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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday his government warned
Washington that Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks in the
United States and its interests abroad an assertion that appears to
bolster President Bush's contention that Iraq was a threat.
Putin emphasized that the intelligence didn't cause Russia to
waver from its firm opposition to the U.S.-led war last year, but
his statement was the second this month in which he has offered at
least some support for Bush on Iraq.
"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. 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.
In Washington, a U.S. official said Putin's information did not add
to what the United States already knew about Saddam's intentions.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Putin's tip
didn't give a time or place for a possible attack.
Bush alleged Thursday that Saddam had "numerous contacts" with al-Qaida
and said Iraqi agents had met with the terror network's leader,
Osama bin Laden, in Sudan.
Saddam "was a threat because he had terrorist connections not only
al-Qaida connections, but other connections to terrorist
organizations," Bush said.
However, a commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported
this week that while there were contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq,
they did not appear to have produced "a collaborative relationship."
Also Thursday, a top Russian diplomat called for international
inspectors to resolve conclusively the question of whether Iraq had
any weapons of mass destruction.
"This problem must be resolved ... because to a great extent it
became the pretext for the start of the war against Iraq," the
Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov as
saying. He said such a finding would allow the U.N. Security Council
to "finally close the dossier on Iraqi weapons."
In the wake of the invasion of Iraq, Putin sharply rebuked the
United States for going to war despite opposition within the U.N.
Security Council and said the threat posed to international security
by the war was greater than that posed by Saddam.
But Putin's relationship with Bush is warm by the accounts of both
leaders, and last week he said he has no patience for those who
criticize Bush on Iraq.
"I don't pay attention to such publications," Putin said of media
criticism of Bush at the end of the Group of Eight summit in the
United States, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.
Putin said opponents who criticize Bush on Iraq "don't have any kind
of moral right. ... They conducted exactly the same kind of policy
in Yugoslavia."
Russia vehemently opposed the NATO bombing attacks on Yugoslavia in
1999, which the United States pushed for under President Clinton. |