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U.S. report: Russia gave information to Hussein

A Pentagon paper does not assess the value of what was passed along about American invasion plans.

WASHINGTON - In his struggle to figure out and foil the American invasion plan as it was unfolding in late March and early April 2003, Saddam Hussein may have fielded a few tips from an old ally: the Russian government.

But it seems possible the Russians' "help" created more confusion than clarity for the Iraqi leader.

As described in a lengthy report released Friday at the Pentagon, Iraqi documents captured by U.S. troops say the Russians collected information about U.S. troop movements and battle plans at the outset of the invasion by tapping sources inside the American military. And they say the intelligence was passed to Hussein.

Russia had well-known and extensive diplomatic and economic ties to Baghdad before the U.S.-led invasion and occasionally clashed with the Bush administration during the international debate over how to deal with Hussein's regime.

The documents are the first to assert that Russia actively passed sensitive military intelligence to Baghdad during the war itself.

But was the information useful? In at least one case, the Pentagon report suggests it did more harm than good for Hussein. In fact it may have reinforced in Hussein's mind a mistaken impression about the timing of the U.S. ground assault into Baghdad - an impression that permitted U.S. forces to preserve an element of surprise.

The report does not address the possibility that the U.S. military deliberately fed false information to the Russians, expecting them to pass it to Hussein.

In addition, it remains unclear how much of the information was genuine intelligence and how much involved educated guesswork about American intentions, the likes of which was occurring simultaneously on internationally broadcast media accounts featuring retired military experts.

Referring to a Russian letter to Hussein that said the Russians had "sources" inside the U.S. Central Command, which planned and executed the invasion, the Pentagon report said, "Such external sources of information were only one of the fog-generators obscuring the minds of Iraq's senior leadership."

That letter was dated March 24, five days into the war.

The unclassified Pentagon report does not assess the value of the information Hussein got. It cites captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians had "sources inside the American Central Command" and that intelligence was passed to Hussein through the Russian ambassador.

The disclosures could jeopardize U.S.-Russian relations more than any single event since the end of the Cold War, analysts said.

"This is one step short of firing upon us themselves with Russian equipment," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institute. "It's actively aiding and abetting the enemy tactically. It's hard to get more unfriendly than that."

Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, said the allegations were false.

"Somebody wants to say something, and did - and there is no evidence to prove it," she said.

The Iraqi documents leave 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.

A classified version of the report, titled "Iraqi Perspectives Project," is not being made public. It was assembled by U.S. Joint Forces Command, which reviewed a vast array of captured Iraqi documents and interviewed Iraqi political and military leaders, not including Hussein.

Among the information the Iraqis said they received from the Russians:

That the movement of U.S. troops into southern Iraq from Kuwait was a diversion. (In fact it was the main avenue of attack, supported by special operations forces entering from Jordan and paratroopers flying into northern Iraq.)

That the ground assault on Baghdad would not begin until the Army's 4th Infantry Division was in place, around April 15. (In fact, the 4th Infantry was not yet on Iraqi territory when the Baghdad ground assault began April 7. Thus, by design or chance, the information from the Russians actually reinforced a U.S. military deception effort.)

That the main focus of U.S. ground forces moving toward Baghdad from the southwest was the area around the city of Karbala. (This was true. After crossing a bridge over the Euphrates River outside of Karbala, the 3rd Infantry Division had a clear path to the Iraqi capital and Hussein's chances of stopping the assault had ended.)

That U.S. troops moving through southern Iraq would not attempt to occupy cities but instead bypass them. (This was true and was a central feature of an invasion plan that stressed speed and tactical surprise.)

The lead author of the Pentagon report, Kevin Woods, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Iraqi documents.

In Moscow, a duty officer with Russia's Foreign Ministry declined to comment on the report late Friday.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Barry Venable, referred inquiries for comment to Central Command. At Central Command headquarters in Tampa, officials did not immediately respond.

The information about a Russian intelligence link to Baghdad was a small part of a much broader report by Joint Forces Command that attempts to explain the forces and motivations behind Iraqi military decisionmaking in the months leading up to the invasion and in the first several weeks after Baghdad fell in April.

Information from the Los Angeles Times was used in this report.

[Last modified March 25, 2006, 01:51:17]