Russians Pass War Plans to Iraq

ABC news is reporting today that Iraq had “details of a U.S. plan for war” in the days before the coalition invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The information relayed to Baghdad is summarized in two documents, and summarizes information provided to Saddam’s Iraq by Russian Ambassador Vladimir Teterenko. The first is dated March 5, 2003, and the second is dated March 25, 2003.

The first document discloses that Teterenko relayed:

a handwritten account of a meeting with the Russian ambassador that details his description of the composition, size, location and type of U.S. military forces arrayed in the Gulf and Jordan. The document includes the exact numbers of tanks, armored vehicles, different types of aircraft, missiles, helicopters, aircraft carriers, and other forces, and also includes their exact locations. The ambassador also described the positions of two Special Forces units.

The second document states that the Russian Ambassador:

has told the Iraqis that the United States was planning to deploy its force into Iraq from Basra in the South and up the Euphrates, and would avoid entering major cities on the way to Baghdad, which is, in fact what happened. The documents also state “Americans are also planning on taking control of the oil fields in Kirkuk.” The information was obtained by the Russians from “sources at U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar.”

ABC was kind enough to provide an explanation for why the Russian Ambassador might have been motivated to assist in the annihilation of American troops: Oil.

(Editor’s Note: The Russian ambassador in March 2003 was Vladimir Teterenko. Teterenko appears in documents released by the Volker Commission, which investigated the Oil for Food scandal, as receiving allocations of 3 million barrels of oil — worth roughly $1.5 million. )

And I thought it was the Americans who were supposedly motivated by oil… Perhaps there was more than a moral highground that motivated the Russians to oppose the invasion of Iraq…

Interestingly, just below the story of the Russian Ambassador, possible motivation for the French opposition to the invasion is mentioned as well: Oil, again! Hmmm….

(Editor’s Note: This is an intriguing document that suggests Saddam Hussein’s regime had a strong interest in the mechanics and legalities of financial contributions to French politicians. Several former French politicians are implicated in receiving oil vouchers from Iraq under the U.N. Oil for Food program.)

Who was it that was motivated by oil, again?

This entry was posted on Friday, March 24th, 2006 at 2:14 pm and is filed under The Media, Politics, Global War on Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.