Gen. Ivashov: Lourdes facility to be important link of Russian intelligence network
MOSCOW. July 16 (Interfax-AVN) - The Lourdes signals intelligence facility had a large significance for national security and its restoration is absolutely necessary, Geopolitical Problems Academy President, former senior official of the Russian Defense Ministry Col. Gen. Leonid Ivashov said.
"We absolutely need Lourdes. I am confident it will play an important role in our intelligence network," Ivashov said, commenting on the Russian-Cuban agreement to resume the operation of Russia's signals intelligence facility in Lourdes that was shut down in 2002.
"Lourdes was an important element of the Soviet and Russian military intelligence system," the expert said.
"It was primarily focused on early missile attack warning, i.e. operated on the strategic level of our intelligence service," said Ivashov who headed the Russian Defense Ministry Main Department on International Military Cooperation for five years (1996-2001). The Lourdes facility was under the department's jurisdiction.
The general said the United States was very interested in Russia's shutdown of the Lourdes station.
"I think the decision to shut down the facility in Cuba was made at the request of the Americans who wanted Russia very much to close down that intelligence center. The Americans were pressuring [Russia] very hard," the general said.
"The Americans would not have insisted on its shutdown if Lourdes had meant nothing," he said.
Russia "sustained serious material damage" in the closure of that station in the beginning of the 2000th, the expert said. "Not to mention the strategic [damage]," Ivashov added.
Most probably, the Cuban facility "will have to be revived on a new basis, with new engineering equipment. We will have to select personnel and to train specialists," Ivashov said.