Berlin  - Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier defended Thursday the role of German intelligence agents in Baghdad during the start of the Iraq war in March
2003.

The two spies were there to assess the situation, he told a parliamentary committee looking into whether the BND intelligence agency helped the US military topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"Everyone involved at the time was aware there was a clear political decision not to give active support to the combat activities in Iraq," Steinmeier said.

"This red line was not crossed," said the Social Democrat minister, who is hoping to unseat Angela Merkel as chancellor in elections due in September 2009.

Relations between Germany and the US at the time were at a low over then-chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which he made the focus of his 2002 re-election campaign.

But revelations in the US media that the German intelligence agents in Iraq passed on sensitive information to American forces raised claims that Berlin had struck a secret deal with Washington.

Steinmeier, who was coordinator of Germany's intelligence services at the time, dismissed such allegations.

Steinmeier said the agents, who held diplomatic passports and operated out of the French embassy, had permission to relay information on non-military targets only.

Earlier this week, retired US General James Marks told the news magazine Der Spiegel that the undercover activities of the two Germans were extremely useful to the United States.

"Reports on the defensive positions in and around Baghdad and the location of troops and weapons were important," he said, indicating the agents knew their information was being passed on to the US.

Germany's mass-circulation newspaper Bild sought Thursday to discredit Marks, calling him part of a Pentagon secret "propaganda force" who was paid to rally support for the Iraq war.

The two BND agents were sent to Baghdad shortly before the onset of war. During their time in the Iraqi capital they sent reports to BND headquarters near Munich, which passed on 120 items of information to the US operations centre for the Iraq war.

The information, according to Der Spiegel, enabled US forces to start their ground offensive in Iraq earlier than planned.

It was Steinmeier's fifth appearance before the parliamentary< committee, which has interviewed more than 100 witnesses over the past 30 months.

Supporters of Steinmeier said the latest disclosures were intended to embarrass the foreign minister, who is gaining in popularity on Merkel as she struggles to fend off charges of indecision in dealing with the economic crisis that has engulfed Germany. (dpa)