==What better way for a Russian wishing to ingratiate himself with Saddam (and get a good sum of money from the Oil-for-Food scandal) than to say that his guesswork came "from inside the US command".
I don't think it was a Russian official who was trying to engratiate himself with Saddam. I think it was a case of Russia attempting to help out an ally (or, to put it another way, our enemy).
I'm not disagreeing with you. That seems obvious from other documents that have come out. But the particular Russian cited in this source was also cited in the Oil for Food scandal, so there WAS money involved in this particular (or these) transactions.