2 Russian generals given awards in Iraq on war eve [Gertz]

Two Russian generals were photographed receiving awards from Saddam Hussein's government for helping Iraqi military forces less than 10 days before the U.S.-led invasion.

The two retired officers were identified by the newspaper Gazeta.ru as Col. Gen. Vladimir Achalov and Col. Gen. Igor Maltsev, both former high-ranking officers involved in Soviet rapid-reaction and air defense forces.

Both generals were photographed receiving awards from Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed in early March 2003, only days before the war began on March 20, 2003. The photographs were taken in a building that was bombed by U.S. cruise missiles during the first air raids on Baghdad, the newspaper stated. The mission and the reason the generals received the awards were not disclosed in the April 2, 2003, report. However, Gen. Achalov told the newspaper that he "didn't fly to Baghdad to drink coffee."

The comment bolsters the claims of Pentagon officials who say Russian military advisers and special forces units were helping Iraq's military and intelligence services before the Iraq war.

The Pentagon has identified Russia as Iraq's top arms supplier, along with France and China. U.S. military officials have said Russian military suppliers sold Iraq special electronic jammers that were designed to thwart attacks by U.S. satellite-guided joint direct attack munitions, or JDAMs.

The jammers were bombed by the JDAMs, after the global positioning systems satellites signals used to guide them were boosted.

John A. Shaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, said this week that two European intelligence services have obtained documentary evidence indicating Russian spetsnaz, or special forces, troops were involved in a covert program to shred documents on Russian arms sales to Iraq, and to move weapons out of the country to Syria, Lebanon and possibly Iran.

Russian Foreign Inteligence Sevice (SVR): No Comment on Iraq Cooperation
Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL Analytical Reports) ^

Posted on 10/29/2004 9:36:39 AM PDT by TapTheSource

SECRET SERVICES

SVR DOES NOT WANT COMMENT REPORTS ON ITS COOPERATION WITH BAGHDAD... The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) declined to comment on a report in the London-based "The Sunday Telegraph" on 13 April alleging that documents have been found in Baghdad proving the existence of close ties between the intelligence service of deposed Iraqi President Hussein and Russian intelligence, newsru.com reported on 13 and 14 April. One document allegedly dated 12 March 2002 indicates that the SVR knew about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and urged Baghdad to destroy them in order not to give the United States a pretext to attack. Other documents reportedly included SVR reports of conversations about Iraq between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. "We do not comment on unsubstantiated and unfounded statements of the tabloid press," SVR spokesman Boris Labusov said, according to Interfax on 13 April.

...AS EXPERT NOTES SUCH CONTACTS NOT UNIMAGINABLE. An unidentified expert "who is close to the SVR" told Interfax on 13 April that the SVR had contacts with virtually every intelligence service in the world throughout the 1990s as part of its efforts to combat terrorism and organized crime. These contacts were not directed against third countries, the source said. Commenting on the reports concerning the Blair-Berlusconi talks, the source noted that such talks are always held under secure conditions. "So that means that one of the prime ministers is a [Russian] agent," the source quipped.

SVR DENIES SMUGGLING ARCHIVES IN MOTORCADE. Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) spokesman Labusov refuted on 9 April rumors that his agency tried to smuggle the archives of deposed Iraqi President Hussein's secret services out of Iraq in the Russian ambassador's motorcade (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 7 and 8 April 2003), ORT and RTR reported. Such rumors are complete fiction "and have no basis whatsoever," Labusov said. SVR Colonel Yurii Perfilev, who was a Soviet intelligence resident in the Middle East in the 1980s, said that such statements are interesting, but cannot be verified, TV-Tsentr reported on 9 April. Deputy Duma Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskii, whose reputed ties to the KGB are frequently mentioned in the media, said he personally spoke with Hussein last year and offered to evacuate the archives, but Hussein responded that "there is no need for this," nns.ru reported on 10 April. Zhirinovskii claimed that part of the archives were destroyed and the rest removed to Syria, Yemen, and Sudan.

PUTIN CHASTISES MILITARY FOR POOR INTELLIGENCE ON IRAQ CAMPAIGN. President Putin has expressed his displeasure over his defense officials' faulty forecasting regarding the U.S.-led military operation in Iraq, "Argumenty i Fakty," No. 15, reported. Putin reportedly was dismayed that military officials predicted the campaign would take three to six months and that the Iraqi military would resist vigorously. The weekly published a prognosis issued by an unidentified military intelligence officer before coalition forces captured Baghdad in which he wrote that coalition loses in taking the city would amount to about 5,000 killed, while as many as half a million Iraqis could lose their lives in the operation.

MILITARY DEFENSE MINISTER CANCELS U.S. TRIP... Sergei Ivanov has canceled a scheduled three-day trip to the United States that was due to begin on 13 April, ITAR-TASS reported on 10 April. Ivanov was to have held talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. An unnamed Defense Ministry spokesman said the visit had been arranged before the beginning of the U.S.-led military operation in Iraq and, now that the military phase of that operation is coming to an end, it is no longer necessary, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" reported on 10 April. He also commented that one should not draw hasty conclusions from the cancellation, which came immediately following a visit to Moscow by U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. The newspaper speculated that Rice might have discovered more serious disagreements over Iraq than she expected. The daily also speculated that Moscow might be experiencing doubts about the international antiterrorism coalition. Finally, "Nezavisimaya gazeta" speculated, the cancellation might stem from the Kremlin's displeasure over Washington's public accusations that Russia provided sophisticated military equipment to the regime of deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 24 and 25 March 2003). Other analysts believe that the Kremlin might be playing "good cop, bad cop," with President Vladimir Putin playing the former role and Ivanov the latter in U.S.-Russian relations.

...AND SAYS IRAQ WAR HAS INCREASED DEMAND FOR RUSSIAN ARMS. Speaking upon his arrival in Seoul on 10 April for talks on bilateral military cooperation, Ivanov said the U.S.-led military operation in Iraq has led to a marked increase in global demand for Russian weapons systems, ITAR-TASS and other Russian media reported. U.S. accusations that Russia supplied arms to Iraq have led to increased orders for Russian conventional weapons, Ivanov said. "We can thank the Americans for the free publicity," he added. He also said that the conflict in Iraq has further stimulated the arms race on the Korean Peninsula and that Russia is ready to provide security guarantees to North Korea if it renounces its nuclear-weapons program.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1261533/posts

The following email and link (which I posted) was sent to me from a friend in Finland. The question remains, are these rogue "former" Communist block countries arming our enemies, or is this Russian policy now (perhaps always?):

Email message and the Radio Free Europe artcle below (no wonder Saddam tried to blow up Radio Free Europe...which also happens to be the headquarters of Radio Free Iraq):

"During the war, there was an incident when the Russian embassy was educated from Baghdad, and instead of driving safely and directly to Jordan, they took a detour via Tikrit to the Syrian border. The German journal Der Spiegel (issue 17 on April 19th, 2003) reported about an Arab rumour that 24 high-ranking Iraqi officials were flown from Syria to Russia, and perhaps further to North Korea. There were also reports about mysterious Iraqi guests at the Côte d'Azur de Cham hotel in Latakya, Syria. Furthermore, news
like those below received too little publicity in the media."

Arming Iraq (So Much for the UN Embargo)
Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL Analytical Reports) ^ | 14 April 2003 | Roman Kupchinsky

14 April 2003

SPOTLIGHT ARMING IRAQ By Roman Kupchinsky

In September 1990, a United Nations arms embargo was imposed on the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. By denying him new weapons and the means to modernize and service the weapons he already had, the UN intended to prevent him from carrying out acts of aggression against other countries and his own population.

Almost as soon as those sanctions went into effect, the Iraqi regime went shopping for arms. It did not go to the Arab world, which saw Hussein as a pariah and would not supply his needs, but to his old supplier, the former Soviet bloc. Hussein's agents and arms buyers had numerous contacts in this part of the world, and both sides shared two traits: a love of money and a hatred for the United States.

Iraqi delegations soon began arriving in the capitals of former communist countries, where huge stores of weapons were lying unguarded in massive stockpiles waiting to be sold on a "first come, first served" basis. The Bulgarians held some $800 million worth of arms in such stockpiles, according to a report by Human Rights Watch in April 1999 (http://hrw.org/reports/1999/bulgaria). Impoverished military personnel did not necessarily concern themselves with trivial matters like sanctions.

In Bulgaria, a country with an advanced arms industry, Iraqis rapidly began purchasing what they wanted. In 1992, they bought $15 million worth of arms from the Bulgarian company Kintex on the basis of false end-user certificates, according to "Forbes" magazine of 10 May 1993. Portuguese arms trader Jose Saldanha was quoted in the same article as saying, "They don't give a shit about embargoes and will sell anywhere."

In 1995 and 1996, Kintex shipped 20 Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters to Iraq in containers, according to "Forbes" of 10 May 1993. The Hinds had been purchased in either Russia or Ukraine. According to "The Moscow Times" of 27 March, the CEO of the Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant in 1997 told Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhauer that he had sent technicians from Moscow to Baghdad in 1996 to assemble the Hinds and prepare them for operation.

"The Chicago Tribune" of 3 April 2003 reported: "In 1995 authorities in Jordan intercepted 30 crates of 115 Russian-made gyroscopes removed from long-range missiles and being shipped from Russia to Karama, Iraq's missile development center, according to 1997 congressional testimony from the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.

"Russia at first denied involvement but then told the State Department that it could not determine who made the shipment."

On 11 November 1997, "The Washington Times" reported that Iraq was aiming to buy the Tamara stealth-detecting radar system from the Czech Republic by working with Bulgarian arms traders who were in league with Czech Defense Ministry officials. The deal was halted under U.S. pressure on the Czech Republic. Three years later, Iraqi intelligence approached the Ukrainian arms trading company UkrSpetzExport during an arms exhibition in Amman, Jordan, to buy a similar but reportedly improved item, a Ukrainian-made Kolchuga radar, also with anti-stealth capabilities. Covert tape recordings suggest that Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma approved the sale as a covert operation, but Kuchma denies that the Kolchuga was ever shipped to Iraq.

The Kolchuga was not the only military item the Ukrainians had that interested Iraq. Numerous documents found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors point to numerous items for which delivery contracts had been signed between Ukrainian firms and Iraq, including gyroscopes for missile-guidance systems. According to an article in "Commentary" magazine on July/August 2001 by Gary Milhollin and Kelly Motz, Ukrainian involvement in the arms trade with Iraq goes back to 1993.

In the current conflict in Iraq, the U.S.-based magazine "Newsweek" reported on 31 March that Iraqi forces used Russian-made Kornet missiles to destroy two U.S. Abrams tanks, citing unnamed Pentagon officials who claimed that "Ukrainian arms dealers" sent some 500 Kornets to Baghdad in January. Those charges were vehemently denied by Ukrainian authorities, who claimed it was impossible for anything of the sort to get past Ukrainian export controls.

Russian officials, including military strategist Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, who has been highly critical of the West in the past, denied U.S. allegations that Russia sold any of its missiles to Iraq, and a spokesman for the Tula factory that manufactures the missile told ORT television in Russia, "None of our products are in Iraq; otherwise, coalition losses would be much higher."

The former Soviet republic of Belarus, ruled by President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, is another major supplier of arms to Iraq. Belarus acts as a direct supplier, a training ground for Iraqi personnel, and a surrogate dealer for Russian weapons.

According to "Jane's Intelligence Digest" of 28 March, Lebanese intelligence officers in January were tipped off by their Western counterparts that a large consignment of innocently labeled cargo at Beirut airport that had arrived from Belarus in fact contained military equipment. The 12 tons of equipment subsequently discovered included 600 helmets, army uniforms, 240 wireless-communication sets for tank crews, and other military items that had arrived aboard a flight from Minsk on 12 January (see "Jane's Intelligence Digest," 12 January 2003). Investigations revealed that the military equipment was destined for Iraq and was being shipped via Syrian middlemen. Belarusian officials denied that the material had originated in Belarus but accepted that Minsk, like Syria, might have served as a transit country. Lukashenka, Russia's closest ally in the Commonwealth of Independent States, described the Lebanese accusations as "thoughtless and senseless statements."

The former chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet, Stanislau Shushkevich, wrote in the "Narodnaya Volya" newspaper (No. 55) that Belarus is not selling arms directly but is being used by Russia as a channel for arms sales to Iraq because "Belarus does not have and cannot have such weapons in sufficient quantities."

Russian arms sales to Iraq were vehemently denied by Russian officials after U.S. accusations in March that Russian companies sold GPS jamming devices to the Iraqis. But those allegations are not new. The "Financial Times" on 8 February reported that Russian suppliers attempted to sell Igla surface-to-air missiles to Iraq through cover purchases in neighboring countries such as Syria. On 23 February, "The Sacramento Bee" reported that Russian-made S-300P missiles had been sold to Iraq by a Russian-Belarusian company. Accusations in "The Moscow Times" of 27 March that Moscow sold Kornet guided, antitank missiles to Iraq using Yemen as a false end user, all might seem credible in this context.

The seeming pattern of Russian sales and deliveries to Iraq suggest a vast covert operation might have been undertaken by the Russian intelligence service to supply Saddam Hussein. Utilizing criminal arms dealers, fake end-user certificates, and Belarusians and Ukrainians as surrogates, Russia seems to have been a major supplier of arms to Iraq for over a decade.

It is no simple task to sell large quantities of weapons to Iraq. These items must be shipped to a third country, clear customs, and then be transported to Iraq. In order for such schemes to work, considerable bribes need to be dished out, and an organization needs to be in place to arrange secure transportation. Without the help of the Iraqi intelligence service, the Mukhabbarat, the undertaking might seem all but impossible. In those cases, the Russian intelligence service might have covertly lent a hand to arms dealers. This, after all, was the intended plan for getting the Ukrainian radars to Iraq ?-using the intelligence service, which could bypass export-control mechanisms and arrange for the secure shipment to Iraq.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1261564/posts

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