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Journalism of Courage
German intelligence agents in Baghdad obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein’s plan to defend the Iraqi capital and it was passed on to US Commanders a month before the 2003 invasion, The New York Times reported. The report, based on a classified study by the US military, suggests German agents offered more assistance to the US than their government has publicly acknowledged.
It could increase the chances of a Parliamentary inquiry into the role Germany’s BND intelligence service played in the run-up to a war which former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder opposed.
According to the report, the Iraqi Defence plan provided the American military an extraordinary window into Iraq’s top-level deliberations, including where and how Saddam planned to deploy his most loyal troops.
An account of the German role in acquiring a copy of the Iraqi plan is contained in a US military study, which focuses on Iraq’s military strategy and was prepared in 2005 by the US Joint Forces Command, it said.
The Greens, junior partners in Schroeder’s government, and the Left Party have called for an inquiry which would require current and former German government officials to testify under oath. The other main Opposition party, the Free Democrats,demanded on Monday that the new government—a coalition of Chancellor Angela’s Merkel’s conservatives and Schroeder’s Social Democrats—report to Parliament on the matter.
