Lets Blame The Russkies Now

When all the U.S. networks led with this story last night, I knew that something obnoxious was afoot. I was right. The U.S. government is now trying to get the distracted American people to believe that the vile Russians have contributed to our impending defeat in Iraq.

Russian officials collected intelligence on U.S. troop movements and attack plans from inside the American military command leading the 2003 invasion of Iraq and passed that information to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to a U.S. military study released yesterday.

The intelligence reports, which the study said were provided to Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad at the height of the U.S. assault, warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass Iraqi cities on their thrust toward Baghdad. The reports provided some specific numbers on U.S. troops, units and locations, according to Iraqi documents dated March and April 2003 and later captured by the United States.

"The information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha is that the United States is convinced that occupying Iraqi cities are impossible, and that they have changed their tactic," said one captured Iraqi document titled "Letter from Russian Official to Presidential Secretary Concerning American Intentions in Iraq" and dated March 25, 2003.

Note the highlighted passage. This document indicates that the U.S. was fully aware before the war of the nightmare inherent in trying to occupy Iraqi cities. And adjusted the war plan accordingly.

This makes the U.S. officials who didn't plan for the troubles we have seen in occupied Iraq (the civilians) look even more derelict in their "short-sightedness" than previously publicly known.

"This is absolutely nonsense," said Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian mission to the United Nations. She said the allegations were never presented to the Russian government before being issued to the news media.

Why would she expect that we would clear propaganda (based on truthful information or not) with the party that we are smearing?

The study gives no indication who the alleged sources inside the U.S. Central Command might have been, or whether American officials believe the Kremlin authorized the transfer of information to Hussein's government.

That's the only really germane issue here. Whether the Russian government per se authorized their man in Baghdad to give the intel to Saddam.

Celeste A. Wallander, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that although Russia probably had intelligence on U.S. war plans, she is skeptical that the Kremlin would have ordered that it be passed to Hussein's government.

It is more likely that a "freelancing" Russian official such as the ambassador in Baghdad personally shuttled the information, she said.

Lets get real, folks. This is war. If anyone in the U.S. security establishment thought that the Russians were not inclined to engage in such skullduggery--that is inter alia an intel failure.

The reason that we are seeing this information being trumpeted now by the government--the same authorities who are leaving much of a broad range of 50 years worth of diplomatic history classified--is simple.

The allegations against Russia will, over time, become a part of the excuse matrix for why we lost the Iraq war.