would attack.
Of course if it had been the reverse, the Germans passing information to Saddam Hussein about US intentions, that would be unproblematic, or even something for the NYT to commend the Germans for in an editorial.
If Germany's position is that Saddam posed no threat there shouldn't have even been any German intelligence agents in Iraq. No threat, why keep tabs?
You can say that again.
The NYT article also focuses on the Egyptian and Saudi help, despite the public pronouncements by those governments that they were not helping the US.
In other words, the US asked friendly governments with hostile populations for help. They friendly governments helped us. Then the New York Times discloses the secret arrangement.
Can you tell me who actually benefits from this? Our friends, allies, and friendly regimes cannot give us any secret help without the MSM disclosing the details.
Who is leaking this damaging information?
This is treasonous. Even if President Clinton were in power, I would never approve of ratting out on America's friends.
Do you remember who told us that?
Jay Rockefeller made a trip to Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia and told them President Bush was set on invading Iraq.
Perhaps, but he made more than adequate contingency preparations for the invasion. He devised the basic plan to retreat into the Sunni triangle and conduct this kind of insurgency well ahead of time.
NYT apparently has/had unfettered access to our intelligence services.
Fake, but accurate. From Yahoo:
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany denied on Monday that its intelligence officials obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's defense plan for Baghdad and passed it on to U.S. commanders a month before the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The allegation that two German spies operating in the Iraqi capital before the war provided key military information to the United States -- at a time when the Berlin government was voicing strong public opposition to a U.S. invasion -- appeared on Monday in an article in the New York Times.
The report suggests that German intelligence officials offered much more significant assistance to the United States than their government has publicly acknowledged.
But German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm and the country's BND foreign intelligence agency said key details in the report were incorrect. Wilhelm declined to respond to repeated questions about whether its general thrust was accurate.
"The allegation that two BND agents had Saddam Hussein's plan for defending the Iraqi capital and, one month prior to the start of the war, passed it on to the United States -- as described in the New York Times today -- is false," Wilhelm told a regular government news conference. "The BND and the government had up until now no knowledge of such a plan."
A BND spokesman was even more categorical: "I would say the article is incorrect on all points."
Any evidence that German agents provided key military information to Washington would be a major embarrassment for officials in the government of Gerhard Schroeder, who was chancellor at the time.
Schroeder lost last year's election to conservative Angela Merkel, but some of his Social Democrats hold important positions in her governing coalition. Current Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was Schroeder's chief aide, responsible for overseeing the security services.
According to the New York Times report, the Iraqi defense plan provided the American military with an extraordinary window into Iraq's top-level deliberations, including where and how Saddam planned to deploy his most loyal troops.
The paper said its report was based on a classified military study prepared in 2005 by the U.S. Joint Forces Command.
RISK OF INQUIRY
The German government has said it had two BND agents in Baghdad during the war, but it has insisted it provided only limited help to the U.S.-led coalition.
In a report released last week, the government said the agents supplied U.S. officials with information on civilian sites that should be avoided in bomb raids.
But it also acknowledged they forwarded descriptions of the Iraqi army and police presence in Baghdad, including in some cases the geographic coordinates of military forces.
The 90-page report is part of a larger text given to a parliamentary oversight committee that has been investigating reports the BND helped the United States select sites to bomb during the U.S.-led invasion.
The Greens, junior partners in Schroeder's government at the time of the invasion, and the Left Party have called for a parliamentary inquiry which would require current and former German government officials to testify under oath.
But for that to happen, Germany's other main opposition party, the Free Democrats (FDP), would need to join them.
"If this information is confirmed, it would of course be a dramatic twist," Max Stadler, legal expert of the FDP, told Deutschlandfunk radio.
The New York Times, citing the study, said that after the German agents obtained the Iraqi defense plan, they sent it up their chain of command.
The paper said that in February 2003, a German intelligence officer in Qatar provided a copy of the plan to an official from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who worked at the wartime headquarters of General Tommy Franks.
The Iraqi plan called for massing troops along several defensive rings near Baghdad, including a "red line" that Republican Guard troops would hold to the end, the paper said.
(Additional reporting by Mark Trevelyan)
Was this a crime?
And it's busy using the access to undermine our country.
How many people will fear cooperating with our intelligence officers since we can't keep a secret?
This leaking is criminal, IMHO
Thank you NYT for potentially endangering the lives of a bunch of innocent Germans.
Like we really needed the information.
Unfortunately, the US treasonous media are spitting on the Germans' face, exposing innocent Germans overseas to potential kidnapping and murder.
Leaking the name of a CIA officer involved in undermining US policy is apparently criminal, but leaking the details of intelligence operations in order to undermine US policy is apparently not criminal.
This is the way the game is played now, and this is how the press plays its role. As anyone knows, if you pass details of an intel operation directly to an enemy agent, you can be charged with a high crime and spend maybe the rest of your life behind bars. If, on the other hand, you leak the information to the newspapers, and the very same enemy agent can read the report with his morning coffee, you are immune from prosecution.
This loophole is going to remain until we get serious about counterintelligence, and start prosecuting the leakers. The reporter printing details of an intel operation should spend the next 10 years in Leavenworth. The CIA man who leaked the information to him should suffer a more definitive fate.
This isn't bean-bag we are playing here. We are at war, and war plans are being exposed on page one.
Sickening, isn't it?
if you pass details of an intel operation directly to an enemy agent, you can be charged with a high crime and spend maybe the rest of your life behind bars. If, on the other hand, you leak the information to the newspapers, and the very same enemy agent can read the report with his morning coffee, you are immune from prosecution.Accurate, succinct description of the current state of affairs
"In other words, the US asked friendly governments with hostile populations for help. They friendly governments helped us. Then the New York Times discloses the secret arrangement."
Makes one wonder what the NY Slimes has in store for our best friends, such as the AUE.
Thiry-five more months is not going to be enough time for Porter Goss to clear the traitors out...then Hillary will put one of her henchmen in charge of the CIA.
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