US accuses Russians of aiding Iraq

9:00am

WASHINGTON - The United States believes Russian company technicians are in Baghdad helping the Iraqis operate electronic jamming systems that could impair the US-led war against Iraq, a US official said today.

President Bush telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to protest against alleged Russian sales of night-vision goggles, antitank missiles and global positioning system (GPS) jamming systems to Iraq, the White House said. US officials said such sales would violate UN sanctions.

Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia, which along with France strongly opposed the US-led war against Iraq, denied Russia had supplied Iraq with any military equipment in breach of UN sanctions.

But US officials said Washington had been worried about the alleged sales by Russian companies for months and had protested to Moscow at increasingly senior levels, culminating in Bush's telephone call to Putin on Monday.

"The two also discussed United States' concerns, which President Bush discussed, involving prohibited hardware that has been transferred from Russian companies to Iraq," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said at his daily briefing.

Asked if Washington had evidence the items were being used by Iraq as it seeks to fend off the US and British bombing campaign and ground forces marching on Baghdad, he said: "They were not provided for the purpose of sitting on shelves."

The spokesman added: "We do have concerns that some aspects of this may be ongoing. those concerns were raised in the phone call today."

US officials believe the alleged sales have been carried out by private Russian firms and they want greater oversight by Russian authorities to stop them.

Speaking to reporters earlier in the day, Fleischer said: "The United States has credible evidence that Russian companies have provided assistance and prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime, things such as night vision goggles, GPS jammers and antitank guided missiles."

A US official who asked not to be named said Washington made its accusations public late last week when it discovered Russian technicians in Baghdad aiding the Iraqis with the GPS jamming system after the start of the US-led war.

"They are there in Baghdad ... trying to make the system work, the jamming system," said the US official.

"It was the discovery that there are ... Russian technicians helping to make this GPS jamming work in Baghdad that prompted the internal debate in the US government about what to do and (whether) to go public," the official added.

Allegations of such alleged Russian military sales surfaced on Sunday in the Washington Post, which reported that the United States had protested against the sales late last week.

The newspaper reported that US officials, citing intelligence sources, believe the jamming devices were initially imported to counter US and British jets patrolling the "no-fly" zones of northern and southern Iraq and were deployed last week when US forces began their attack.

- REUTERS