IF YOU WANT US TO CARRY YOUR WATER, SHUT UP:

Berlin admits giving US bombing targets in Iraq (Tony Paterson, 14 January 2006, Independent)

Chancellor Angela Merkel's fence-mending visit to the United States is being overshadowed by a growing scandal over reports that German intelligence had fed America key information about military targets in Iraq before the US invasion.

German MPs have called for a full inquiry into the allegations amid speculation about the future of Franz Walter Steinmeyer, Mrs Merkel's Social Democrat Foreign Minister, who was a senior government official during the Iraq war.

The reports of German-US intelligence co-operation, aired on Germany's ARD television channel, were confirmed by Berlin government sources and appeared to run directly counter to official German government policy on the war.

Citing a US government official, the TV channel said German intelligence officers in Baghdad had supplied information about a restaurant in the Mansur district of the city which the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was said to have frequented on the eve of the US-led invasion. The US military bombed the building killing 12 people.

Did they really think they could mouth off about Gitmo and get away scott free?

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 14, 2006 4:25 PM