FILE UNDER: COLLABORATION:

Russian Agents Are Meeting With Iraqis, Newspaper Says (The Associated Press, Mar. 31, 2003)

Russian intelligence agents are holding daily meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Friday and suggested they are interested in gaining control of Iraqi secret service archives if Saddam Hussein's regime falls.

The report, which said that the meetings include agents of the SVR, the foreign intelligence service, did not specify its sources. But the newspaper is believed to have well-placed contacts in military and intelligence spheres.

Telephone calls to the SVR press office were not answered Friday evening.

The newspaper said the archives could be highly valuable to Russia in three major areas: in protecting Russian interests that remain in a post-war Iraq; in determining to what extent the Hussein regime may have financed Russian political parties and movements; and in providing Russia access to intelligence that Iraqi agents conducted in other countries.

If they can get the files on what the French and Germans were up to for the past twelve years, Russia will be admitted to the EU by the end of the year. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 31, 2003 5:32 PM