Yahoo! News - Russia Says It Warned U.S. Saddam Planned to Attack
ASTANA, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Russia warned the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that Iraq's Saddam Hussein planned to hit targets on U.S. soil, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday. (NOW he comes out with this?!?!)

Putin's remarks looked certain to help President Bush, but officials at the State Department expressed surprise, saying they knew of no such information from Russia.

Putin said Russian intelligence had been told on several occasions that Saddam's special forces were preparing to attack U.S. targets inside and outside the United States.

"This information was passed on to our American colleagues," he said. He added, however, that Russian intelligence had no proof that Saddam's agents had been involved in any particular attack.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters he did not know anything about the information that Putin said Russia passed on. No such information was communicated from Russia through the State Department, he said.

"Everybody's scratching their heads," said one State Department official, who asked not to be named.

WTF???