Soviets spied on Gulf War plans from Cuba, defector says

By JUAN O. TAMAYO
Miami Herald, 03 April 1998

The Soviet Union knew U.S. battle plans in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, including the
surprise
“left hook” into Iraq, through an electronic spy network anchored in Cuba, a Russian defector
claims.

Moscow did not leak the plans to Baghdad at the time, the defector said. But improved
Russian-Iraqi relations these days may lead Moscow to be more friendly to President Saddam
Hussein if U.S. troops plan to attack Iraq again.

Moscow’s Lourdes spy center in Cuba is far bigger than publicly known, the defector added, a
”monster” that collates data intercepted by Russian spy satellites, ships and planes in the entire
Atlantic region…

But other U.S. intelligence experts said Lunev’s description of Lourdes was on target and that
he
is a serious defector who has lectured at the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency, which
is in charge of U.S. electronic eavesdropping.

‘The [U.S. intelligence] community certainly regards him as a credible defector with credible
tales
to tell,’ said one former NSA official who has met Lunev several times.

Lunev said he learned that Moscow was aware of Pentagon war plans when his GRU bosses
asked him to analyze possible U.S. strategies based on secret cables sent by Moscow to the Soviet
Embassy in Washington in late 1990 and early 1991…

”I had the papers in my hands and we knew all . . . including the surprise attack’ into
southwestern Iraq that encircled the bulk of Hussein’s troops, Lunev told The Herald in a
two-hour interview.

Lunev said he knows the information in the cables came from Lourdes because of their
coding,
and because friends and officials at the GRU told him so when he vacationed in Moscow soon
after the war.

‘There’s no doubt . . . that Lourdes is the radio and radio-technical intelligence center [a
Soviet
term for electronic eavesdropping] that opened the envelope on these communications,’ he said.

Built by the GRU in the 1970s in the Havana suburb of El Wajay, Lourdes’ antenna array can
reportedly pick up electronic signals — cellular, cordless or microwave phone calls plus CB and
radios — up to 1,000 miles away.

‘The former NSA officer said it also has ”offensive jamming capabilities’ capable of disrupting
communications deep inside the United States.

‘This is indeed a unique facility because of its size and location and capability,’ said Roger
Robinson, who was director of international economic affairs in President Reagan’s National
Security Council.

Lunev said GRU officials told him after the Gulf War that President Mikhail Gorbachev had
decided not to give Iraq the U.S. intercepts. But Moscow-Baghdad relations warmed significantly
after the appointment of Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, a Middle East expert who has
known Hussein since 1969…

In 1990-91 ‘it was unheard of that Soviet intelligence agents would work for other countries,’
Lunev said. ‘But now it looks like they have begun to look for information in the interest of
Saddam Hussein.’…

Moscow has been paying Cuba $200 million a year to rent the Lourdes site since 1992, and
carried out a $90 million upgrade of the base over the past two years. Havana is reportedly
seeking to raise the annual charge to $1 billion, starting next year — payable in Russian oil,
weapons and military spare parts.

Lourdes’ defenders argue that Washington cannot force the Russians to close the base
because it
is critical to Moscow’s efforts to ensure that the U.S. military is not cheating on international
disarmament treaties.

But U.S. critics say the center is a threat to U.S. security, capable of intercepting not only
American military secrets but also commercial and trade intelligence.

After the Soviet Union’s collapse in late 1991, Robinson said, Russian intelligence agents
”have
been reported selling intercepts to entrepreneurs involved in mergers, acquisitions and foreign
exchange transactions.”