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BOOK REVIEW: The Arming of Iraq - A Case of Mutual Interest
Review by Shoshana Bryen
Arms dealing is sometimes considered to be a back room business handled by international non-citizens. Certainly in the race to arm Iraq between the mid-1970s and 1990 there was considerable shady dealing by middlemen of uncertain background. But very often international arms transfers require the participation of, or acquiescence by, national governments. In the case of Iraq, there was an extraordinary amount of government sanctioned and initiated dealing in the research, production and delivery equipment for conventional and non-conventional weapons. Exposing the whole sordid mess is Kenneth Timmerman in his latest book, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq (Ticknor and Fields, 1991).
Timmerman examines the parts of the picture, and at every turn makes it clear that evidence was at hand to warn potential suppliers about Saddam's intentions and the continuing upgrading of his conventional, chemical and nuclear capabilities. From his vantage point in Paris, plus his extensive travels in Europe, the Middle East and South Africa, Timmerman names names, details deals and shipments and makes the connection between money, arms and oil.
According to Timmerman, each of the players had a not-very-secret agenda: Saddam was determined to destroy Israel and be master of the Arab world; the governments of France, Germany, South Africa and Brazil were in it for big money; Egypt, Argentina, Italy, Britain and a host of others were in it for the smaller money left behind; the Soviets had their view of the world; and the Americans played regional balance-of-power against Iran, particularly during the second term of the Reagan presidency. And behind all of them were their defense industries, tying their products to their countries' perceived "national interests."
The companies involved, according to Timmerman, read like a "Who's Who" of international business. Timmerman makes the case that all were knowingly involved. Many of the affected companies will, surely, try to defend their actions.
German companies involved in the arming of Iraq included the NUKEM nuclear consortium, and its parent company, Degussa, as well as Messerschmidtt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB), Thyssen Rheinstahl Technology, and Preussag AG. All told, more than 100 German companies were involved -- dozens of which maintained offices in Baghdad. The German connection was instrumental in creating Iraq's poison gas and nuclear capabilities. And German companies and technology were used to extend the range of the Iraqi SCUD missiles which hit Israel and Saudi Arabia.
French companies involved in the arming of Iraq include Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet Aviation, Snecma, Matra, Thompson-CSF, Aerospatiale, and many others. The Institut Merieux built the first Iraqi bacteriological laboratory. Several French government agencies were also involved including the Office Generale de L'Air and the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique.
Belgium's Sybetra used no fewer than 50 subcontractors from Belgium, France and England to build the Akashat/Al Qaim chemical plant in Iraq.
Also involved in arming Iraq are firms from Italy, Austria, Britain, Brazil, South Africa, and many others.
The United States had an on-again-off-again relationship with Iraq. While Iraq was on the State Department's list of countries supporting terrorism, very little happened; but even then there was tension between the Department of Commerce (supporting ever-increasing trade with Saddam) and the Department of Defense (wanting to restrict sales of military-related technology).
The U.S.-Iraq Business Forum, a group promoting American trade with Iraq includes such notable firms on its membership roster as General Motors, Fisher Scientific, Lockheed, Caterpillar, Westinghouse, AT&T, Pepsicola International, Phillip Morris International and all the major American oil companies. The Forum lobbied Congress to ease trade and technology restrictions on Iraq and they were often successful.
The United States supplied billions of dollars worth of agricultural credits (freeing Iraqi oil revenues to be spent on arms) and frequently permitted the sale of U.S. technology applicable to weapons research and development programs to Iraq.
Timmerman documents it all -- including the role of Banca Nazionale da Lavorno (BNL) in Atlanta, which financed the agricultural credits and billions in other arms purchases.
The Death Lobby drips with cynicism. Jacques Chirac, the Gaullist Prime Minister of France, bade Saddam and his entourage farewell after a 1975 trip by announcing that French policy "is dictated not merely by interest, but also by the heart. France deems it necessary to establish relationships between producers and consumers on terms that best conform to the interests of both parties." In this case, French interest is solely money.
The Franco-Iraqi Nuclear Cooperation Treaty of 1976 included the clause that "all persons of the Jewish race or the Mosaic religion" be excluded from participating in the program, in either Iraq or France.
The German government of Chancellor Helmut Kohl faced and ignored specific information about illegal sales of German chemical capabilities. More than ignored -- the German government issued a permit stating that "according to current rules, machinery, electrical equipment, regulation, measuring and testing instruments for a research, development and training institute with eight main sections, name: Project Saad 16, do not need an export permission." Saad 16 is one of Saddam Hussein's primary nuclear weapons research centers.
There are heroes in this story but they are few and far between. The Pfaudier Company of Rochester, NY, sent two employees, Morris Gruver and Joseph Culotta, to set up a "pesticide" plant in Iraq. The two were increasingly suspicious that their expertise and equipment would be used to manufacture chemical weapons and they ended their company's involvement with Iraq.
Karl Heinz Lohs, director of the Leipzig Institute for Poisonous Chemicals in East Germany, was approached by Iraqi agents requesting his help in building a chemical weapons program in Iraq capable of destroying Israel. Horrified, he refused.
Alert regulatory officials in the U.S. and Canada stopped the export of 11,364 kg (158 years worth) of depleted uranium fuel pins by the German consortium NUKEM through American and Canadian companies.
Department of Defense and Customs agents were vigilant about licenses issued by the Commerce Department for items destined for Iraq. Timmerman discusses the Consarc case in great detail in The Death Lobby. Consarc, a New Jersey company, had applied for a license to export furnaces, including a high-temperature "skull-type" furnace, to Iraq. Not only did the Commerce Department endorse the Iraqi assurances that the furnace would only be used for peaceful purposes, but when Consarc warned Commerce on two occasions of their concerns about the furnace's use in nuclear weapons applications they were advised not to worry. Ultimately the export was turned around by the President and Consarc was able to successfully sue the Iraqi government for damages in an unprecedented Federal Court case.
Not all attempts to stop programs for Iraq were successful. A Honeywell engineer, Louis Lavoie, and his division chief, John Beckmann, tried to stop a chemical project that, according to a 1984 company memo by Beckmann "sounded shady and probably violated Honeywell's principles regarding international arms business." Beckmann later wrote that the proposition had "a malodorous quality about it. Frankly, I think the proposition is immoral, violates Honeywell's principles and is not in the best interest of Honeywell." Honeywell officials pushed it through anyhow, Timmerman reveals.
That the heroes of Death Lobby are heavily outnumbered by those who sold Saddam his arsenal through greed or ignorance is more than simply depressing. And the question of who armed Iraq between the mid-70s and 1990 has important ramifications for future security arrangements.
The companies that armed Iraq are still producing and searching for customers. Syria, the recipient of billions of dollars in aid money from Saudi Arabia following the Gulf War, is looking for improved missile and chemical weapons capabilities. Libya shops for the same with its billions of petrodollars. And Saddam is still in power.
The Death Lobby should leave a number of governments and companies (and maybe even the American Department of Commerce) with red faces. And, in an ideal world, exposure should slow or even halt the building of conventional and non-conventional arsenals for dictators. But, the world is far from ideal, and there always seem to be people willing to make the deal.
-- Bryen is JINSA's Director of Special Projects. |
