scandal

German media, citing their sources in the intelligence services of Germany and the United States, reported yesterday that in 2003, during the war in Iraq, employees of the Federal Intelligence Service (FRS) of Germany supplied the American military with intelligence information. If this is confirmed, the highest German political circles cannot avoid a major scandal.

Yesterday, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper and ARD's Panorama television analysis program reported that at least two Fed officials remained in Baghdad during the Iraq war and provided intelligence to the US military. After the German embassy in Iraq was evacuated on March 17, 2003, three days before the start of the war, these two FRS agents were given refuge at the French mission in Baghdad. According to a senior SZ source in the German security service, their tasks included cooperating with the US Defense Intelligence Agency to identify targets that should not be bombed. The United States asked for help, and its provision was authorized by Ernst Urlau, then the intelligence coordinator in the office of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, and then-Fed Chairman August Hanning. SZ's source in the intelligence services said that the Fed management made this decision in agreement with the Chancellor's office. “This was not a mid-level manager’s decision,” the source noted. According to him, this was a “political decision” of the red-green government, although officially the government of Gerhard Schröder opposed the war in Iraq and refused to participate in it. According to the source, the search for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein became a “justification” for “prompt assistance to the Americans.”

In turn, a former US Department of Defense employee told the Panorama program that the help of German agents was “very important” for the American leadership, which was waging an offensive war. He said the Fed was providing "direct support" in "target detection and acquisition." So, on April 7, 2003, the US military, having learned through their channels that Saddam Hussein might be in one of the districts of Baghdad - Mansoura, turned to Federal Reserve agents in Baghdad with a request to inspect the area. A Fed official confirmed that there was a convoy of armored limousines on one of the streets, and the US bombed two targets in Mansoura. Then 12 civilians died. The American pilot who bombed Mansour on April 7 and the Fed officer who remained in Baghdad received medals from the US government at the end of the war.

On Wednesday, the Fed denied helping Americans identify bomb targets, although it confirmed that two of its employees remained in Baghdad during the fighting. The Fed said it has "never provided target data or bombing coordinates to war parties." In Iraq, the FRS "collected information, processed it and informed the German government, in particular, about the actual development of military operations, as well as about the impact of the war and its consequences." August Hanning, currently serving as Deputy Minister of the Interior Ministry of Germany, declined to comment. Frank Walter Steinmeier, the current foreign minister who headed the chancellor's intelligence watchdog in 2003, yesterday acknowledged the presence of Federal Reserve agents in Baghdad, emphasizing that they were collecting information for the German government.

Media reports have rattled the opposition. "This would be a sensational violation of the German 'no' to the war in Iraq," Green Party chairwoman Claudia Roth said during a faction meeting in Worlitz. According to Max Stadler, spokesman for the Free Democratic Party faction in the Bundestag, if the media reports are true, this is “a serious scandal that requires immediate clarification.” “The creation of an investigative commission is inevitable,” he believes.

ANNA VOLKOVA

German intelligence helped the US fight in Iraq