U.S. to Probe Russia on Iraq Intel Report

Sun Mar 26, 2:31 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration will ask Russia about a report that Moscow turned over information on American troop movements and other military plans to Saddam Hussein during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday.

"Any implication that there were those from a foreign government who may have been passing information to the Iraqis prior to the invasion would be, of course, very worrying," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"I would think the Russians would want to take that very seriously as well," she said.

A leading Senate Democrat said if the report is found to be true, the administration should reassess its relationship with Russia and reconsider President Bush's participation in a July summit meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia, of the world's economic powers.

Rice declined to speculate on whether Russia's actions, as detailed in a Pentagon report based on captured Iraqi documents, resulted in casualties among U.S. troops or what Russian President Vladimir Putin knew about any possible Russian involvement.

"We will certainly raise it with the Russian government. We want to take a real hard look at the documents and then raise it with the Russian government," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service has dismissed the allegation that Moscow provided information to Saddam, whose government was toppled in the invasion.

"I think we need an entirely new assessment of our relationships with Russia, should this be true," Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., told CBS' "Face the Nation." He questioned whether Bush should attend the Group of Eight meeting in the summer. "Clearly, we're not going to have business as usual," Kennedy said.

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee said "anything is possible in the area of intelligence." Sen. Carl Levin (news, bio, voting record) of Michigan said if the report proved true, "it would be obviously plenty discouraging as well as disgusting" and the U.S. should find ways to let the Russians know "that kind of conduct is not going to be acceptable to us."

A Pentagon report released last week said that two captured Iraqi documents indicate that Russia obtained information from sources "inside the American Central Command" in Qatar. Russia passed battlefield intelligence to Saddam through the former Russian ambassador in Baghdad, Vladimir Titorenko, according to the Pentagon report.

"I will tell you that we take very seriously any suggestion that a foreign government may have passed information to the Iraqis prior to the American invasion that might have put our troops in danger," Rice told "Fox News Sunday."

"I do think we owe it to everyone to take a hard look at the reports and to really understand what's there."

Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser at the time of the invasion, said she knew nothing of these reports back then.

"I would not jump to the conclusion that this - if, indeed, the reports are true - that it had to be Moscow-directed," Rice said.

Calls to the Russian Foreign Minister on Sunday went unanswered. A statement posted on the ministry's Web site noted that Rice and the foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, spoke by telephone Friday about Iran and "a series of international problems," but did not mention the newly released Pentagon report.

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