Informed Speculation

There appears to have been no good explanation forthcoming to this point regarding the provision of sensitive U.S. battlefield information to the Iraqi government by the Russians prior to and during the the invasion in 2003:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday she had asked her Russian counterpart for an investigation into a report that Russian intelligence fed U.S. battle plans to Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

“I have talked with the Russian foreign minister and asked them to look into this and to take it very seriously,” Rice said.

The allegations are considered quite serious in other quarters, as well:

The allegations appeared in a report by the United States Joint Forces Command. The report is the result of the Iraqi Perspective Project (IPP), a study, started in 2003, detailing Iraq’s perception of the leadup to the war and of the war itself. A public version of the report was released Friday.

The Los Angeles Times reports that a key piece of evidence of Moscow’s involvement was “a captured letter detailing Russian intelligence on American troop movements, [which] accurately informed Baghdad that U.S. forces were massing south of a narrow passage near the southern city of Karbala.”

The April 2, 2003, letter, which was reportedly passed through Moscow’s ambassador to Baghdad, informed Iraqi leaders that “the heaviest concentration of troops (12,000 troops plus 1,000 vehicles) was in the vicinity of Karbala.” The 3rd Infantry Division, the main thrust of the U.S. invasion, eventually captured Baghdad by pushing through the Karbala gap just days later.

Other information provided by the Russians, however, was wildly inaccurate, particularly an assertion made both in the April 2 letter and an earlier March 24 document that the main American offensive would come from the western desert, including a major attack from Jordanian soil.

The Times also reports that, according to analysts, the IPP’s revelation “could jeopardize U.S.-Russian relations more than any single event since the end of the Cold War.”

While cautioning that Moscow may have an explanation, the analysts noted that some of the details were so sensitive that they would be difficult for the government of President Vladimir Putin to justify.

“This is one step short of firing upon us themselves with Russian equipment,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst with the Brookings Institute. “It’s actively aiding and abetting the enemy tactically. It’s hard to get more unfriendly than that.”

Curiously, the toughest talk is not coming from the administration, but rather such well-known hawks as…Ted Kennedy:

In light of the allegations, Senator Ted Kennedy (D) of Massachusetts, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” said that the US needs “an entirely new assessment of our relationship with Russia, should this be true,” reports Bloomberg.

The administration should consider boycotting the July summit of the Group of Eight [G8] industrial nations, which will be held in Russia this year for the first time, he said….

Kennedy also criticized the Bush administration for not having reached a conclusion about the evidence.

“It’s difficult for me to understand why the administration doesn’t know today what happened,” Kennedy said. “I can’t think of anything that’s on the president’s desk or on the National Security Council desk more important.”

For once, I find myself agreeing with Kennedy – to a point. Certainly I can think of two or three things that ARE more important, such as the current war and a possible new one. It’s my sincere hope that the U.S. will use this incident as an instrument of leverage to force Moscow off of its intransigence regarding Iran.