Putin Says Russia Warned U.S. About Saddam Fri Jun 18, 2004 07:28 AM ET
ASTANA (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States on several occasions that Iraq's Saddam Hussein planned "terrorist attacks" on its soil, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.
"After the events of September 11, 2001, 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," he told reporters.
The Kremlin leader, who was speaking in the Kazakh capital, said Russian intelligence services had many times received information that Saddam's special forces were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States "and beyond its borders on American military and civilian targets."
"This information was conveyed to our American colleagues," he said. He added that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam agents had been involved in any particular attack.
Russia had diplomatic relations with Saddam's Iraq and opposed the U.S.-led military offensive that toppled him.
Putin's comments come after President Bush was forced to defend his charge that there had been links between Saddam and al Qaeda that partly justified the U.S.-led invasion.