The Soviet Union learned of U.S. battle plans in the Persian Gulf War in 1991, including the surprise ``left hook'' into Iraq, through an electronic spy network anchored in Cuba, a Russian defector claims.

Moscow did not leak the plans to Baghdad at the time, the defector said. But improved Russian-Iraqi relations these days may lead Moscow to be more friendly to President Saddam Hussein if U.S. troops plan to attack Iraq again.

Moscow's Lourdes spy center in Cuba is far bigger than publicly known, the defector added, a ``monster'' that collates data intercepted by Russian spy satellites, ships and planes in the entire Atlantic region.

CIA spokesmen would not comment on the claims by Stanislav Lunev, 50, a colonel in Soviet military intelligence -- known as GRU -- who defected in Washington in 1992 while working as a Tass news agency correspondent.

But other U.S. intelligence experts said Lunev's description of Lourdes was on target and that he is a serious defector who has lectured at the Pentagon, CIA and National Security Agency, which is in charge of U.S. electronic eavesdropping.

``The [U.S. intelligence] community certainly regards him as a credible defector with credible tales to tell,'' said one former NSA official who has met Lunev several times.

Intercepted chatter

Lunev said he learned that Moscow was aware of Pentagon war plans when his GRU bosses asked him to analyze possible U.S. strategies based on secret cables sent by Moscow to the Soviet Embassy in Washington in late 1990 and early 1991.

The cables summarized intercepts of U.S. communications, from the chatter of U.S. warplane pilots in flight to the private telephone conversations of soldiers and their families.

``I had the papers in my hands and we knew all . . . including the surprise attack'' into southwestern Iraq that encircled the bulk of Hussein's troops, Lunev told The Herald in a two-hour interview.

Lunev said he knows the information in the cables came from Lourdes because of their coding, and because friends and officials at the GRU told him so when he vacationed in Moscow soon after the war.

Built by the GRU in the 1970s in the Havana suburb of El Wajay, Lourdes' antenna array can reportedly pick up electronic signals -- cellular, cordless or microwave phone calls plus CB and radios -- up to 1,000 miles away.

Full-fledged command

Lourdes also receives and collates intercepts by spy satellites, ships and planes in the Atlantic region, making it a full-fledged regional command and control center with some 2,000 Russian staffers, Lunev said.

The former NSA officer said it also has ``offensive jamming capabilities'' capable of disrupting communications deep inside the United States.

``This is indeed a unique facility because of its size and location and capability,'' said Roger Robinson, who was director of international economic affairs in President Reagan's National Security Council.

Lunev said GRU officials told him after the Gulf War that President Mikhail Gorbachev had decided not to give Iraq the U.S. intercepts. But Moscow-Baghdad relations warmed significantly after the appointment of Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov, a Middle East expert who has known Hussein since 1969.

U.S. officials reportedly suspect that Russian intelligence agents have recently been spying on the U.N. teams inspecting Iraq's chemical and biological weapons sites, apparently to help Baghdad.

In 1990-91 ``it was unheard of that Soviet intelligence agents would work for other countries,'' Lunev said. ``But now it looks like they have begun to look for information in the interest of Saddam Hussein.''

Burgeoning debate

Russia's Cuban spy platform has been under attack by U.S. and Cuban-American conservatives in recent weeks as part of a burgeoning debate over whether Havana poses a security threat to the United States.

Moscow has been paying Cuba $200 million a year to rent the Lourdes site since 1992, and carried out a $90 million upgrade of the base over the past two years. Havana is reportedly seeking to raise the annual charge to $1 billion, starting next year -- payable in Russian oil, weapons and military spare parts.

Lourdes' defenders argue that Washington cannot force the Russians to close the base because it is critical to Moscow's efforts to ensure that the U.S. military is not cheating on international disarmament treaties.

But U.S. critics say the center is a threat to U.S. security, capable of intercepting not only American military secrets but also commercial and trade intelligence.

After the Soviet Union's collapse in late 1991, Robinson said, Russian intelligence agents ``have been reported selling intercepts to entrepreneurs involved in mergers, acquisitions and foreign exchange transactions.''