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German agents gave US copy of Saddam war
plan:NYT
27.2.2006
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BERLIN/WASHINGTON,
Feb 27, (Reuters) - German intelligence agents in
Baghdad obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's plan to
defend the Iraqi capital and it was passed on to
U.S. commanders a month before the 2003 invasion,
The New York Times reported.
The report, based on a classified study by the U.S.
military, suggests German intelligence officials
offered more significant assistance to the United
States than their government has publicly
acknowledged.
It could increase the chances of a parliamentary
inquiry into the role Germany's BND intelligence
service played in the run-up to a war which former
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder publicly opposed.
According to the New York Times report, the Iraqi
defense plan provided the American military an
extraordinary window into Iraq's top-level
deliberations, including where and how Saddam
planned to deploy his most loyal troops.
An account of the German role in acquiring a copy of
the Iraqi plan is contained in an American military
study, which focuses on Iraq's military strategy and
was prepared in 2005 by the U.S. Joint Forces
Command, the paper said.
The Greens, junior partners in Schroeder's
government at the time of the invasion, and the Left
Party have called for an inquiry which would require
current and former German government officials to
testify under oath.
The other main opposition party, the Free Democrats
(FDP), demanded on Monday that the new government --
a coalition of Chancellor Angela's Merkel's
conservatives and Schroeder's Social Democrats --
report to parliament on the matter.
"If this information is confirmed, it would of
course be a dramatic twist," Max Stadler, legal
expert of the FDP, told Deutschlandfunk radio.
In order for a parliamentary inquiry to take place,
the FDP would have to join the Greens and Left Party
in pushing for it.
A government spokesman was not prepared to comment
on the report.
LIMITED HELP
The German government has said it had two BND agents
in Baghdad during the war, but it has insisted it
provided only limited help to the U.S.-led
coalition.
In a report released last week, the government said
the agents provided U.S. officials with information
on "civilian protected or other humanitarian sites,
such as Synagogues and Torah rolls and the possible
locations of missing U.S. pilots."
The 90-page report is part of a larger text given to
a parliamentary oversight committee that has been
investigating reports the BND helped the United
States select sites to bomb during the U.S.-led
invasion.
The Schroeder government was a staunch opponent of
the war and an inquiry into the BND's role could
embarrass a number of current and former officials
-- including Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, who was Schroeder's chief aide and
intelligence liaison.
The newspaper, citing the American military study,
said that after the German agents obtained the Iraqi
defense plan, they sent it up their chain of
command.
In February 2003, a German intelligence officer in
Qatar provided a copy of the plan to an official
from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency who worked
at the wartime headquarters of Gen. Tommy Franks,
the paper said.
The Iraqi plan called for massing troops along
several defensive rings near Baghdad, including a
"red line" that Republican Guard troops would hold
to the end, the paper said.
Reuters
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