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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Techplayer who wrote (7472)	4/4/2003 8:15:12 AM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

This is a bizarre report - from the source of that 'GRU' news site... including comment saying that it's disinformation! iraqwar.ru After Iraq, the biggest loser in the 1991 Persian Gulf War was the former Soviet Union, Saddam Hussein's main source of military hardware and doctrine. History may be repeating itself. Apparently determined to avoid another humiliation at American hands, two former Soviet Army generals have been so deeply involved in helping to prepare the Iraqi military for a rematch with the Americans that on the eve of this war, Saddam ordered them decorated with high honors in Baghdad. Gen. Vladimir Achalov, a former Soviet deputy defense minister and a former commander of airborne and rapid-reaction forces, and Gen. Igor Maltsev, a leading expert in air defense systems, left Baghdad only six days before the war began, U.S. officials confirmed. Achalov wouldn't say why Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Akhmed decorated the two, telling the Russian Internet newspaper Gazeta.ru, which ran a photograph of the two in the Iraqi capital, only: "We didn't fly to Baghdad to drink coffee." Both generals were communist hard-liners who were part of the abortive coup attempt against the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev. Administration officials said it wasn't clear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former Soviet KGB officer who has pursued better relations with the United States but opposes the U.S.-led war in Iraq, was aware of the two generals' work with the Iraqis, much less whether he approved of it. "The ties between the Soviets and the Iraqis were very close at almost every level, in the military, in the intelligence services and in the foreign ministry," said one administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "A lot of them took the Gulf War personally, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them looked for ways to get even. But that probably doesn't include Putin, who I think looks ahead, not backward." ... In what appears to be another public-private venture intended to help the Iraqis and undermine the Americans, a Russian Web site, Iraqwar.ru, has been publishing what it claims are daily reports from the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service. The senior American official said the site appeared to mix genuine Russian intelligence reports, some of them based on intercepts of U.S. communications, with disinformation about coalition defeats and battle losses. Another official, who also requested anonymity, speculated that the Web site might be a clever attempt to pass useful information to the Iraqis by posting it publicly on the Internet. ... American military and intelligence officials and military analysts said the advice from former Soviet cold warriors has been evident in the new tactics Saddam has employed from Day One of the American invasion: the avoidance of set-piece armor battles with Americans who outgun the old Soviet-made T-72 tanks, the use of hit-and-run attacks on American supply lines by irregulars operating in civilian clothes and from civilian vehicles, and the apparent attempt to preserve Iraqi air defenses for a final battle of Baghdad. The Russian advisers also may be behind the puzzling failure of the Iraqis to defend their positions south of Baghdad, and instead to withdraw some of their best troops and best weapons into the capital, and perhaps also into some of the cities the Americans have bypassed in their fast-moving drive to the outskirts of the city. So far, however, advice and equipment from Moscow don't appear to have helped the Iraqis any more than they did in 1991. LOL, it doesn't seem bothered by these accusations. I'd like to see a little more on the 'Senior American official' since I really am rather cynical of these unnamed briefings...