The Spies Who Came In From the Cold

Posted on Mar 2, 2006

N.Y. Times:

BERLIN, March 1—Starting in early 2003 and lasting through the American military invasion of Iraq, a German intelligence officer stationed in the office of Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the American commander of the invasion, passed on to the United States information being gathered in Baghdad by two German intelligence officers operating there, a classified German review has found.

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 Schrder, then the chancellor, and by the foreign minister at the time, Joschka Fischer. Mr. Steinmeier is now the foreign minister.

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