WASHINGTON — Russia collected information about U.S. troop movements and battle plans at the outset of the Iraq invasion by tapping sources inside the American military, and the intelligence was passed to Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, according to Iraqi documents cited in a Pentagon report released Friday.
The unclassified report does not assess the value or accuracy of the information Saddam got or offer details on Russia's information pipeline. It cites captured Iraqi documents that say the Russians had "sources inside the American Central Command" and that intelligence was passed to Saddam through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia's U.N. mission in New York, said the allegations were false.
"To my mind, from my understanding it's absolutely nonsense and it's ridiculous," she said, adding that the U.S. government had not shown Russia the evidence cited in the report. "Somebody wants to say something, and did — and there is no evidence to prove it."
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The Iraqi documents leave unclear who may have been the sources at Central Command's war-fighting headquarters, which is at Camp As Saliyah just outside Doha, the capital of Qatar. No Russians were authorized to be at the closely guarded base.
A classified version of the report, titled "Iraqi Perspectives Project," is not being made public. It was assembled by U.S. Joint Forces Command, which reviewed a vast array of captured Iraqi documents and interviewed Iraqi political and military leaders, not including Saddam.
The report does not address the possibility that the U.S. military deliberately fed false information to the Russians, expecting them to pass it to Saddam. It does say that "such external sources of information were only one of the fog-generators obscuring the minds of Iraq's senior leadership."
Among the information the Iraqis said they received from the Russians, some of which proved inaccurate, was:
● That the movement of U.S. troops into southern Iraq from Kuwait was a diversion. In fact it was the main avenue of attack, supported by special forces entering from Jordan and paratroopers flying into northern Iraq.
● That the ground assault on Baghdad would not begin until the Army's 4th Infantry Division was in place, around April 15. In fact, the 4th Infantry, whose originally planned invasion route from Turkey was blocked by the Turkish government, was not yet on Iraqi territory when the Baghdad ground assault began April 7. Thus, by design or chance, the information from the Russians actually reinforced a U.S. military deception effort.
● That the main focus of U.S. ground forces moving toward Baghdad from the southwest was the area around the city of Karbala. This was true. After crossing a bridge over the Euphrates River outside of Karbala, the 3rd Infantry Division had a clear path to the Iraqi capital and Saddam's chances of stopping the assault had ended.
● That U.S. troops moving through southern Iraq would not attempt to occupy cities but instead bypass them. This was true and was a central feature of an invasion plan that stressed speed and tactical surprise.
The lead author of the Pentagon report, Kevin Woods, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing that he was surprised to learn that the Russians had passed intelligence to Saddam, and he said he had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the Iraqi documents.
"But I don't have any other knowledge of that topic," Woods added, referring to the Russian link.
In Moscow, a duty officer with Russia's Foreign Ministry would not comment on the report late Friday.
