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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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December 16th,
2008 - How German Agents Helped Pave the Way into Iraq 1st news article from Der
Spiegel |
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How German Agents Helped
Pave the Way into Iraq ‘Those guys are heroes’ By John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach & Holger Stark Der Spiegel December 16, 2008 The German government has
long denied that its intelligence agents in Baghdad provided meaningful help
prior to and during the US invasion of Iraq. US military personnel, though,
have told SPIEGEL a vastly different story. He would make the perfect
witness. The tall, slim retired US general has nothing but good things to say
about the Germans. He says they are "reliable" and extremely
trustworthy. Most of all, though, he knows things that German
parliamentarians would like to know. But General James Marks is
not a witness, nor is he ever likely to be one. The German parliamentary
committee charged with investigating the German foreign intelligence service,
the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), prefers to question Germans in its effort
to find out what role the agency played during the Iraq war. Those asked to
testify tend to be government employees and, therefore, dependent on the
government. Americans have not thus far been summoned. Indeed, no effort to
do so has been made. Still, a man like Marks
would have a lot to say. He could talk about the spring of 2003, when he was
sitting in a windowless, air-conditioned briefing room at the US military's
Camp Doha in the Kuwaiti desert, reading the reports of two BND agents who
held out in Baghdad during the war. And he could talk about how the
information provided by the Germans was incorporated into the situation
reports he presented in daily videoconferences to General Tommy Franks, head
of the US invading forces, and sometimes to then Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld. In the spring of 2003, Marks
headed up the military intelligence efforts both before and during the
American campaign. It was his job to ensure that the 115,000 US troops didn't
run into any surprises as they advanced toward Baghdad. All information
relevant to the war ended up on his desk. By virtue of this position, Marks,
more than almost anyone else, knows how important the reports provided by the
two Germans were for the American war effort. German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier will testify before the parliamentary investigative
committee on Thursday. When the Iraq war began in early 2003, Steinmeier was
head of Germany's secret services as well as being then-Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder's chief of staff. Schröder, for his part, owed his re-election in
September 2002 primarily to his tough opposition to US plans to invade Iraq. Rewriting History? In February 2003, Schröder
promised Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, that there would
be "no direct or indirect participation in a war." And yet, by that
point, his right-hand-man Steinmeier had already secretly approved the
deployment of the two BND agents to Baghdad. The details of this mission
began to be revealed in January 2006. And since then, the same questions have
been asked repeatedly, and not just in the parliamentary investigative
committee. What was the assignment
given to the two men? Did the information they provided support the American
war effort? Was German government criticism of the United States just one
side of the coin? Did Schröder's and Steinmeier's BND secretly help the
Americans militarily? For Steinmeier, nothing less
than his political credibility is at stake. He is the most prominent of
Schröder's close associates still in power today, and he will challenge
Chancellor Angela Merkel as the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor in
general elections next fall. Is Steinmeier now trying to rewrite part of
history? Since January 2006,
Steinmeier, now Germany's vice chancellor and foreign minister, has stated
that the government's political standard for the BND's mission in Baghdad was
clear: No "active support" of combat operations in Iraq. He has
also said: "If an embassy or a hospital was prevented from being hit,
then it can't be called a double standard. In that case, it was about saving
innocent human lives." The current governing
coalition, which pairs Steinmeier's Social Democrats (SPD) with Merkel's
Christian Democrats (CDU), also stuck to the same official line in its report
on the Baghdad mission: "No support for the US's offensive, strategic
aerial war. No transfer of information with direct relevance to the US's
tactical air and ground war effort." Berlin has also insisted: "The
responses the BND provided to US requests for information satisfied these
criteria." According to the classified, censored part of the report, the
information coming from the BND agents was not suitable for US purposes. But according to US military
officials involved in the Iraq war, these statements have little to do with
reality. SPIEGEL spoke with more than 20 active and retired American soldiers
both from Central Command (Centcom) - which coordinates US military activity
in the Middle East, Egypt and Central Asia - and from the Coalition Forces
Land Component Command (CFLCC) in charge of the ground forces in the invasion
of Iraq. Among those spoken to were critics of the Bush administration, who
cannot be accused of wanting to shift political responsibility to Germany.
All of them dealt with the reports filed by the German agents. They analyzed
the information and put it to use. ‘Living on Another Planet’ A number of senior US military
officials were confronted a second time with the content of selected reports.
The pictures that the respondents drew of the relevance of the German
contributions were largely similar. Colonel Carol Stewart, who was a member
of the intelligence team at Centcom, then run by General Tommy Franks, says:
"Anyone who claims that these reports did not play a role for combat
operations is living on another planet." The history of the BND
mission goes back to the fall of 2002. At the agency's headquarters just
outside of Munich, the idea developed to remain in Baghdad during the war in
order to obtain a perspective independent of that provided by the Americans.
According to one memo, the German Foreign Ministry, which was intimately
involved early in the process, was "initially skeptical" about the
project. But in mid-December 2002, then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer gave
his consent. On Feb. 11, 2003, two agents
using the cover names Reiner Mahner and Volker Heinster traveled across the
desert from the Jordanian capital Amman to Baghdad. First though the agency
negotiated a secret deal with the Americans. Under the arrangement, selected
reports from the Iraqi capital would also be sent to the Americans. In
return, the Germans were permitted to send one of their intelligence agents
to Centcom in Qatar, the US war operations headquarters. The BND sent Bernd
P., code name "Gardist." The operation quickly gained
in importance, according to former BND division head Ludwig Mundt, from whose
unit the agents were sent. Mundt is a veteran of the intelligence community
and has seen many governments come and go. But he cannot recall a time when
an administration in Berlin was this interested in a secret services
operation. Photographs, GPS Data and 130 Reports On Feb. 27, an incident
occurred that demonstrates that the BND's role in Baghdad could not have been
as marginal as it claims today. On that day, Johannes H., the BND agent (or
"resident") in Baghdad at the time, sent an extremely important
message to his counterparts with the Iraqi intelligence service. The core of
the message consisted of only one sentence, but it was practically an
ultimatum: "The United States and Great Britain consider Iraq's refusal
to destroy the Samud II missiles to be a casus belli." When the Iraqis hesitated,
the BND agent told them that the Latin term means "cause for war."
Suddenly they understood the message. "Both men seemed very
concerned," the station chief noted in a memo for BND headquarters. The
Iraqis had suggested that their boss was likely to "take the message
directly to IRQ President Saddam Hussein." The delivery of this
explosive news was one of the resident's last official actions. After that,
the new special team took over the BND's Baghdad operations. The two new agents
were trained soldiers. Mahner was a lieutenant colonel and had served in the
German Air Force, and Heinster was a paratrooper. The BND duo began making
reconnaissance trips. Using a secure satellite line, they transmitted about
130 reports, including photographs and GPS data, to BND headquarters. They
reported sandbag positions and machine gun nests and, after reporting the
positions of Iraqi troops near their own location, they requested that
"Special Forces be used to fight these troops; no rockets, and
definitely no artillery." Germany’s Role in US Combat Decisions To this day, the two men
deny knowing that their reports were forwarded to the Americans. But such a
request seems to counter those denials. After all, decisions on the deployment
of Special Forces and artillery were entirely up to Centcom, the American
headquarters. On the ninth day of the war,
the two BND agents reported: "Air force officers' club severely hit,
although soldiers are preparing for defense in the ruins." The report
was sent to Qatar on the same day. A short time later, the Americans attacked
the same target a second time. On April 1, the pair, known as a Special
Deployment Team or SET, reported that the air force officers' club was
"hit again and completely destroyed." This report was also
forwarded to Centcom on the same day, at 11:28 a.m. Were these reports relevant
to the Americans' conduct of the war? Horst Henning Sch., an agent stationed
at BND headquarters at the time, was responsible for deciding what
information could be passed on to "Gardist" and to the Americans.
He told the Bundestag investigative committee that almost no information was
supplied to the Americans, and that the information that was provided was
worthless. Sch. chose a bold simile in his testimony before the committee:
"Gardist," in a manner of speaking, "played a strong game of
poker with few aces in his hand." The Americans interviewed by
SPIEGEL could tell the Bundestag committee a different story about the
relevance of the BND reports. In their view, these reports even played a role
in critical combat decisions, such as that relating to commencement of the
ground offensive. ‘Reliable Agents on the Ground’ Marks, the general in
military intelligence, recalls receiving hundreds of reports from other
agencies every day in his top-secret e-mail box. He classified the
information coming from the Germans as coming from "eyes on the
ground." It was exactly the kind of information that Marks felt he
didn't have enough of. In addition to the search for the alleged weapons of
mass destruction, the general was interested in the situation surrounding
Iraq's oilfields and the defense of Baghdad. The oil was of particular
concern to the US military in Kuwait and Qatar. They were determined to
prevent Saddam Hussein from destroying his oil facilities, as he had done 12
years earlier in the first Gulf War. Any information about possible sabotage
was given priority within Marks' 400-man operation. The American intelligence
group was all the more agitated when, on Feb. 25, it received information
indicating that Iraqi forces had begun burning "massive amounts of crude
oil" at the al-Dora refinery in Baghdad. "The IRQ side apparently
hopes that this will obstruct US satellite reconnaissance," the German
agents wrote. On March 5, they reported: "There is credible information
to suggest that the oil pumping station near Kirkuk was prepared for
blasting." The explosive reports came from Mahner and Heinster, the two
BND agents. Eleven days after their
arrival, they got into their Jeep, together with the BND resident, and drove
on Iraq's Highway No. 8 to Hilla, about 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of
Baghdad. As they drove south, the Germans saw Soviet-made T-72 combat tanks
dug into position along the highway, various sandbag positions and
machine-gun nests on the roofs of government buildings. The agents took a
number of photographs. Invasion, Fast-Forward In the report they prepared
after the trip, they also described plumes of smoke coming from the airport
and the al-Dora refinery. A short time later the information, photographs
included, became available to the Americans in Kuwait. Several members of General
Marks' staff remember the reactions triggered by the German reports. "The March 5 report was
especially important to us," says a senior member of the oil
reconnaissance team, who works for a security agency today and therefore wishes
to remain anonymous. The reports and the increased monitoring of the
facilities that ensued, he says, resulted in substantial changes to and
acceleration of the war plans. Air reconnaissance of the
facilities was immediately stepped up, says the former oil reconnaissance
team member. On March 19, when a drone provided the first images of flames
coming from burning oilfields, thus reinforcing the Germans' warnings, Marks
hurried to the commander of the ground troops, David McKiernan. "What
counts now," he said, with some urgency, "is the element of
surprise. Let's advance on the ground first and secure the oil." Centcom Commander Franks
agreed. A few hours later, he gave 140,000 coalition troops their marching
orders. As a result, the ground war began earlier than planned, and Franks'
decision went down in US military history as "G before A," or
"ground before air." By March 21, the US Marines reported that
their mission had already been accomplished. They had crossed the border without
encountering significant resistance, and had taken control of Iraq's central
oil fields. "The Germans and their reliable information played a
significant part in the war beginning earlier than planned," says Marks. According to several
American military officials, the Baghdad BND agents' reports also played a
role in a second strategic war issue, centering on the Baghdad international
airport, known as Saddam Airport at the time. In this case, the German
information again apparently contributed to the US Army's decision to
jettison its original plan. ‘Saved American Lives’ Because of its strategic
importance, US military leaders in Kuwait had had a 10-meter (33-foot) model
of the airport made. Plastic soldiers represented the Iraqi troops, and a
color-coding system was used to identify high-risk areas. Centcom had planned
a surprise attack. Using the model, the commanders had developed a plan in
which Special Forces and parts of the 82nd Airborne Division would take the
airport with paratroopers from the air. Mahner and Heinster were
also interested in the airport. On Feb. 16, they and the BND resident
completed one of their first reconnaissance trips to the area. As they wrote
in their report, they discovered Roland anti-aircraft systems on a
"manmade hill," which they photographed from their car. A few days later, during a
second reconnaissance rip, they noticed freshly dug oil ditches. The Iraqi
forces had begun to "lay smoke screens near Saddam Airport," they
reported on Feb. 24. That report went to "Gardist" at US operational
headquarters in Qatar the next day. Marks remembers both the photo taken by
the Germans and the fact that the information about the air defense systems
was incorporated into the model at Camp Doha. In the decisive pre-war
phase, the commander of ground troops brought together the air-landing
specialists and reconnaissance experts in front of the model to work through
all options. After two hours of simulation, the general decided to call off
the operation, because of the high risk involved. To this day, Marks is
convinced that the information about the air defense positions and quickly
ignitable oil ditches made it clear to the commander that going ahead with
the original plan could have led to the deaths of thousands of paratroopers. The German team, Marks says
today, "saved American lives" through their efforts - the lives of
soldiers, he means, not the civilians that Steinmeier and the BND still talk
about today. The BND's dangerous Baghdad
operation was kept secret for a long time. It was only during a visit by US
members of Congress, including Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, to American
headquarters in Baghdad in early 2004 that the matter was briefly discussed.
A Republican had complained that Berlin had let the coalition down during the
war. Colonel Carol Stewart
recalls that she pointed out that the Germans had contributed to
"Operation Iraqi Freedom" with their reports. "Liebermann was
surprised," says Stewart, who says she had a similar reaction during the
war. "I knew that the Germans were against the war, and that's why I was
surprised that they played such a positive and helpful role for us during the
war." Stewart has nothing but praise for the BND agents, noting that
they were courageous and "did excellent work." Retired General
Marks says, referring to the BND agents, "those guys are heroes." An Incorrect Denial The same view was held in
BND headquarters and in Berlin, at least as long as the mission was kept
under wraps. Then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer and Chancellery Chief of
Staff Steinmeier, who met Mahner and Heinster on various occasions,
congratulated and thanked them for their work. But when the first reports
about the BND cell became public in January 2006, a quarrel quickly erupted
in Berlin. August Hanning, president of
the BND during the Iraq war and now a deputy in the Interior Ministry, argued
for an assertive position: "The Iraq war, after all, did not lead to the
suspension of our alliance with the Americans. We continue to work closely together." In January 2006, Hanning
argued internally for a self-assured approach, refusing to apologize for or
even downplay the case. "We were interested in information about the
progress of the war," he told close associates, "and we wanted to
have our own information in the field. That's why we needed the two agents,
and of course we exchanged information with the Americans." Hanning was
aware that the cooperation with US intelligence was much closer than the
anti-war rhetoric of the Schröder government indicated. "The reality and
the public's impression," he said, "are not the same." Steinmeier and Ernst Uhrlau
have taken a significantly different approach to the subject. Steinmeier has
become foreign minister and thus entered the top echelon of German politics.
Uhrlau has since replaced Hanning as head of the BND. Incorrect Denial In mid-January 2006, when
the first media inquiries about the BND's Baghdad operation started coming
in, Uhrlau consulted with his staff and then with the Chancellery. For the
first time, the charge was raised that the BND may have supplied military
information to the Americans. The agents, it was claimed, had provided the US
military with a supposed location for Saddam Hussein, which allegedly led to
the bombing of a restaurant, killing 12 civilians. Based on everything we
know today, this charge is false. Uhrlau was in favor of a
forceful denial and had his staff prepare a press release that went beyond
the specific restaurant-related claims. The statement said that the parties
to the conflict "were not provided with any target documentation or
coordinates for bombing targets." The approach taken by the
BND president was controversial within his own agency, where some senior
staff members advised restraint. "We will never be able to withdraw from
a statement like this," they argued. The new agency president, they
said, had no idea what surprises the BND files had in store for him. But
Uhrlau ignored their warnings and insisted that the BND issue a denial, in
writing. Still, before he issued the
denial, Uhrlau asked Merkel's Chief of Staff Thomas de Maizière and the
Chancellery intelligence coordinator Klaus Dieter Fritsche. But they were
unfamiliar with the files, and de Maizière and Fritsche had to take Uhrlau at
his word. They voiced there concerns during a number of meetings. But
eventually the Chancellery officials told Uhrlau that, if it was correct, he
could go ahead and issue the official denial. The denial was issued, but
it was not correct. Uhrlau's public relations
staff provided the German news agency DPA with the following quote: "The
goal was to save human lives." The BND agents, Uhrlau's staff said,
provided information about buildings that were not to be bombed under any
circumstances. "Civilian facilities, daycare centers, embassies and the
like," the BND spokesmen said, "the goal being to protect human
life. Military information was not provided. This did not happen. We deny
it." So there was no information
of a military nature. Medals for the Germans Steinmeier added his own
twist to the message. When SPIEGEL reported, on Jan. 14, 2006, that military
information about oil ditches had been sent to the US military, the news
agencies reported: "Steinmeier denies SPIEGEL report about BND
legwork." He said he would "resist attempts to rewrite
history." Internally, Steinmeier complained about "a
campaign," and confidants say they recall that the minister feared
serious political consequences, up to and including the possibility of his
resignation. Later, Steinmeier issued the
following prescribed terminology, which remains valid today. He said that the
government's political instructions to the BND "precluded active support
of combat operations" in Iraq. But Steinmeier's problem was that the
supposed instructions were not issued in writing, an unusual approach for a
bureaucracy known for its otherwise thorough documentation of even the most
minor details. When Hanning testified
before the investigation commission, he referred to the situation as a "balancing
act" and conceded that he had relied on the relevant department manager,
but argued that he had had no reason to question what he had been told. Does
this mean that, in the end, it was a minor department manager at the BND who
ultimately thwarted the Schröder government's anti-war course? Were Hanning,
Uhrlau and Steinmeier guilty of nothing more than a failure to properly
supervise lower-ranking staff? Or is the official account
by those in power at the time just as questionable as the attempts to
downplay the US Army's awarding of its Meritorious Service Medal to the
Baghdad agents and "Gardist" by arguing that this medal is awarded
to "non-combatants?" "Total nonsense,"
says James Marks, who manages a large Pentagon contracting firm today.
"This medal is one of the highest honors we award to foreign
nationals." He knows what he is talking
about. Marks himself has been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal - four
times. Translated from the German
by Christopher Sultan. External link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,596584,00.html US General on Berlin Agents
in Baghdad - ‘The Germans Were Invaluable to Us’ From Der Spiegel December 16, 2008 In a SPIEGEL interview,
Retired General James Marks, 55, discusses the importance of the BND,
Germany's foreign intelligence agency, for US attack plans in Iraq. SPIEGEL: General Marks, how
valuable was the information you received from the BND team in Baghdad during
the war? Marks: The German
information was of extreme importance and value for us. That's true of all of
the information we received from all of the "eyes on the ground"
human intelligence we got out of Baghdad. We were well supplied with
electronic, signals and aerial reconnaissance. That made up about 95 percent
of our intelligence. When it came to human intelligence, we were in bad
shape. That's why the Germans were invaluable to us, but also because the
information they provided was detailed and reliable. SPIEGEL: The German
government claims that the information wasn't suitable for US purposes. Marks: I can only say this:
We trusted the information from the Germans more than we trusted the CIA
because we knew that the Germans tend to be anal retentive and would only
report on things they had seen, felt or smelled or that they were very sure
of. SPIEGEL: Was there
information that influenced your plans for attack? Marks: One of the first
things that comes to mind was our plan to do a surprise attack and to seize
Baghdad International Airport with the 82nd Airborne Division. One of the
main reasons we canceled this operation was because of intelligence we got
from the Germans about anti-aircraft defenses. SPIEGEL: Could you be more
concrete? Marks: I remember they
provided me with what I think was a handheld picture, probably from a cell
phone, of a Roland Air Defense system which was placed on a small hill near
the airport. The information about where Saddam had placed large oil ditches
was very important. Those ditches, once lit, could have caused the disruption
of rotary wing vehicles, especially our helicopters. They also provided
information about a ZU-23 short-range air defense cannon positioned on top of
a house. We'd never heard of a ZU-23 being used that way before. We owe the
two courageous Germans who where in Baghdad during the war who risked their
lives our deepest and heartfelt thanks. With their intelligence they saved
American lives; there is no doubt about that. SPIEGEL: Did targets or the coordinates
of targets that came from the BND make it into American targeting plans? Were
such targets bombed, and did the information help the ground war in any way? Marks: That's not how it
works. Take the report, for example, from Feb. 25, 2003. The BND team
describes how along the highway toward Hilla that there are anti-aircraft
positions next to government buildings. We then sent out our drones to double
check the information. Later, I know that we attacked these positions from
the air. SPIEGEL: Were there other
reports from the Germans that you would rate as especially relevant? Marks: The information they
provided on the defense in and around Baghdad, the positions of various units
and weapons were of enormous help. I remember for example that the Germans
provided us with information that the Baath Party had set up checkpoints
staffed by activists at all major intersections. This knowledge, of course,
was very important for our ground troops as they approached Baghdad. SPIEGEL: Did you really need
two lone BND agents on the ground to get access to that information? Couldn't
you have seen the checkpoints from the air? Marks: Of course the two
Germans were not our only source. However, they frequently confirmed
information that we already had from our own technical reconnaissance and
other sources. But that was very important for us, because the source of the
information was extremely reliable. SPIEGEL: Were there other
BND reports that were important to you? Marks: We found out through our
German channel that the Iraqis were preparing to destroy their oil production
centers. That was important information that led to advancing the start of
the war and us sending in the 1st Marines Expeditionary Force (MEF) to secure
the oil facilities. SPIEGEL: Then-Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder's former chief of staff at the time, Frank Walter
Steinmeier, has said that the BND received a political directive not to
supply intelligence to the United States that would "actively support of
combat operations." Marks: Our motto in the
intelligence section of the US Army is that "intelligence drives
operations". Information forms the basis for every operation. There was
nothing more important for us in our intelligence shop than HUMINT directly
out of Baghdad. I don't understand why people feel they have to talk down the
achievements of these two men today. If you ask me, those guys are heroes. External link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,596537,00.html |