Der Spiegel has an interesting story and a conudrum for German parliamentarians. Should they acknowledge the good work German agents have done in Iraq or not? So far the government has denied any German involvement and the parliamentary committee, investigating the German foreign intelligence service is being cautious as the newspaper dryly points out: Font: By John Goetz, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark The German government has long denied that its intelligence agents in Baghdad provided meaningful help prior to and during the US invasion of Iraq. US military personnel, though, have told SPIEGEL a vastly different story. He would make the perfect witness. The tall, slim retired US general has nothing but good things to say about the Germans. He says they are "reliable" and extremely trustworthy. Most of all, though, he knows things that German parliamentarians would like to know. But General James Marks is not a witness, nor is he ever likely to be one. The German parliamentary committee charged with investigating the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), prefers to question Germans in its effort to find out what role the agency played during the Iraq war. Those asked to testify tend to be government employees and, therefore, dependent on the government. Americans have not thus far been summoned. Indeed, no effort to do so has been made. Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (6 Photos) In the spring of 2003, Marks headed up the military intelligence efforts both before and during the American campaign. It was his job to ensure that the 115,000 US troops didn't run into any surprises as they advanced toward Baghdad. All information relevant to the war ended up on his desk. By virtue of this position, Marks, more than almost anyone else, knows how important the reports provided by the two Germans were for the American war effort. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier will testify before the parliamentary investigative committee on Thursday. When the Iraq war began in early 2003, Steinmeier was head of Germany's secret services as well as being then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's chief of staff. Schröder, for his part, owed his re-election in September 2002 primarily to his tough opposition to US plans to invade Iraq. Rewriting History? In February 2003, Schröder promised Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, that there would be "no direct or indirect participation in a war." And yet, by that point, his right-hand-man Steinmeier had already secretly approved the deployment of the two BND agents to Baghdad. The details of this mission began to be revealed in January 2006. And since then, the same questions have been asked repeatedly, and not just in the parliamentary investigative committee. For Steinmeier, nothing less than his political credibility is at stake. He is the most prominent of Schröder's close associates still in power today, and he will challenge Chancellor Angela Merkel as the Social Democrats' candidate for chancellor in general elections next fall. Is Steinmeier now trying to rewrite part of history? Since January 2006, Steinmeier, now Germany's vice chancellor and foreign minister, has stated that the government's political standard for the BND's mission in Baghdad was clear: No "active support" of combat operations in Iraq. He has also said: "If an embassy or a hospital was prevented from being hit, then it can't be called a double standard. In that case, it was about saving innocent human lives." The current governing coalition, which pairs Steinmeier's Social Democrats (SPD) with Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), also stuck to the same official line in its report on the Baghdad mission: "No support for the US's offensive, strategic aerial war. No transfer of information with direct relevance to the US's tactical air and ground war effort." Berlin has also insisted: "The responses the BND provided to US requests for information satisfied these criteria." According to the classified, censored part of the report, the information coming from the BND agents was not suitable for US purposes. But according to US military officials involved in the Iraq war, these statements have little to do with reality. SPIEGEL spoke with more than 20 active and retired American soldiers both from Central Command (Centcom) -- which coordinates US military activity in the Middle East, Egypt and Central Asia -- and from the Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) in charge of the ground forces in the invasion of Iraq. Among those spoken to were critics of the Bush administration, who cannot be accused of wanting to shift political responsibility to Germany. All of them dealt with the reports filed by the German agents. They analyzed the information and put it to use. 'Living on Another Planet' A number of senior US military officials were confronted a second time with the content of selected reports. The pictures that the respondents drew of the relevance of the German contributions were largely similar. Colonel Carol Steward, who was a member of the intelligence team at Centcom, then run by General Tommy Franks, says: "Anyone who claims that these reports did not play a role for combat operations is living on another planet." The history of the BND mission goes back to the fall of 2002. At the agency's headquarters just outside of Munich, the idea developed to remain in Baghdad during the war in order to obtain a perspective independent of that provided by the Americans. According to one memo, the German Foreign Ministry, which was intimately involved early in the process, was "initially skeptical" about the project. But in mid-December 2002, then Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer gave his consent. The operation quickly gained in importance, according to former BND division head Ludwig Mundt, from whose unit the agents were sent. Mundt is a veteran of the intelligence community and has seen many governments come and go. But he cannot recall a time when an administration in Berlin was this interested in a secret services operation. Photographs, GPS Data and 130 Reports On Feb. 27, an incident occurred that demonstrates that the BND's role in Baghdad could not have been as marginal as it claims today. On that day, Johannes H., the BND agent (or "resident") in Baghdad at the time, sent an extremely important message to his counterparts with the Iraqi intelligence service. The core of the message consisted of only one sentence, but it was practically an ultimatum: "The United States and Great Britain consider Iraq's refusal to destroy the Samud II missiles to be a casus belli." When the Iraqis hesitated, the BND agent told them that the Latin term means "cause for war." Suddenly they understood the message. "Both men seemed very concerned," the station chief noted in a memo for BND headquarters. The Iraqis had suggested that their boss was likely to "take the message directly to IRQ President Saddam Hussein." The delivery of this explosive news was one of the resident's last official actions. After that, the new special team took over the BND's Baghdad operations. The two new agents were trained soldiers. Mahner was a lieutenant colonel and had served in the German Air Force, and Heinster was a paratrooper. The BND duo began making reconnaissance trips. Using a secure satellite line, they transmitted about 130 reports, including photographs and GPS data, to BND headquarters. They reported sandbag positions and machine gun nests and, after reporting the positions of Iraqi troops near their own location, they requested that "Special Forces be used to fight these troops; no rockets, and definitely no artillery."uesday, December 16, 2008
Should this be denied?
He would make the perfect witness. The tall, slim retired US general has nothing but good things to say about the Germans. He says they are "reliable" and extremely trustworthy. Most of all, though, he knows things that German parliamentarians would like to know.
Yet, General Marks's praises of those German agents he had to work with would make the most crustily neutralist politician preen himself on behalf of his country and its heroes.
But General James Marks is not a witness, nor is he ever likely to be one. The German parliamentary committee charged with investigating the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), prefers to question Germans in its effort to find out what role the agency played during the Iraq war. Those asked to testify tend to be government employees and, therefore, dependent on the government. Americans have not thus far been summoned. Indeed, no effort to do so has been made.
Read the whole piece. Nice pix, too.
'THOSE GUYS ARE HEROES'
How German Agents Helped Pave the Way into Iraq
PHOTO GALLERY: GERMAN AGENTS IN IRAQ
Still, a man like Marks would have a lot to say. He could talk about the spring of 2003, when he was sitting in a windowless, air-conditioned briefing room at the US military's Camp Doha in the Kuwaiti desert, reading the reports of two BND agents who held out in Baghdad during the war. And he could talk about how the information provided by the Germans was incorporated into the situation reports he presented in daily videoconferences to General Tommy Franks, head of the US invading forces, and sometimes to then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.RELATED SPIEGEL ONLINE LINKS
Since 1958
As the US ambassador to Baghdad explained, in a long exclusive interview for the German press, Washington would very much like to see an expansion of German activity in Iraq. Recently Washington and the puppet regime in Iraqi reached important accords on US troop withdrawal, but more significantly on a "strategic framework," which according to the ambassador, "defines the broad foundation of the future US-Iraqi relations." Given the geo-strategic contents this accord could "be described as historical." Iraqi policy has "not only under Saddam Hussein, but already since 1958 (...) been characterized as opposing or even openly hostile to the West."[1] "Now there is the opportunity for a fundamental reorientation to develop in Iraq" predicts the US diplomat and points to Baghdad's current efforts "to build ties to Europe and the West."
Time to Act
German businesses have an important role to play in the framework of Iraq's new geo-strategic orientation. In fact the pro-Western reorientation will be organized by an Iraqi regime that is highly dependent on foreign support and on remaining in power. It is "important that the West extends its hand to Iraq" says the ambassador. Which is why, "visits from European and German ministers, parliamentarians and business representatives" is of immense importance. The US diplomat "can offhand think of quite a few German companies" to which the largely destroyed Iraq would "offer attractive prospects."[2] "Now is the time to act. I hope the Europeans will take advantage."
First Initiatives
Since last summer, the first German initiatives in this direction are already discernable. May 30, Berlin and Baghdad signed a bilateral investment protection and promotion accord. A joint protocol of the two ministers of the economy concerning the next steps to be taken toward cooperation followed on June 30. Simultaneously the German Iraqi Economic Commission held its first meeting since 1987.[3] Finally in July, German Economic Minister, Glos personally visited Baghdad - the first West German minister since Hans D. Genscher, Foreign Minister at the time, visited in 1987. Glos arrived in the Iraqi capital in the company of several German entrepreneurs. German Foreign Minister Steinmeier has announced he will be visiting Baghdad in 2009, presumably also accompanied by a business delegation. Berlin's efforts have in effect led to German companies' first initiatives in that country.
Old Contacts
Numerous German firms are refreshing their decades-old contacts to Baghdad. Already in July, for example, the German firm MAN signed a memorandum of understanding for doing business in Iraq - together with the Hamburg commerce and service enterprise Terramar. Terramar has for the past 30 years - without interruption - been active in Iraq. The managing director Peter F. Mayr has been the longtime head of an "Iraq Discussion Group" in the North Africa Middle East Initiative of German Business (NMI). Beginning next year MAN and Terramar hope to open a truck and bus assembly line in Iraq. Their plan is to establish the final assembly for dump and tanker trucks, tractor trailers and bus bodies from Salzgitter in Northern Germany. MAN is not only benefiting from its "very good reputation" in Iraq, but also from the fact that it "can use the long years of Terramar's contacts " declared the marketing presidium of the MAN commercial vehicles department.[4]
Oil and Gas
German energy companies are among those companies pursuing special interests in Iraq. Iraq has the world's third largest oil reserves and considerable reserves of natural gas. It has already reached an accord with the EU for the supply of natural gas. The BASF subsidiary Wintershall is seeking contracts for the development of Iraq's oil and gas reserves. The RWE Corp. in Essen, is negotiating also with Baghdad. RWE is part of a consortium that is planning to build the "Nabucco Pipeline" from eastern Turkey to Austria. They plan to pipe natural gas from the Caspian Basin and the Middle East to Europe and thereby reduce the EU's dependence on Russian natural resources. The significance of a future supply of Middle Eastern natural gas through the "Nabucco" [5] has grown since Moscow enhanced its influence over the southern Caucasus through the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Deutsche Bahn
According to reports, the German railway, the Deutsche Bahn, is also seeking an opportunity to get involved in Iraq.[6] It is already engaged in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and recently took over the planning for an elaborate project in Qatar. The membership of two of the leading Bahn managers in the Foreign Business Association's German Near and Middle East Association (NUMOV) testifies to the Deutsche Bahn's Middle East interests. The chief executive of the Deutsche Bahn International is the chairman of NUMOV and Hartmut Mehdorn, the Chief Executive of the Deutsche Bahn, is also on the NUMOV board. It could be to the advantage of the company that the enterprise in charge of the restoration of the railway line from Basra in southern Iraq to Baghdad is a German company, from the Dorsch Group (in Offenbach near Frankfurt/Main ), which since 1958 has been active in Iraq, and had planned the expressways, as well as the capital's subway and airport.[7]
Later Independent
While Washington is expecting German enterprises to contribute to strengthening Iraq's western ties, the German businesses are pursuing its own objectives. As the NMI coordinator, Eckart von Unger explained, German enterprises want to "pick up from the good old days, when business with Iraq was at four billion Euros."[8] Back then, at the beginning of the 80s, West Germany had succeeded in becoming this Gulf state's most important business partner, enjoying exceptional political influence - not least of all through arms deliveries.[9] Berlin has the ambition of again attaining a comparable standing - for the moment as a partner of the United States, later possibly autonomous and independent of the USA.
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