BORROWING FROM NIXON:

Berlin's Spies Reportedly Helped US (Charles Hawley, 1/12/06, Der Spiegel)

The message from ex-chancellor Gerhard Schröder immediately prior to the United States invasion of Iraq was hard to misunderstand. Germany, he said on Aug. 5, 2002, "will not make itself available for any adventures under my leadership." Indeed, his anti-war stance resonated so strongly with German voters that it even helped get him re-elected in September 2002.

In January 2003, he emphasized that Germany -- then one of the rotating members of the United Nations Security Council -- would also not vote in favor of a resolution to go to war with Iraq.

But according to new revelations about the activities of Germany's intelligence service Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the country was not nearly so removed from the US-led war efforts as Schröder liked to claim. German intelligence agents, according to reports in both the Süddeutsche Zeitung and in German public television, were active in Iraq during the entire war and even helped the United States choose bombing targets. BND spooks may even have delivered targeting assistance for the early April 2003 bombing in the wealthy Mansour district of Baghdad -- a strike which was meant to vaporize Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein along with several top members of his regime. The attack left between 12 and 19 people dead -- but not Saddam.

"Despite the troubles in the relationship between Berlin and Washington, the political decision was made to continue the close relationship of the intelligence services," an unidentified source from the BND told the public television station ARD.

"Watch what we do, not what we say..."

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2006 9:57 AM