The Gamut

Story via Kos:

Yahoo! News - Putin Says Russia Gave Bush Intel on Iraq

Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence after the September 11 attacks that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq.

In Washington, a U.S. official said Putin's information did not add to what the United States already knew about Saddam's intentions.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said the Russian tip did not specify a time or a place where an attack might take place.

Wha?

The former KGB guy says he told Bush's people that Hussein had plans to attack the US, and this is the first time we hear about it?

Last week at the G8 conference we had Putin telling us that the democrats were as bad as Bush and comparing Iraq to Yugoslavia; now this? Is this the new Glasnost with Putin and Bush playing some kind of bizarre parodies of Gorbachev and Reagan? If so, may it end soon, because it smells to high heaven. We all remember the way Bush sold the Iraq war, and it was a strategy dependent on convincing us that Iraq posed a threat to us. Since the war, they have backpedaled vigorously using every semantical and syntactical rationale they could find to cloak themselves in plausible deniability that they had ever said Iraq posed that urgent threat. Surely, if they had had even the smallest indication that Iraq actually was a threat, they'd have showcased it by now.

So the question is, what exactly did Russia have? Did they pick up a September 12, 2001 phone conversation where Hussein told a lackey, "I wish we'd thought of that?" And what deal did Bush strike with Putin at G8 to suddenly get him to lend this assistance in an election year?

None of this makes any sense. Do they really think Putin can serve Bush this election on a cracker? 'Cause I, for one, ain't bitin'.

UPDATE: Ezra agrees with me ... AGAIN!

ANOTHER UPDATE: So does Maha.

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