AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE,
Moscow: Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service Saturday denied a Pentagon report that Moscow gave Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein intelligence from inside the US military command on US troop movements after the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
“It is not the first time that such unfounded accusations have been made against Russian intelligence,” SVR spokesman Boris Labussov told AFP.
“We don't believe it is necessary to comment on such wild imaginings.”
The Pentagon report, published Friday and citing Iraqi documents, said the Russians collected information from sources in the US Central Command in Doha, Qatar, which it then delivered to Saddam.
One of the documents, a report from the foreign ministry to Saddam dated April 2, 2003, contained information passed on by the Russian ambassador, Vladimir Titorenko.
Titorenko escaped injury from US weapons fire as he was traveling to Syria with several other diplomats. Four people, including the ambassador's driver, were wounded in the incident.
The ITAR-TASS news agency said Titorenko is now based in Algiers.
The Ria Novosti agency quoted a military source as describing the US report as “revenge by the US side” for the “firm position” taken by Moscow in opposing the US intervention in Iraq.
ITAR-TASS noted that the Pentagon report has been released as sensitive negotiations are taking place on the Iran nuclear issue by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
It is unclear though what impact the Russian intelligence had on Saddam. The Pentagon study depicted the dictator as being so out of touch with reality that he did not believe the United States would invade.
Some of the information appeared to have misled the Iraqi leadership into thinking that the main thrust of the 2003 US invasion would come from Jordan in the west, not from Kuwait in the south.
When the operation did start on March 20, 2003, Saddam — who was ousted one month later and is now on trial for crimes against humanity — did not think US forces would go all the way to Baghdad.
