U.S. officials have found evidence corroborating the Bush administration’s allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened U.S. forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said Friday.
The official said the United States has found proof that Russian companies exported night vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq for use there. The evidence includes the equipment and proof that it was used during the war, according to the official. Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Iraq.
“We have corroborated some of that evidence,” the official told reporters.
The official declined to elaborate on what the proof is.
While insisting that the matter is “now in the past,” he said the Bush administration “never received entirely satisfactory explanations” of its charges and acknowledged that the issue “is still a sensitive one in the relationship.”
“It’s an issue that, shall we say, did not do much for strengthening trust,” the official said.
The issue came into public view March 24, just days after the war began, when President Bush called Russian President Vladimir Putin to voice concern about the use of goggles, jamming equipment and advanced anti-tank missiles. The White House said at the time that it had “credible evidence” that the equipment came from Russian companies.
Gear of concern to U.S.
The goggles and jammers were of special concern to the United States because U.S. forces, seeking to wage war over great distances with low casualties, rely on night vision devices and high-tech missile and aircraft guidance systems.
The goggles use heat sensors to enable infantrymen to continue operations even in the dead of night; the jammers block signals from satellites that guide cruise missiles and smart bombs.
More Top Picks Best Wake Up Lights For Seniors
Putin denied the charges. But the allegation added friction to a relationship that was already under strain because of Russia’s opposition to the U.S.-led invasion.
Yevgeny Khorishko, press secretary for the Russian Embassy in Washington, said Friday that though the allegations were first raised before the war, “we have never received real proof from the American side that Russian firms were involved in the delivery of this equipment.”
Khorishko noted that the U.S. and Russia are involved in talks aimed at developing ways to halt the spread of weapons around the world.
He said he could not comment, under the terms of those talks, on whether they addressed U.S. concerns about the night vision and jamming equipment.
In raising the issue last year, U.S. officials contended that although the hardware was allegedly sold by private companies, the Russian government could have taken steps to oversee and halt the traffic. U.S. officials maintained at the time that the gear had been sold recently and with an understanding that it could be used in such a war.
High-tech military equipment is a top export for Russia. Though the country’s military budget has shrunk, its military industry exports about $5 billion annually in tanks, planes, small arms and other equipment, which end up–directly or through transshipment–in dozens of countries.
2 views on impact
During the war, U.S. military sources gave differing accounts of how much the Russian-made equipment affected U.S. forces. Some military officials were quoted as blaming jamming gear for sending missiles off course and into Iran and Saudi Arabia.
They also said that Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles destroyed at least two American M1-A1 tanks, the first time such tanks had been destroyed in battle.
But other officials said they had little effect during the rapid sweep to Baghdad.
Some Russian arms industry executives and military analysts asserted that the charges about the jamming equipment were made only to explain away the inaccuracy of U.S.-made smart bombs. Some argued, too, that the U.S. allegations were pointless because the hardware could have been legitimately sold to other countries and then exported to Iraq.