Russia Denies Involvement in Iraq Weapons

AP ^ | 10/28/04 | VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

[tomahawk]

Russia Denies Involvement in Iraq Weapons

1 hour, 46 minutes ago

By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, Associated Press Writer

MOSCOW - Russia angrily denied allegations Thursday that Russian forces had smuggled a cache of high explosives out of Iraq (news - web sites) prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003.

Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov dismissed the allegations as "absurd" and "ridiculous."

"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structures couldn't have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because all Russian military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites)," he told The Associated Press.

The denial followed a story in The Washington Times on Thursday that quoted a high-ranking U.S. defense official alleging that Russian special forces had "almost certainly" helped spirit out the hundreds of tons of high explosives that went missing from the al-Qaqaa base. The newspaper based its report on an interview with John Shaw, the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for international technology security.

Two weeks ago, Iraqi officials told the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency that 377 tons of explosives had vanished as a result of "theft and looting ... due to lack of security." The compounds, HMX and RDX, are key components in plastic explosives, which insurgents in Iraq have used in bomb attacks.

Russia' charge d'affaires in Iraq, Ilya Morgunov, also denied the report.

"I didn't hear about any weapons to be taken out," Interfax quoted him as saying. "Moreover, there was nobody to take them out, because we actually evacuated all of our personnel."

He said there had been no Russian special forces in Iraq, only civilian specialists working for foreign firms.

[Peach]

I can only say oceanview that after a very tepid criticism of the president letting two days go by without a strong statement regarding the weapons, I was condemned last night by normally reasonable freepers. The thread police will be after you if you aren't careful :-)

[oceanview]

I know, they will come for me. But Rove is the problem here, not Bush.

[Peach]

Oh, yes. I tried to make that point last night as well. To no avail. The long knives were out. I think the stress is getting to some peopel.

[TexKat]

Iraq-Russia spy link uncovered / SECRET FILES: Documents reveal Iraqi agents trained in Moscow

Personnel files found in a Baghdad building housing the Iraqi secret police contain training certificates from Moscow. San Francisco Chronicle Photo

[DaveMSmith]

A Bill Gertz article is 'suspect' because of a hit piece from the LA Times on one of the sources?

That's like saying Jerome Corsi is discredited as an author because of comments he made on Free Republic...

[Destro]

The story is suspect - Bush distancing himself because Putin is centralizing his power - not over this issue.

[hobson]

I was not happy about the delayed response either but the talking Pubs are handling the question very well. They are saying this is a very serious issue and Bush, unlike Kerry, wanted to get all the facts before he addressed the issue.

[lugsoul]

Does your reference to "pinning our hopes" on one issue or another include room for simply figuring out the truth? Is that an option? Or do we simply want to find the best argument on this issue and let 'er rip?

Personally, if the stuff was there when we rolled through and it has somehow disappeared on our watch, I'd want to know that. At least a couple of Pentagon folks have indicated that this is at least a possibility, assuming that reporters aren't simply making up quotes. If it did shake out that way, I'd like to think that a bunch of folks who were rushing to hang their hats on the NBC silliness, or the Gertz report, would have egg on their faces. But I don't get the sense that actually figuring out what happened is very high on the priority list for most folks.

[Destro]

Bill Gertz just did his job as a reporter. Gertz investigated nothing but rather reported the speculation of Shaw - a man under FBI investigation - and Shaw based his speculation on hearsay evidence.

Gertz is not suspect but Shaw is.

Back to you.

[Peach]

I was not happy about the delayed response either

That's all you have to say for the long knives to come out. That's all I said. Be careful. Don't say you weren't warned. LOL

[GOP_1900AD]

Good point. You are alluding to one of the rare instances where the MSM (e.g. the S.F. Comical) actually did something of value in reporting from Iraq. What they showed (and by the way, to any who will call this "tin" foil or whatever, I've got the freakin' hard copy from the newsstand in my files!) was that the Mukhabarat had received training in Moscow, and that "trainers" (FSB? SVR?) had also been in Baghdad doing their thing. The linkage between the Mukhabarat and Russian intelligence organizations warrants serious investigation AND ACTION.

[billygoatgruff]

I think if Bush would confront Pootie Poot then we may be in for some fightin. This is not a good thing.

I don't think Bush wants any fightin, not now. It would be over and out for all of us. 3million sunscreen isn't on the shelves right now.

Condi is wise to keep it quite. They don't think we need to know what they know. Plausible deniability.

[Destro]

PS: Where Gertz failed in his job is to not mention that his source was under investigation by the FBI and to he failed to get a second corroboration.

[hobson]

Ok, I'm well armed so I'm going to go further. Bush needs to get rid of Dan Bartlett in his next term. A good communications director should be proactive not reactive. The best example of his screw-up is the Niger, SOU 15 words. That response was absolutely pitiful.

[Peach]

I agree. They didn't need to apologize for those words.

I'll repeat what I said last night when I was offering my tepid criticism (gasp) of the president's handling of the media as it related to this particular weapons story.

In the book A Matter of Character, the Bush administration made a decision early on how to handle the media. They did not want to be like Clinton running from fire to fire as critical articles emerged in the media.

So a decision was made to stay on message rather than reacting to critical stories. They did not want to let the media drive the agenda.

Sometimes that approach works. SOmetimes it doesn't. Rove admits in the book there have been some instances where it clearly didn't work.

(Putting on my body armor once again)

[DaveMSmith]

Read the article again. Shaw is the only named source. There are also several unnamed DoD sources. NYT named no one.

[GOP_1900AD]

More....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,936350,00.html

Russia denies helping to train Iraqi intelligence (Nick Paton Walsh in MoscowMonday April 14, 2003 The Guardian)

http://www.insightmag.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=428708

Iraqi Archives Show Russia's Hidden Hand (By J. Michael Waller Insight on the News - World Issue: 5/13/03)

http://www.radiopinoyusa.com/matanglawin/ml-01-10b-2003.html

U.S. and Russia on Collision Course (Radio Pinoy WRMN)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/iraq/1873106

Russia officials admit to training Iraqi spies (By ROBERT COLLIER and BILL WALLACE Copyright 2003 San Francisco Chronicle)

[hobson]

That strategy make sense but it does need tweaking. I suspect they will do better in the next term.

[airborne]

You wrote- "-This is bull. As discussed last night, 9 members of a Russian embassy convoy were hit on 4/6/03 heading to Syria. They were not evacuated... they were there.-"

From the article-

"I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministry and its structures couldn't have been involved in the disappearance of the explosives, because all Russian military experts left Iraq when the international sanctions were introduced during the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites)," he told The Associated Press.

You call them members of a "Russian embassy convoy" and they refer to "Russian military experts". Not a lie, but not exactly the truth, is it.