Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Putin, Iraq and Chechknya

While reading a "republican" blog I ran across This piece claiming that Putin gave US intel on Iraq plans to attack the US and US interests after 9-11

quote:
After Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests," Putin said.

"Despite that information ... Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged," he said in the Kazakh capital, Astana, after regional economic and security summits. He said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts.

"It's one thing to have information that Saddam's regime is preparing terrorist attacks, (but) we didn't have information that it was involved in any known terrorist attacks," he said.

Putin didn't elaborate on any details of the alleged plots or mention whether they were tied to al-Qaida (website - news) . He said Bush had personally thanked one of the leaders of Russia's intelligence agencies for the information but that he couldn't comment on how critical it was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.



So let's get this straight. Russia had "intel" that could not state when or where or even what type of attack was supposed to hit the US. Nor did the 9-11 committe even mention this piece of information. I mean lets be real here: If this information was credible under any kind of scrutiny it would have been all over the news and in the debates as evidence. Why did Putin "gift" Bush on this? It is easy to figure that Putin, with his problems with Chechnya wanted an ally in his "civil war." which is being cast as a "terrorist war." in order to gain international sympathy (which the Chechens did for him by killing all those children). Bush, when he got into office was full of tough talk on Putin. Now he and Putin (Iraq war aside) are quite close with the US largely supporting the Russian government as it regards Chechnya. Let us not forget that Putin also backs Bush for re-election.

Links:
http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0604/153958.html