Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Germany handed Iraq\'s Defence Plans to US Invaders

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Published on Tuesday, 28 February 2006 15:00

A Report in the New York Times based on a dossier compiled by the US Joint Forces Command, disclosed that in February 2003, German intelligence agents supplied the US military with details of Saddam Hussein\'s plans to defend Baghdad. The Iraqi defence plan was unveiled at a meeting of senior Iraqi commanders in December 2002. It included plans to mass troops in defensive rings around the capital, and to form a last-ditch \"red line\" of Republican Guard troops who were ordered to hold out to the end. The Report said a German intelligence officer based in Qatar passed a copy of the Iraqi defence plan and a sketch of the operation to an official of the US Defence Intelligence Agency, a month before American troops entered Iraq. The Report\'s findings came as an acute embarrassment to Chancellor Angela Merkel\'s Government, which has repeatedly insisted that Germany did nothing substantial to support America in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.