"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.

WAR.WIRE