Allegation: Germany gave US Saddam's plans

[gsm]

Germany gave US Saddam's plans
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/function/0,2145,12215_pg_0,00.html

New allegations have emerged that Germany provided active assistance to the United States military during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. According to a classified US military study obtained by the New York Times, two German BND secret service agents stationed in Iraq obtained a copy of former dictator Saddam Hussein's plan to defend Baghdad. A German official then passed this on to American commanders a month before the invasion, giving them high level knowledge of Saddam's plans, including troop deployments. The new information contradicts a German report released last week, which said the two agents only identified civilian sites so they would not be attacked by mistake. Germany's liberal Free Democrat party has called on the government to clarify the new allegations.

[WarriorMonk]

Wonder what exactly is the row over this one...?

[Weasel]

Won´t have consequences.

[LaoSexMachine]

Rmm..........................................

[Kitsune]

WarriorMonk wrote:
Wonder what exactly is the row over this one...?
From the strictly moral point of view this all can be well justified (and I personally see no problem with it at all) but still, some people have some issues with it. Namely, either the Schröder government publicly spoke out against the war but at the same time had BND operatives spying on Iraq for the USA while officially claimning to be neutral - which smacks of double standards - or the BND did this by itself, in which case the German secret service decided to make policy over the heads of the government. These are the accusations. (A third one within BND would be how it could happen that the whole world now knows about it...but that is there own security problem.)
And of course the present opposition parties in Germany couldn't leave such a golden opportunity out to wash the dirty laundry of the former government (dominated by the SPD and this party is now part of the present government as well) before the general public. Therefore they make accusations, demand investigations ("the general public has the right to know what was going on") and such. German inner policy at work.

[Mailman]

Only those living in laalaa land would have a problem with one ally helping another!

Mailman

[Weasel]

Only those living in laalaa land would have a problem with one ally helping another!

Mailman
Old Europe - already forgotten?

[soprano]

THANK YOU TO THOSE brave Germans they MAY have saved many lives,THEY DEServe a medal!!!

[toki]

Rmm..........................................
It's not a RMM. The old 'version', like 2 months ago was that BND spies passed coordinates for one strike, now they say german spies passed whole plans to the americans. This is a big discussion in germany just right now. The german and american secretary of defense denied the report.

There will be an investigation soon! If true, the position of the german government is put in a bad light. They would loose their credibility in case of new political rows about possible future conflicts.

Of course some americans would be thankful and many germans would say, better help an ally even if you say you oppose their actions. But in the end it's a double standard that shoud not be there in foreign politics. You loose credibility in the end.

[striker]

Said it before, this could be the real story behind: Some night watch stander, who got the info overnight and routinely handed it over to the friends through standard liason channels, didn't think that his action contradicts the position of the German government.
Can't blame him though, the BND did that since it was founded as Organisation Gehlen by the US.
Makes more sense than believing the German government while openly opposing the war was secretly helping the US and the cooling down of relations during the Schroeder years was just done to hide the truth.

[Supe]

Namely, either the Schröder government publicly spoke out against the war but at the same time had BND operatives spying on Iraq for the USA while officially claimning to be neutral - which smacks of double standards - or the BND did this by itself, in which case the German secret service decided to make policy over the heads of the government.


1) No hypocrisy there. Intelligence agencies routinely spy on other nations regardless of the political climate. The goings on of Saddam's regime would still have been of interest to Germany, even if the Germans weren't participating in the war. Perhaps Schroder wanted more information on Saddam's WMD capabilities so could he could make more informed choices. That other data came out on troop dispositions was probably a side benefit of the relationship Germans had developed with key Iraqi's.

2) I don't know how Intelligence agencies work but I am sure there are broad range of operations going on that the Govt is not aware of. But, focus for these operations would be provided according to policy, need and dictated above all, by the Government. The Gov sets the broad agenda and the spy agencies work according to that.