Did Old Europe Aid Our Invasion Of Iraq?

According to a NY Times report, German intelligence officials provided information being gathered in Baghdad to American officials, including CentCom Commander Tommy Franks:

The German liaison officer made 25 reports to the Americans, answering 18 of 33 specific requests for information made by the United States during the first few months of the Iraq war in what was a systematic exchange between American intelligence officials and the Germans, according to the German report.

The decision to install the officer was planned and approved at the highest levels of the German government, including by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the chief of staff for Gerhard Schröder, then the chancellor, and by the foreign minister at the time, Joschka Fischer. Mr. Steinmeier is now the foreign minister. [...]

The German government was a vocal critic of the Bush administration's decision to use military force to topple Saddam Hussein and has long insisted that it provided only limited help to the United States-led coalition. But in recent months, news reports of greater German involvement prompted the parliamentary review, which indicates that German-American cooperation during the war was continuing, systematic and regular. [...]

Much of the information concerned the location of sites where bombing should be avoided, including embassies and the place where it was thought that a missing American pilot was being held. But in eight of the reports, the German intelligence officer provided information on Iraqi police and military units in Baghdad. According to the report, German officials provided the geographic coordinates of some units, but the report asserts that they did not direct airstrikes against Iraqi leaders or forces.

And for good measure...

Germany had already decided that if war broke out, it would close its embassy, which led to an interesting sidelight: the Germans also arranged that, once the war broke out and the German Embassy was closed, the two German intelligence agents in Baghdad would take refuge in the French Embassy.

They did exactly that after the beginning of the invasion on March 20, 2003, moving into offices of the French intelligence agency and thereby giving the French, who also vociferously opposed the American war in Iraq, an indirect role in supporting the German-American intelligence exchange.

A HA! It seems that the German government is having some problems with the leaking of sensitive information to the press. Interesting.

Keep this in mind the next time you hear the Germans or the French boasting about a united European effort to counterbalance American hegemony.

Here's the article from The New York Times