The French are still bigger assholes...

I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the intelligence haul out of Iraq. it should surprise no one that Russia is involved. I eagerly await evidence of France's perfidy.

Is it possible that our intelligence already was aware of such acitvities? I think probably so. Nevertheless, it would have been an insurmountable task to sell to the UN.

Say goodbye to American support for WTO membership...or anything else during the next ten years.

The shit just hit the fan.

Hey... there are two Terry's here. We need to work this out. How about adding a letter to the end. I can take TerryP

What I find interesting is the part about Osama. Could this have been a sting now screwed up because of a leak with this info. Were the Russians and Yanks playing good cop, bad cop?

Read the whole thing.

Assassins?

Deep, deep penetration of either US communications, or someone very, very deep inside?

The CIA and Secret Service must be going crazy right about now.

Holy shit. Sorry, but that's the only thing that seems appropriate.

Holy shit.

And God Bless the reporter who was clever enough to pull this off.

"The CIA and Secret Service must be going crazy right about now.'

More like high-fiving. If this is at all real, the Russians are seriously, seriously hurt. Even if we only got hold of partial information, they have to act like we know EVERYTHING.

Let's not panic here. A lot of this cloak and dagger stuff is whacky. You have to pick out the interesting bits.
Think about it for a minute. All may not be as it seems. Why would Osama even be on this list.
Although I could be wrong.

I think we can about guarantee the CIA is not high-fiving. State is, maybe.

The intel shows that OUR communications are seriously penetrated. They are reading our mail, or they have a spy deep, deep inside our countries. Those are rather intimate conversations being reported. This is Bad for us. Although very, very good that we found out about it. Finally. Bet that serious damage has been done.

There's more at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/04/13/SPIES.TMP.

Was this place guarded any better than the museum was?

DSmith

Look again. It does not say US mail is being read. I would think, frankly, that the Italians are the source. There is a very long history of fellow travelers and Communist leanings in Italy. But the implications are profound.

Don't forget that we have Echelon. Get used to constant espionage forever and ever. It's just going to be a fact of life.

Some Russian think-tank lady--I can't remember her name, or how I linked to the report, it was just a few days after 9/11/01--had made a speech in the Russian Duma just a week or two before 9/11/01, saying (all quotes paraphrased) that "the USA was involved in a deadly continental game" and that it would very soon "suffer an extreme attack on its political, military, and financial systems" and that this attack would be "grave enough to ultimately destroy the dollar" and her advice was for Russians to get out of all dollar-denominated investments "immediately." This report never got much attention in the info flood after the WTC attacks, but it has always stuck in my mind. I do recall that Russia had officially subsequently warned the citizenry to bail on their dollars. Wish I knew how to recover that link...I remember, it was not some internet gerfuffle, it was posted by one of the big financial houses, I believe. But, it had a very reputable provenance. Vladimir would know.

Ida know. Some of this stuff looks like 'feeder' material, given to the Iraqis to make them think the were feeling the love. A couple of items caught my eye. List of assassins? Even in the worst of the bad KGB days, that sort of 'wet work' was a pretty rare occurance.

Kuwaitis wanting to by a billion worth of Russian hardware? Huh? Why, when they could get better stuff from us? Not like they'd seen an up close product comparison or anything...

And why would the Russians send a laundry list of their arms deals to Saddam in the first place?

The info on Blair - could have been a lot of sources on that one. From a diplo conversation to some no-name acting as a waiter overhearing something.

Most damning part of the whole thing is the existence of this type of relationship at all. I'm guessing we -may- see some shoulder shrugging explaination along the lines of 'keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer' kind of thing. They were just snuggling up to be in line to see if he was up to anything -really- nasty, or some horse poop like that.

"Moscow also provided Saddam with lists of assassins available for "hits" in the West"

Good thing Saddam did not use one of these sources to assassinate an American leader, or we could very well be at war with the Russkies now.

I'm thinking we will see more reports similar to this in the near distant future. Sitting on the world's second largest oil bed has probably attracted all sorts of "friends".

The Iraqis kept vast records and it seems that they all bugged out before destroying them all.

Tip-o-the-iceberg me thinks.

Interesting times ahead.

"Putin spies on Blair"

Bad Dobby! BAD!

Let's see Putin weasel out of this!

Found it, good ole Google, at www.loompanics.com/Articles/September11.html Item #42, scroll down about 70% to "Russian Media Warned..." etcetera. Guess this is old, anyway, what's the surprise if OBL had Russian contacts...the surprise would be if he didn't. Shucks, it sure was nice to be able to like them, for a few years.

Surely special ops could have gotten to these places before looters did?

Or are we way more incompetent than I'd feared...

Russia better start writing off its debts from Iraq. Minimum $8 billion.

And forget about oil contracts, unless LukOil can win them in open competition.

All bets are off, Mr Putin.

someone, there's a TON of sites, and a ton of stuff at each site. Imagine, a particularly creative police state of of 24 million people.

No, we don't have that many people. That's one of the side effects of this high-tech, light army approach to war. But I doubt if the army that marched on Germany would have been big enough to lock down everything, especially when the country collapses so fast you almost have to be everywhere at once.

Here's a report on similar, but apparently different, documents found by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Russian organization was training Iraqi spies, documents show

This is shocking, simply shocking. A country lead by a former KGB agent spying for other countries? Never woulda thunk it!

The REAL axis of evil: France, Germany and Russia

IF Russia really did provide Iraq with a list of assassins to attack Western targets, that alone would have been an act of war. A war I very much do not wish to see take place.

Certainly things have gone downhill since Bill (Moscow) Clinton let Yeltsin go hang and let his old KGB buddies take over the Russian government. But this is very disturbing. The old USSR simply wouldn't have been that -stupid-.

Last year, mujahideen in Afghanistan told me they believed that Russia was in deep with Saddam...even WMDs and nuclear resources, along with scientists and military personnel. Readers at Daily Pundit have seen my accounts of Russian complicity with Saddam...from what I heard, it's all bad news; obviously, the US knew as well...whether our intelligence in Afghanistan believed is something else. I hope our intel knew it from other sources outside Afghanistan already; the chilly relationship between Putin and Bush in the last 10 months suggest we did. Anyway, I believed what I heard...I've known these guys since the 80s, and though they might exaggerate due to passionate hatred of Russians; on the substance of stories they are rarely wrong.

So it turns out that Iraq was a French client-state and that Russia was issuing Iraqis with continuing ed credits in spycraft and letting them listen in on their best of Blair taps...

Of course I'm not surprised. How could anyone reading the blogosphere be? What's interesting is how shocking some of these revelations have been for those who rely on TV for 90% of their news.