NYT: 2 German Roles: Opposing War and Aiding U.S.

New York Times ^ | March 3, 2006 | RICHARD BERNSTEIN

[OESY]

...Next week a parliamentary committee is expected to meet in secret session to investigate a report... that German secret agents in Baghdad provided the United States military with Saddam Hussein's plan for the defense of Baghdad....

Almost nobody here, from left to right, is saying what many Americans would say about Germany's providing intelligence help to the United States, namely, that it would be a very good thing if it proved to be true.

Providing noncombat help in war to an ally, especially one as close as Germany has been to the United States, would seem to be normal behavior. So why is the allegation that Germany may have helped the United States with intelligence information a scandal at all?

There are several possible answers, beginning with the German public's clear moral distaste for the war, coupled with the government's implied promise that it would not be involved. That explains to many here why it is not just the opposition parties who are treating the disclosures as a scandal....

Largely lost in the debate is the fact that the government — headed at the start of the war by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who based his successful 2002 re-election campaign on opposing the war — gave a great deal of support to the United States without encountering any accusations of deception.

The Germans maintained tanks in Kuwait. They guarded American military installations in Germany, freeing American soldiers to go to Iraq. They opened German airfields to American troop transport planes... they are training Iraqi policemen at camps outside of Iraq.

Why is it so important that in addition to all these things, the Germans might have provided the Americans with information gained from intelligence agents in Baghdad?

"We were the most important allies of the United States, except for the British"...

[saganite]

The NYT is asking these questions? Is Bernstein their resident token conservative or a guest columnist?

[pepsionice]

I think the dimwits miss the entire point. The data was collected in Iraq...fed to the regional chief...and instead of letting the bigwigs back in Berlin decide what happens...it would appear he just turned it around and released it to the US. I'm guessing alot of BND folks are pro-US and really have a negative view of Schroeder and the liberal Greens. The German media may stand there and keep guessing if Schroeder said ok or not...but I doubt he ever even knew the data existed...and wouldn't have released anyway.