March 4, 2006: In a speech at the height of his campaign for reelection in August 2002 for a second term in office, German chancellor Gerhard Schröder declared emphatically that there would be no German "blood for oil" in an attempt to remove Saddam Hussein from office by force. At a time when storm clouds were already gathering over America's possible course of action, his comments irked U.S. President George W. Bush but made points with German voters. Schröder maintained his anti-war position throughout the period leading up to and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

In January of this year, the first hints of a possible double standard by Schröder's government surfaced when Germany's national television station ARD published a claim that German foreign intelligence agents, operating in Baghdad, had helped the United States military by providing information on bombing targets. The report was based on information from an anonymous source, and to date no proof has been provided to verify the claim.

On Monday, February 27, 2006, just days after the German government denied that agents of its foreign intelligence service ("Bundesnachrichtendienst", abbreviated BND) had given information to the U.S. military prior to the March 2003 invasion, the "New York Times" published a report to the contrary. The "Times" claimed that in February 2003 a BND official assigned to the U.S. command headquarters in Doha, Qatar, gave a sketch outlining Saddam's line of defense for Baghdad to the United States Defence Intelligence Agency. The newspaper quoted a classified U.S. military analysis and reported that the information "was provided to the Germans by one of their sources in Baghdad."

The "Times" article prompted another denial in Berlin, this time in the form of a written statement by BND President Ernst Uhrlau. The German government's denial was reason enough for Bill Keller, the executive editor of the "Times", to repeat his paper's claim that the report was true. Keller even quoted verbatim from the classified document: "The Germans had two agents operating in Baghdad prior to the start of the war. The overlay was provided to the Germans by one of their sources in Baghdad (identity of the German source unknown). When bombs started falling, the agents ceased ops and went to the French Embassy."

On Thursday the "New York Times" went one step further by providing more information, this time claiming to have access to the unpublished portion of German Bundestag's parliamentary BND oversight committee report on BND activities prior to and during the 2003 invasion. Only 90 pages of the 300 page report were made public. The "Times" repeated its claim that a German liaison agent was present at U.S. General Tommy Franks' headquarters in Qatar and relayed information from two BND agents in Baghdad. According to the "Times", the liaison agent gave 25 reports to the Americans and even answered 18 of 33 questions asked by the U.S. military.

The German liaison officer is said to have arrived in Qatar in mid-February 2003. The most interesting bit of information in the "Times" report may be the identity of the men who are supposed to have approved the assignment: Joschka Fischer, Gerhard's Schröder's foreign minister, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Schröder's former chief of staff who is now Germany's foreign minister. In the meantime a BND spokesman has confirmed that a liaison officer was in Qatar: "Liaison officers are always represented in the large staffs of Nato allies."

With the dispute between the German government and the "New York Times" unresolved, German journalists and politicians alike wondered this week what the real motive behind the "Times" articles is. The story doesn't seem to draw that much attention in the United States, but in Germany it is a major news story. Some wonder whether the "Times" wants to discredit former chanceller Gerhard Schröder, which would seem odd at a time when transatlantic relations have improved markedly with Germany's new chancellor Angela Merkel. The controversy over possible BND involvement – even if only minor – in the U.S. military invasion of Iraq shows that the transatlantic rift caused by the war is by no means healed.