- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
United States believes Russian private sector technicians are in Baghdad
helping train Iraqis to use electronic jamming systems that could endanger
U.S. forces fighting Iraq, U.S. officials said on Monday.
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- President Bush telephoned Russian President Vladimir
Putin to protest alleged Russian sales of night-vision goggles, antitank
missiles and global positioning system (GPS) jamming systems to Iraq, the
White House said. U.S. officials said such sales would violate U.N. sanctions.
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- "It's the kind of equipment that will put our young
men and women in harm's way," Secretary of State Colin Powell told
Fox News Channel, without identifying the materiel. "It gives an advantage
to the enemy, an advantage we don't want them to have."
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- "We have been in touch with the Russians over a
period of many months to point this out .... and in the last 48 hours I
have seen even more information that causes me concern," Powell said.
"So far I am disappointed at the response."
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- Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov of Russia, which with France
opposed the U.S.-led war against Iraq and threatened to veto a U.N. resolution
sanctioning it, denied Russia had supplied Iraq with any military equipment
in breach of U.N. sanctions.
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- "No facts proving U.S. concerns have been found,"
Ivanov said in Moscow, although a Russian foreign ministry spokesman said
Moscow would study any evidence Washington provides.
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- PROTESTS AT SENIOR LEVELS
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- U.S. officials said Washington had been worried about
the alleged sales by Russian companies for the better part of a year and
had protested to Moscow at increasingly senior levels, culminating in Bush's
telephone call to Putin on Monday.
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- "We are very concerned that there are reports of
ongoing cooperation and support to Iraqi military forces being provided
by a Russian company that produces GPS jamming equipment," said White
House spokesman Ari Fleischer, also citing alleged sales of night-vision
goggles and anti-tank guided missiles.
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- For years, the United States has with limited success
asked Russia not to spread weapons technology, notably to Iran, where U.S.
officials complain Moscow has sold missile technology. The United States
has in particular pushed Russia to tighten export controls to prevent private
firms from making such sales.
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- U.S. officials believe the alleged military sales to
Iraq have been carried out by private Russian firms and they want greater
oversight by the Russian government to stop them.
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- A U.S. official who asked not to be named said Washington
decided to make its accusations public late last week when it discovered
Russian company technicians in Baghdad aiding the Iraqis with the jamming
system after the U.S.-led war began.
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- "They are there in Baghdad ... trying to make the
system work, the jamming system," said the U.S. official.
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- "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 U.S. government about what to do and (whether)
to go public," the official added.
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- Powell, speaking later to Britain's Sky News, declined
to say whether he believed the Russian technicians were on the ground,
but said flatly: "I know the equipment is there."
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- 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.
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- The newspaper cited Bush administration sources as saying
one Russian company was helping the Iraqi military deploy electronic jamming
equipment against U.S. planes and bombs, and two others have sold antitank
missiles and thousands of night-vision goggles in violation of U.N. sanctions.
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- A U.S. official who asked not to be named told Reuters
there were signs some of the materiel may have been listed as bound for
Syria or Yemen to hide its intended destination.
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