Pentagon scrambling to know what U.S. secrets Iraq tells Russia
Pentagon officials do not know what secrets the Iraqi government may be telling Moscow, after Iraqi leaders unexpectedly entered into an intelligence-sharing agreement with Russia this weekend. The Defense Department’s second-in-command told the Senate on Tuesday the agreement came as a surprise to military intelligence and Pentagon teams are scrambling to make sure classified intelligence from the U.S. does not […]Patrick Tucker reports for Defense One:
Pentagon officials do not know what secrets the Iraqi government may be telling Moscow, after Iraqi leaders unexpectedly entered into an intelligence-sharing agreement with Russia this weekend. The Defense Department’s second-in-command told the Senate on Tuesday the agreement came as a surprise to military intelligence and Pentagon teams are scrambling to make sure classified intelligence from the U.S. does not make its way into the hands of Russian, Syrian or Iranian authorities.
Over the weekend, the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command announcedthat it would enter into an intelligence sharing agreement“about ISIS terrorism” with Syria, Russia and Iran. Exactly what sort of information Iraq agreed to share with Russia, or has shared already, was a matter of some confusion during Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work acknowledged that the Defense Department doesn’t have a firm handle on the sort of communications going on between the Iraqi government and Moscow.
