 
CHANNELS SPACEWAR WIRE MILITARY SPACE UAV NEWS MILITARY COMMS CYBERWARS MISSILE NEWS RAYGUNS TERRORWARS SPACEDAILY TERRADAILY MARSDAILY SPACE TRAVEL SPACEMART SPACE DATABASE  SERVICES |  
Russian officials Monday rejected US claims that Russian firms had supplied Saddam Hussein's regime with sophisticated military technology and that the equipment was used to try to thwart the US-led invasion of Iraq. "Information, fed to some American and British media, of supposed 'secret' deliveries by Russia to Iraq of military goods is no more than a broken record that was used in the first days" of the war in Iraq, an unnamed government official told Russian news agencies. Deputy Prime Minister Boris Alyeshin told the Interfax news agency that "the government is not aware of cases" where Russian firms had sold arms to Iraq. "We follow international principles on such matters... I think it's impossible to carry out large deals like this without the government's knowledge," Alyeshin said. He also criticized the United States for going public with the accusations before informing the Russian side. "In these cases, it would be nice to share such data with us," he said. "Only in this manner can one build cooperation." On Saturday, a senior US official said that discoveries made during the war, as well as in the months since Baghdad fell in April, "corroborated" US allegations that Russian firms sold satellite jamming devices as well as night-vision goggles to Baghdad in violation of UN sanctions. And that official said Moscow's denials of the allegations -- made in the early days of the war -- had been inadequate and had done considerable damage to US-Russia relations. "Those were very difficult issues, and we never received entirely satisfactory explanations of the evidence that we obtained in the heat of the war," the official told reporters at the State Department on Friday. "The most I can say is we have corroborated some of that evidence," the official said on condition of anonymity. "The issue is still a sensitive one." Russia along with Germany and France fiercely opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
|
|
| The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2002 - SpaceDaily. AFP Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |