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Politics : Let's Talk About the War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (478)	3/23/2004 11:44:21 AM
From: E	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 486

Reminder re the $200,000,000.00 Cobe thinks is chump change: "[Those] weapons must have a military purpose...." siliconinvestor.com That $200,000,000.00 would seem to exclude "dual-use items," (that was also a criterion for making the list) since if you count those, your link shows, the Department of Commerce approved licenses for exporting $1.5 billion worth, though, if I read the material correctly, most of the 1.5 billion in orders were cancelled from the Iraqi side so were never delivered... Here are some quotes from your link re military sales to Iraq: U.S. policy on sales to Iraq of dual-use items--items with both civilian and military uses--has not been constrained by security controls... U.S. policy toward Iraq for sales of dual-use items (items that have both civilian and military uses) was not constrained by national security controls, and there were few applicable foreign policy controls until August 1990... ...Since 1980, U.S. policy has been to deny export licenses for commercial sales of defense items to Iraq, except when the items were for the protection of the head of state. As a result of the exception, license applications valued at $48 million were approved. NB: That's 48 million additional dollars (over and above the 200 million that must have a military purpose) approved just for the "protection of Saddam Hussein. According to State officials, the exception for protection of the head of state was used to sell Iraq items that would not increase Iraqi military capability and items that had low risk of being diverted to the Iraqi military." As we know, 48 million from his own funds that Saddam would have had to use for his "protection" was thereby freed up for him to divert to whatever use he desired, including, if he felt like it, military hardware to screw on to dual use items. Message 19947121