Soul Brutha #2

Maybe we collectively misheard the preznit when he soberly pronounced that he had looked into Vladmer Poot'n's eyes and seen his soul. Perhaps he really said that he had seen his hole:

Russian officials collected intelligence on U.S. troop movements and attack plans from inside the American military command leading the 2003 invasion of Iraq and passed that information to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to a U.S. military study released yesterday.

The intelligence reports, which the study said were provided to Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad at the height of the U.S. assault, warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass Iraqi cities on their thrust toward Baghdad. The reports provided some specific numbers on U.S. troops, units and locations, according to Iraqi documents dated March and April 2003 and later captured by the United States.

Nice, huh? Of course, since both the Russians and the French had lucrative business deals going with Saddam at the time, it's not that much of a surprise. Still, what the hell, Pooty-Poot?

"The information that the Russians have collected from their sources inside the American Central Command in Doha is that the United States is convinced that occupying Iraqi cities are impossible, and that they have changed their tactic," said one captured Iraqi document titled "Letter from Russian Official to Presidential Secretary Concerning American Intentions in Iraq" and dated March 25, 2003.

So there's a mole in CENTCOM Doha then, do we understand this correctly? Note also that we apparently had had second thoughts about occupation at the time. Turns out, obviously, that our initial instincts were correct.

Another captured Iraqi document, dated April 2, 2003, said Russian intelligence had reported to Hussein more detailed and potentially damaging information: The Americans had their heaviest concentration of forces, 12,000 troops and 1,000 vehicles, near the Iraqi city of Karbala and were moving to cut off Baghdad.

....

One senior Republican Guard commander, Raad Majid Rashid al-Hamdani, issued a warning in line with the Russian intelligence when he told Hussein's son Qusay that the main U.S. attack was coming past Karbala. But Hamdani was largely ignored by Qusay Hussein and other generals, to his dismay, he told the authors of the study while describing the internal debates in an interview. "It was the kind of arguments that I imagine took place in Hitler's bunker in Berlin. Were all these men on drugs?" he said.

Yes, it's amazing what utter nonsense people will allow themselves to believe, when they have intimidated all the doubters from coming forth.