[Media-watch] Secret documents

[Billy Clark]

Don't know if the press has picked up on any of this or whether it is 
some kind of plant - it seems credible enough.  i found it through 
google's news page at

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/13/1050172475450.html

What else - a bit more unfriendly to the us and Uk - could be found 
scattered about in the iraqi intelligence services office?

billy


Russia shared secrets with Iraq
April 14 2003
By David Harrison
Baghdad



Secret documents found in Baghdad show that Russia provided Saddam 
Hussein's regime with wide-ranging assistance leading up to the war, 
including intelligence on private conversations between British Prime 
Minister Tony Blair and other Western leaders.

Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available, and 
details of arms deals to neighbouring countries. The two countries also 
signed agreements to share intelligence, help each other to "obtain" 
visas for agents to go to other countries and to exchange information on 
the activities of Osama bin Laden.

The revealing documents were obtained from the bombed headquarters of 
the Iraqi intelligence service in Baghdad.

The documents, in Arabic, are mostly intelligence reports from anonymous 
agents and from the Iraqi embassy in Moscow.

Mr Blair is referred to in a report dated March 5, 2002, and marked. In 
the letter, an Iraqi intelligence official explains that a Russian 
colleague had passed him details of a conversation between Mr Blair and 
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at a meeting in Rome. The two 
had met for an annual summit on February 15, 2002.

The document says Mr Blair "referred to the negative things decided by 
the United States over Baghdad". It adds that Mr Blair refused to engage 
in any military action in Iraq at that time because British forces were 
still in Afghanistan.

The report says that Mr Berlusconi said Baghdad must be forced to comply 
with United Nations resolutions.

The revelation that Moscow passed on such potentially sensitive 
information to Baghdad is likely to have a devastating effect on 
relations between Britain and Russia. Mr Blair declared a "new era" in 
relations with President Putin when they met in Moscow in October 2001 
in the aftermath of September 11.

Mr Blair was dismayed when Mr Putin joined France in threatening to veto 
the American and British resolution on Iraq in the UN, but continued to 
differentiate between President Putin and President Jacques Chirac.

The list of assassins is referred to in a paper dated November 27, 2000. 
In it, an agent signing himself SAB says the Russians have passed him a 
detailed list of killers.

Another document, dated March 12, 2002, appears to confirm that Saddam 
Hussein had developed, or was developing, nuclear weapons. The Russians 
warn Baghdad that if it refused to comply with the UN it would give the 
United States "a cause to destroy any nuclear weapons".

In the end, Mr Putin opposed military action against Iraq.

The Iraqis are believed to owe Moscow more than $A20.7 billion for arms 
shipments.

Russian oil companies have also been trying to forge links with Baghdad 
to develop Iraq's vast oil reserves.
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