Non-Subscriber Extract
Who armed Iraq?
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| 17 April 2003 |
By Andy Oppenheimer
Sometimes through deception, but often with the silent acquiescence of Western governments, Iraq was able to acquire the machines, components, tools and expertise to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as well as its own ballistic missiles.
In order to procure materials, Iraq created an international network of 'shells', or dummy companies, who routinely obscured technology transfers by using false end-user documents and intermediaries. Although Western intelligence agencies monitored these companies, nothing was done to prevent their activities.
West German companies were some of the main suppliers for Iraq's major weapons projects, including its nuclear weapons programme, chemical weapons facilities, ballistic missiles and long-range 'supergun' development. German companies are said to have contributed to the Iraqi government's weapons programme since the mid-1970s. According to the 17 December 2002 edition of the German daily, Tageszeitung, some German companies continued to do business with Iraq right up until 2001. This would have been a clear breach of the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 after it invaded Kuwait.
According to Tageszeitung, German companies comprise more than half of the total number of institutions listed in Iraq's 12,000-page weapons report to the UN in December 2002. The newspaper said it had seen a copy of the original Iraqi dossier that was vetted for sensitive information by US officials before being given to the five permanent Security Council members.
German companies also provided Iraq with technology to make heavy cannons that could launch CBW shells. In January 2003, two German businessmen went on trial in Mannheim, charged with supplying Iraq with equipment for the manufacture of Saddam Hussein's ill-fated Al-Fao cannon project - the 700km-range 'supergun.' In 1999, they allegedly acted as intermediaries in a series of deals aimed at supplying drills "capable of and made to" bore the huge barrels needed for the supergun.
German assistance was allegedly given to Iraq for the development of chemical agents used in the 1988 massacre of Kurds in northern Iraq. After the massacre, the USA reduced its military co-operation with Iraq, but German firms continued their activities until the Gulf war.
The USA reportedly approved the export to Iraq of US$1.5bn worth of dual-use items, including powerful computers, precision machine tools and advanced electronics. Suspicions by Pentagon officials halted the export of certain items, such as 40 kryton nuclear triggers (high-speed timing devices) which US and UK customs agents had seized in London in 1990, and 'skull' furnaces that could be used in the development of missiles and nuclear bombs.
An investigation of US corporate sales to Iraq, headed by Republican Congressman Donald Riegle and published in May 1994, listed some of the biological agents exported by US corporations with George Bush's approval as head of the CIA and later as vice-president under Ronald Reagan. The Iraqis are reported to have acquired stocks of anthrax, brucellosis, gas gangrene, E. coli and salmonella bacteria from US companies.
Throughout the 1980s, the UK Conservative government proactively assisted 'non-lethal weapons' and dual-use equipment to Iraq, such as high-temperature-resistant electric switches and computerised rocket simulators. Through a number of UK companies, machine tools and lathes were manufactured and exported to build shells and detonation fuses in Iraq. In January 1988, trade minister Alan Clark held a meeting with British arms manufacturers in which he advised them to 'downgrade' the official description of arms-related material when applying for export licences - to make it appear to be equipment for civilian use.
Between 1999 and 2001, Whitehall officials sanctioned more than US$2.36m worth of export licenses to Syria for military items including thermal infrared imaging equipment, now suspected of being supplied to Iraq. Despite the Labour government improving arms controls since 1997 and passing an Export Control Act in 2002, there is still no definitive evidence of serious commitment to monitor the final destination and end-use of UK-supplied arms.
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