
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991                   TAG: 9102120573
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MOSCOW                                LENGTH: Short

SOVIET CITES EFFECTIVE U.S. INTELLIGENCE

U.S. warplanes were successful against Iraq early in the gulf war partly because they had extensive intelligence on Soviet-supplied anti-aircraft weapons, the Soviet military newspaper reported today.

In an interview with a former Soviet military adviser to Iraq, the newspaper, Red Star, also predicted many casualities on both sides when the land battle begins for Kuwait.

The adviser, Lt. Col. Vladimir Golovko, said Iraqi air defenses had performed poorly against the Americans not simply because of the inferiority of the equipment, which was in large part provided by the Soviet Union.

Iraq must be holding some air defenses in reserve, he said, and has weaponry that is less advanced than American warplanes.

"[Also], no one wants to speak about the fact that the Americans know very well the performance capabilities of missile launchers, and not only those made in the West," Golovko was quoted as saying. The Soviet Union did not give the information to the Americans, the adviser said.

Golovko predicted great suffering in the event of a ground war. Temperatures will soar in April and desert sandstorms usually begin even earlier, said Golovko, who went as a military adviser to Baghdad in 1988.

The newspaper did not indicate when he left, but the Soviet Union says it withdrew nearly all its advisers from Iraq before war broke out Jan. 17.

by CNB