Russian Spy Agency Denies Pentagon Report ~

Russia's foreign spy agency denied Saturday that Moscow gave Saddam Hussein information on U.S. troop movements and plans during the invasion of Iraq, while analysts speculated the Pentagon claim was tied to a growing rift between the West and the Kremlin.

A Pentagon report Friday cited two captured Iraqi documents as saying Russia obtained information from sources "inside the American Central Command" in Qatar and passed battlefield intelligence to Saddam through the former Russian ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko.

"Similar, baseless accusations concerning Russia's intelligence have been made more than once," agency spokesman Boris Labusov said. "We don't consider it necessary to comment on such fabrications."

Yevgenia 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 the ousted Iraqi leader.

"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 told The Associated Press.

She also said the release of the Pentagon report probably had as much to do with the poor state of Russian-U.S. relations as their differences over the Iraq war, which along with other disputes have frayed a once promising partnership between Presidents Bush and Vladimir Putin that developed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Albats noted the report appeared on the heels of Putin's trip last week to China, which added to U.S. unease over strengthening Moscow-Beijing ties. That development has caused Washington to recognize "it had lost whatever leverage it had over Russia," she said.

"It wasn't just another visit to China, it was a statement addressed to the United States," she added. "There is concern in Washington that China plus Russia, combined, will present a real problem for the United States."

A leading Russian Internet news agency, Gazeta.ru, speculated the Pentagon report was released to affect the U.N. Security Council debate on what to do about Iran's nuclear program as Russia and China are resisting U.S. and European demands for a tough stand.

"The leak about Russian spies in Doha can be interpreted as pressure on Moscow, which has taken a tough, principled position on the Iranian nuclear question," it said.

Sergei Oznobishchev, head of the Institute of Strategic Evaluations and Analyses, also tied the report to increasing U.S. distrust for Russia.

"They are irritated by Russia's strengthening position in the international arena and its foreign policy course," Oznobishchev was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

The Pentagon report wasn't the first to raise questions about Russian help for Saddam's regime at the time of the invasion in March 2003.

At the time, Gazeta.ru reported that two retired Russian generals visited Baghdad less than 10 days before the U.S.-led offensive and speculated they were advising the Iraqi military. The report showed photographs of them receiving medals from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed.

Nezavisimaya Gazeta, a newspaper believed at the time to have well-placed contacts in Russia's military and intelligence spheres, reported in March 2003 that Russian intelligence agents were holding daily meetings with Iraqi officials.

The U.S. administration accused Russian companies of shipping prohibited equipment, including anti-tank missiles, night-vision goggles and electronic jamming devices to Iraq, possibly via third countries. Moscow vehemently denied the allegations.

The unclassified Pentagon report did not assess the value or accuracy of the information Saddam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline.

The Iraqi documents also left unclear who may have been the sources at Central Command's war-fighting headquarters, which is at Camp As Saliyah just outside Doha, the capital of Qatar. No Russians were authorized to be at the closely guarded base.

"there is no doubt in my mind. there is a heirarchy though, the ones at the top are controlled or are fellow travelers who actively seek to accomplish their goals.

the lemmings at the bottom are not *directly* controlled by the russians but follow the propaganda of those at the top.
this is done through multiple ways, ie news, education, etc.

if you've not seen this already:
Communist Goals (1963 congressional record)
http://www.uhuh.com/nwo/communism/comgoals.htm"

It was recently brought to my attention by another freeper and I found it hugely interesting.

Our thinking on this is virtually the same. At the bottom level, you have people in various movements that are generally not related to each other. These people really believe in the ideals of that movement including: environmentalism, gay rights, anti-racism, the rights of illegal immigrants, ACLU, Democratic Party, teachers unions, liberal churches, liberal synagogues, people who believe in the liberal child-rearing methods, members of the drug culture, Trotskyites, Marxists, Communists, UN supporters, members of the MSM, university professors, anarchists, Greens, etc.

These are Lenin's "useful idiots." Let's call them Level 1.

Above this, there is a level of people who are more aware---but still not totally aware. Obviously, I'm speaking schematically here. You could define more levels, but I'm sticking to the essential levels.

Lets call this group Level 2. In some senses, this is the most vital level. They have an awareness of the fact that their group is not what it seems to be. They understand that they are engaged in a deception. Yet, they themselves are deceived. People in this group have absolutely no knowledge of any connection on any level between their group and Russia. I'm completely convinced of this.

You might, at first glance tend to doubt this element of the structure. Indeed, from a simple perspective of overall efficiency, this element can be awkward. It would be more efficient if the Level 2 people had some inkling of the connection to Russia. The reason they do not is for the purpose of compartmentalization.

Victor Suvorov, GRU defector to Great Britain whose early books were published 1984 through 1987, illustrated compartmentalization very well in his books. He tells a story about what happened in Europe in World War II, sorry, I can't reference it were even remember which book it was. The Germans discovered a Soviet agent in Europe. They interrogated him which led him to other agents. They ended up rolling up basically the entire Soviet network in Europe as a result.

Since that time, the Soviets (and now no doubt the Russians) has been obsessed with compartmentalization. Suvorov provides many examples of this it is a story about being a GRU agent.

I have my own little experience in this regard. I'm sure you know who David Horowitz is. I suspect that you, as myself, hold him in the highest regard.

As you know, he is an admitted former communist. In fact, his parents were open Communists, though his communism, of course, was covert. Dispite the fact that he was a member of the upper echelons of the New Left, I have become convinced that he was in fact Level 2.

At the risk of boring those perusing the free Republic and yourself, I will discourse on David Horowitz at some length.

Through observing an exchange of his on the Internet with one of his enemies, combined with reading some of his books, I have come to understand the story of how he exited the Left. He had some kind of relationship with the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers needed an account. He had a friend who was an accountant, so he sent her to them. Apparently, they were not pleased with the results of the audit, because they murdered her.

This made such an impact on David Horowitz that he exited from the Left.

As you probably know, David Horowitz runs a web site (sorry I can't remember the name but you can find it easily by going to his Front Page Magazine web site) that extensively documents communist organizations throughout the United States. There is probably no person outside Russia and the Left in the world who understands communist influence inside the United States as well as David Horowitz.

But I had an interesting experience. It was about one or two years ago, sorry my memory is so bad that I can't be more specific. We were receiving Michael Reagan's radio show in my city at that time. One night, I was amazed to hear that Michael Reagan was second and David Horowitz took over as a guest host. I called him.

He was talking about terrorism that night. I was going to try to talk about my belief that the Russians are heavily involved with terrorism today, but I got tangled up in the initial approach. First, I complemented him on his excellent book, How to Beat the Democrats, and Other Subversive Ideas. His response was silence which I thought was odd, as if the book embarrassed him or he didn't want to talk about it publicly.

Then I started to work in into my topic by stating that the Russians had been primarily responsible for terrorism in the 20th century--- a statement I thought was obvious. However, Horowitz disputed my statement. He traced terrorism in the 20th century primarily to Yasir Arafat. Apparently, he is not aware of the book Red Horizons(1987), by Ion Pacepa, head of the Romanian KGB and effector to the U. S. There, Pacepa details how the Romanian KGB ran Arafat as an agent. This to me, makes it obvious that Arafat was indirectly run by the Russians. Interestingly though, Pacepa makes no mention of a Russian connection in regard to Arafat and his book.

But I digress. The point is, Horowitz viewed Arafat as some kind of independent Arab entity, not a Soviet agent. It seemed clear that he did not view 20th-century terrorism as an essentially Soviet affair. (I realize that technically, 20th-century terrorism did begin independently of the Soviets, in Algeria, but it seems quite clear that the Soviets rather quickly picked it up and made it their own thing.)

Needless to say, I was astonished to see Horowitz presenting this point of view. Of course, I did not know David Horowitz and cannot comment and a broad and general way about his beliefs and attitudes (other than what I read in his books and on the Internet.) I had this one brief personal contact with him.

Nonetheless, it made a striking impact on me. And while I will admit I am too lazy to check this out, I have a strong impression that all in his web site detailing communism in the United States, there is no indication of any connection to Russia.

Thinking about it, I made up some stories in my mind to fit the situation. Consider things from the KGB (FSB/SVR) point of view. Start inside Russia. The KGB needs people who are fundamentally ruthless. People willing to kill, people willing to betray, people willing to destroy other people in every imaginable way. Yet, inside Russia, there is surely a great motivation for people to join the KGB. Even people with natures not suitable for the KGB probably sometimes try to join.

Hence, we may assume that the KGB is in the that of evaluating people in a general way in terms of their morality, especially people who might potentially be part of the KGB. They would be sensitive to people having the appropriate morality to become part of their organization. We can further assume that the KGB does similar sorts of the valuations inside the United States--- particularly among Communists and other leftists.

The key question might be phrased like this--- is a particular person reliable or not. Can we count on them to kill, torture, blackmail, betray or do anything we tell them to do, or can't we? If the person is not reliable they are simply not going to be brought into the KGB. They might be utilized as some kind of low level snitch what they would not be brought in and away that they would get any information or be able to compromise the KGB in any way.

Being as he was the child of two known communists and grew up to be one of the major leaders of the New Left, we can assume that David Horowitz was surreptitiously a value weighted by the KGB. I'm quite certain that he was found wanting by them, which is to say, he still possessed internal morality despite being a Communist. Hence my designation of him: Level 2.

Level 3 of course would be American-born citizens allowed to know the connection between the American Left and Russia. This is a pyramid--- getting much smaller on each level as you go up.

Level 4 would be Russian citizens working inside the United States, either attached to the embassy or in some other capacity.

To exit from my Ping list, just send me one request to that effect, public or private.

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