The sooner Americans (indeed Europeans as well) get it into their minds we're not fighting for oil, but probably our very lives -- for the life of Western Civilization as we know it -- the sooner we can get on with it.
Posted on 03/24/2003 4:51:16 PM PST by Sabertooth
U.S. Believes Russians in Baghdad Are Aiding Iraq WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States believes Russian private sector technicians are in Baghdad helping train Iraqis to use electronic jamming systems that could endanger U.S. forces fighting Iraq, U.S. officials said on Monday. President Bush telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest alleged Russian sales of night-vision goggles, antitank missiles and global positioning system (GPS) jamming systems to Iraq, the White House said. U.S. officials said such sales would violate U.N. sanctions. "It's the kind of equipment that will put our young men and women in harm's way," Secretary of State Colin Powell told Fox News Channel, without identifying the materiel. "It gives an advantage to the enemy, an advantage we don't want them to have." "We have been in touch with the Russians over a period of many months to point this out .... and in the last 48 hours I have seen even more information that causes me concern," Powell said. "So far I am disappointed at the response." Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia, which with France opposed the U.S.-led war against Iraq and threatened to veto a U.N. resolution sanctioning it, denied Russia had supplied Iraq with any military equipment in breach of U.N. sanctions. "No facts proving U.S. concerns have been found," Ivanov said in Moscow, although a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said Moscow would study any evidence Washington provides. PROTESTS AT SENIOR LEVELS U.S. officials said Washington had been worried about the alleged sales by Russian companies for the better part of a year and had protested to Moscow at increasingly senior levels, culminating in Bush's telephone call to Putin on Monday. "We are very concerned that there are reports of ongoing cooperation and support to Iraqi military forces being provided by a Russian company that produces GPS jamming equipment," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, also citing alleged sales of night-vision goggles and anti-tank guided missiles. For years, the United States has with limited success asked Russia not to spread weapons technology, notably to Iran, where U.S. officials complain Moscow has sold missile technology. The United States has in particular pushed Russia to tighten export controls to prevent private firms from making such sales. U.S. officials believe the alleged military sales to Iraq have been carried out by private Russian firms and they want greater oversight by the Russian government to stop them. A U.S. official who asked not to be named said Washington decided to make its accusations public late last week when it discovered Russian company technicians in Baghdad aiding the Iraqis with the jamming system after the U.S.-led war began. "They are there in Baghdad ... trying to make the system work, the jamming system," said the U.S. official. "It was the discovery that there are ... Russian technicians helping to make this GPS jamming work in Baghdad that prompted the internal debate in the U.S. government about what to do and (whether) to go public," the official added. Powell, speaking later to Britain's Sky News, declined to say whether he believed the Russian technicians were on the ground, but said flatly: "I know the equipment is there." Allegations of such alleged Russian military sales surfaced on Sunday in the Washington Post, which reported that the United States had protested against the sales late last week. The newspaper cited Bush administration sources as saying one Russian company was helping the Iraqi military deploy electronic jamming equipment against U.S. planes and bombs, and two others have sold antitank missiles and thousands of night-vision goggles in violation of U.N. sanctions. A U.S. official who asked not to be named told Reuters there were signs some of the materiel may have been listed as bound for Syria or Yemen to hide its intended destination.
Mon March 24, 2003 06:20 PM ET
By Arshad Mohammed
Man, am I glad we got our daughter adopted and out of Russia last year, not now, with all of this tenseness. But I'll say one thing, the Russians, I noticed in Moscow, seemed to have this unhealthy affinity for all things French. The architecture of "old town" (not the Khruschev high rises) was straight out of Paris. My host family's daughter had married a Frenchman working in Moscow and later emigrated to France. Russian pop music has a very French character to it, etc.
Francophilia seemed to be the rage, so I was saddened but not surprised to see Russia jump on the French UN bandwagon. Other than this unhealthy dependency on things French, I found the Russians to be more American-like in demeanor than other European peoples (except the Brits of course) with infrastructure complexities (vastness of geography, plentiful resources, etc.) much more in common with US problems than Western Europe.
Seems to me we could really be great allies, if they could just jettison the French envy.
I can tolerate posturing in public while staying away from real actions against the coalition. Many arab regimes do that. But Russians are doing more than such posturing according to this report. Unless they purposely sold rigged equipments to Saddam and told Americans how to elude them, this is a hostile action against American troops.
Well, they have to protect their investments…. all those billions in arms sales and of course the Iraqi oil.
Behind unknown soldier's monument was a raised platform and a set of columns in a circle, open at the top with numerous plaques. There was no explanation, just plaques bearing these dates and places:
Algiers, 1962-1964
Egypt, 1962-3, 1967-75
Syria, 1967-70, 1972-73
Yemen, 1962-63, 1967-1969
Syria/Lebanon, 1982
Laos, 1960-3, 1964-68, 1969-70
Vietnam, 1961-1974
Cambodia, 1970
China, 1924-27, 1937-44, 1945, 1946-1949, 1950
Ozero Khasan, 1938
Khalan Gol, 1939
Japan, 1945
North Korea, 1950-53
Ozero Damanskiy and Ozero Zhalansh Kol, 1969
Finland, 1939-40
Hungary, 1956
Czechslovakia, 1968
Yugoslavia, 1993-95
Cuba, 1962
Mozambique, 1967-69, 1970-75
Bangladesh, 1972-73
Angola, 1975-1979
Ethiopia, 1977-1979
Afghanistan, 1979-1989
I suppose soon they'll add a plaque reading "Iraq, 2003."
If this is indeed the case, can they be killed as enemy combatants?
What happened to 3?
The Third World has been at war for some time now...
One way to dispose of them would be as a suppository for pooty-poot.
I leave it to the president to name the op.
It's looking like Iraq is the investment.
BTTT
How are you tooth?
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