If Putin said it, it must be true!

David Aaronovitch: Observer, Sunday 20/6/2004
"On Friday, on a visit to Kazakhstan, Vladimir Putin said something that seemed to me quite remarkable, but (it appears) to no-one else. He told reporters that Russian intelligence had believed that Iraq intended to launch terrorist attacks on the USA. 'After the events of 11 September 2001,' said Putin, 'and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, Russian special services several times received such information and passed it on to their American colleagues.' Such attacks might happen inside the United States or outside it. "

David Aaronovitch reserves all of his scepticism for the anti-war movement. Putin is up to his eyeballs with the so-called "war on terror". He needs America onside for his war in Chechnya. Furthermore he is cracking down on the so-called oligarchs: the nouveau riche. multi-billionaires who enrichened themselves through privatisations of former Soviet industry. Richard Perle, of the US Defence Policy Board, has called on G8 to expel Russia over the arrest of Khordokovsky and, presumably, Putin wants the American's off his case over his dealings with such oligarchs. Even through the so-called "prism of 9/11" most observers were sceptical about any link between the Islamist followers of Osama bin Laden and the secularists of the Saddam Hussein regime. Aaronovitch finds it remarkable that only The Guardian. picked up on Putin's statement and that The Times. and Independent. didn't. Frankly, I'm surprised that Murdoch didn't order his people to fire such a cheap shot but then Murdoch seems to guard his credibility more keenly than Aaronovitch guards his.