More on German Intelligence Help During Initial U.S. War Effort in Iraq

There is a story in today's New York Times about the help provided by German intelligence officers during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Starting in early 2003 and lasting through the American military invasion of Iraq, a German intelligence officer stationed in the office of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the American commander of the invasion, passed on to the United States information being gathered in Baghdad by two German intelligence officers operating there, a classified German review has found.

The German liaison officer made 25 reports to the Americans, answering 18 of 33 specific requests for information made by the United States during the first few months of the Iraq war in what was a systematic exchange between American intelligence officials and the Germans, according to the German report.

The decision to install the officer was planned and approved at the highest levels of the German government, including by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the chief of staff for Gerhard Schröder, then the chancellor, and by the foreign minister at the time, Joschka Fischer. Mr. Steinmeier is now the foreign minister...

A copy of the secret version of the parliamentary report was made available for viewing by a journalist in Germany to a New York Times reporter who read the text into a tape recorder so it could be transcribed and translated. The cover page had the seal of the German Parliament.

The report found that the operation was closed down when the American invasion came to an end, at which point all three of the German intelligence officials--the two in Baghdad and the liaison officer with General Franks in Qatar--were given the American Meritorious Service Medals recognizing the "critical information to United States Central Command to support combat operations in Iraq."

The story of the assistance provided to the U.S. air campaign against Iraq in 2003 by the German intelligence agency is not new, having previously been discussed here. See German Agents Helped With Bombing Targeting for U.S. at Start of Iraq War.

In one of those fine ironies that abound in the world of international relations, the anti-war Germans, with the approval of the legendary anti-American Green Party leader Joschka Fischer, provided real help to the war effort.

And even better:

Germany had already decided that if war broke out, it would close its embassy, which led to an interesting sidelight: the Germans also arranged that, once the war broke out and the German Embassy was closed, the two German intelligence agents in Baghdad would take refuge in the French Embassy.

They did exactly that after the beginning of the invasion on March 20, 2003, moving into offices of the French intelligence agency and thereby giving the French, who also vociferously opposed the American war in Iraq, an indirect role in supporting the German-American intelligence exchange.

You gotta love it.