Saturday, March 25, 2006

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.

10 Comments:

Blogger M1 said...

That's the phrase I've been in want of...excuse matrix.Perfect

3/25/2006 1:38 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

M1:

Thanks.

It is also original.

How rare for me.

3/25/2006 2:41 PM  
Blogger vcthree said...

Public Enemy once said, "Don't believe the hype". I'm inclined to agree in this case. Wasn't Russia part of the so-called "Coalition of the Willing"? And now, when everything has gone to shit, this is what our nation does; they throw part of the "coalition", the people that they begged help from, under the bus to save their own ass? I'm sorry, media, but I'm not letting this okey-doke take focus off the ball, here; I see you working.

You release this on a friday, so now it becomes topic fodder for the Sunday shows, and then gives the right-wing talk radio/bullshit machine something to chew on starting on Monday, which will carry over into the cable bullshit shows later on. Yeah, I already know the play before you run it.

3/25/2006 4:20 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

vcthree:

One small point.

They weren't exactly part of the "Coalition of the Willing."

Or as one of my old colleagues put it, "the Coalition of the Well-Wishers."


Your expertise on the professional media, as I have commented on your blog, fails you never.

It is indeed the ol' okey-doke.

The administration knows that the deadline-starved media will eat this stuff up. I hadn't processed the late Friday afternoon news release cycle in action. Good catch.

3/25/2006 4:58 PM  
Blogger vcthree said...

Thanks for clearing that up.

Giving the article a read, however, it sounds like the government is trying the old "CYA" methodology, given everything that various government officials said before and during the conflict. I won't reset them, but you know the major ones already, ad nauseam. Basically, what they're saying is, "Well, it would have been over, excecpt the Russians were giving away intel on our positions, so...that's the reason why it's taking so long." Which, inevitably, leads to the "stay the course" chorus. A multitude of excuses.

Yet all this is beside the point: the U.S. captured Saddam in December '03, and they've been there two years since. I don't think it would have gone any different regardless; it's not like Saddam didn't know they were coming for him. It wasn't a surprise attack. And that it took a study three years later to dicover all this still suggests a massive intel failure on the part of the U.S., who...still have not bothered to find you-know-who that did you-know-what in 2001.

As i said earlier, I'm less inclined to buy into this, given the fact that the President has been going around all week making excuses with his piss-poor poll ratings (that they claim he doesn't pay attention to). And given the fact that, whenever they want to hide something from, or blow something up in the news cycle,Lazy Friday is the day they do it.

3/25/2006 5:23 PM  
Blogger Effwit said...

vcthree:

Exactly right. The administration screwed up all down the line. Now they are trying to find any and all scapegoats to blame for their disasterous performance.

And the Russians, if they did anything, did it at the very beginning. At the point where we won every battle and skirmish.

No harm no foul, I would reckon.

Now, Three years on--after making a mess of the whole country of Iraq--the politicians who stole every American's good name worldwide are trying to look under every rock to find someone else to take the heat.

It is getting into election season, after all.

What is really outrageous is that most of the people will absorb the lesson about the Russians screwing us, and assume that we could have won without their interference.

And if it was that bad, we would have heard about it already.

3/25/2006 5:40 PM  
Blogger DrewL said...

Nothing like dragging out an old and nearly forgotten enemy to fan the flames one more time.

When I first heard about this coming out of the Pentagon, my suspicious side immediately engaged. What did Iraq have - really - to gain by getting such intel from the Russians? It's not as though they were going to be able to withstand an onslaught of shock and awe, after all. The Iraqis knew it. The Russians knew it. So why bother? Spitting into the wind would have been more productive.

I also wonder if this has more to do with Iran than it does with Iraq. Are we trying to set up a rationale for not trusting Russia as they try to intervene in Iran? We'll point back to Iraq and say, "See. We couldn't trust Russia then. We're not trusting them now." It allows them to discount Russia in the process and to justify acting without them. Iraq, after all, is old news. Iran is where the action is.

3/26/2006 1:33 AM  
Blogger Effwit said...

DrewL:

Your suspicions about the goal of demonizing Russia having much to do with the Iran issue is very likely well-founded.

The last few months have seen a coordinated program to discredit Russia.

The attack came into public view with a Jack Kemp/John Edwards Council on Foreign Relations paper urging the U.S. to loosen ties with Russia.

Until the allegations of Iraq war malfeasance by Russia, the CFR report had been the crown jewels of the anti-Russia program.

I wonder what they will come up with next.

3/26/2006 11:23 AM  
Blogger DrewL said...

Well, I have heard/seen that Iran is begging for entrance into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes Russia, China and a host of former Soviet Republicstans. Could this potential tie play into the hands of the Russia-bashers?

3/27/2006 12:21 AM  
Blogger Effwit said...

DrewL:

Yes, I could see a move to join SCO by Iran as something that would irritate the U.S.

The pressure against Russia may also (among other things) serve as a big hint to them not to allow the Iranians into that organization.

3/27/2006 8:57 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home