From ~NBC news in Washington this is Meet the Press with Jim Russert.  
Our issues this Sunday the war in Iraq tensions with Iran and the future of this woman our guest the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 
Then will there be a White House staff shake-up? 
And what is at stake in the two thousand six midterm elections? 
Insight and analysis from David Broder of the Washington Post Elisabeth Bumiller White House correspondent for the New York Times Charlie Cook of the National Journal and John Harwood of the Wall Street Journal and ~CNBC. 
But first as we begin the fourth year of the war in Iraq we are joined by the Secretary of State. 
Welcome back Madame Secretary. 
Good morning. 
Nice to be with you Tim. 
Very disturbing headlines in the papers yesterday the Russians helping Iraq. And this is how it was captured in the paper. 
Russian officials collected intelligence on ~US troop movements and attack plans from inside the American military command leading the two thousand and three invasion of Iraq and passed that information on to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein according to a ~US military study. 
The intelligence report which the study said were provided to Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad during the height of the ~US assault warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass Iraqi cities on their thrust towards Baghdad. 
The reports provided some specific numbers on ~US troop units' locations according to Iraqi documents dated March and April oh three and later captured by the United States. 
Have you told the Russians what is going on? 
Well we're trying first to m- make sure we understand fully what the documents say. 
Uh these are documents that were found uh in Iraqi stores. 
And obviously Tim we would take very seriously uh any suggestion that uh this may have been done uh maybe to the detriment of American forces. 
And so uh we will certainly raise it with the Russian government. 
We want to uh take a real hard look at the documents and then raise it with the Russian government. 
But these are ~US documents a ~US report. 
Y- yes. 
You believe the report. 
Oh I I certainly think there is uh a lot to this report. 
But we really haven't a cha- had a chance to look at the documents in uh detail. 
Intend to do that and then to raise it with the Russian government. 
I would hope the Russian government will take it seriously. 
Will there be an investigation as to who leaked the information to the Russians? 
Well I we'll just have to see. 
I d- I don't want to get ahead of us. 
But obviously we take very seriously uh any suggestion that uh this may have been done at the beginning of the war. 
That would be a quite serious charge. 
Was it could it have been deliberate misinformation? 
I don't know. 
I think we really have to take a look at the documents. 
We're finding thousands and thousands and thousands of documents. 
And uh we're going to find some uh i- i- some important and uh surprising things in these documents. 
I think we have to step back take a hard look at the documents. 
But I definitely we will raise it with the Russian government. 
When we first went into Iraq we had some unexpected encounters with Fedayeen. 
And we lost uh dozens of American men that Russians may have been responsible for American deaths. 
Well I don't want to try hypothetically to to know what impact this might have had. 
I think the first thing we need to do is take a good hard look at the documents. 
And then we definitely want to raise it with the Russian government. 
And again I would hope that the Russian government would uh would take it seriously and and give us a serious answer on what they find. 
Back in June of two thousand one the president said he looked Vladimir Putin in the eye. 
He got a sense of his soul found him to be very straightforward and very trustworthy. 
Does the president still believe that President Putin is straightforward and trustworthy? 
I really do think that the Russians have generally done what they said they would do. 
They said they were going to oppose the Iraq War and they did.  
And they told us that from the very beginning.