Wednesday, December 17, 2008

US shares Shoe Stinks with Germans





US GENERAL ON BERLIN AGENTS IN BAGHDAD


'The Germans Were Invaluable to Us'

In a SPIEGEL interview, Retired General James Marks, 55, discusses the importance of the BND, Germany's foreign intelligence agency, for US attack plans in Iraq.

SPIEGEL: General Marks, how valuable was the information you received from the BND team in Baghdad during the war?

Marks: The German information was of extreme importance and value for us. That's true of all of the information we received from all of the "eyes on the ground" human intelligence we got out of Baghdad. We were well supplied with electronic, signals and aerial reconnaissance. That made up about 95 percent of our intelligence. When it came to human intelligence, we were in bad shape. That's why the Germans were invaluable to us, but also because the information they provided was detailed and reliable.

SPIEGEL: The German government claims that the information wasn't suitable for US purposes.

Marks: I can only say this: We trusted the information from the Germans more than we trusted the CIA because we knew that the Germans tend to be anal retentive and would only report on things they had seen, felt or smelled or that they were very sure of.

More at www.spiegel.de

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Safest place for Bush to have press conf in Iraq is in a mosque. No shoes allowed in mosque

Anonymous said...

A good one, never thought of it! but if they want it they can still send the flying carpets/rugs can't they eh?