Iraqi Official Sought Cluster Bomb Samples for Tests, Indictment Says

An Iraq Embassy official in Washington asked for samples and models of this nation’s newest cluster bomb weapons system that three Los Angeles-area men are accused of offering to sell and develop for Iraq and Saudi Arabia, a federal grand jury indictment disclosed Thursday.

The indictment said Commercial Counselor Yousef Abdul Rahman wrote one of the defendants, Richard H. Schroeder, 55, president of Westland Group International, requesting that the items be sent to Iraq, Jordan or Saudi Arabia for demonstration.

The indictment also said Schroeder met with Rahman in Washington in October, 1986, to discuss a contract between Westland and Iraq to make the bomb.

Schroeder, a Diamond Bar resident, was indicted, along with Anthony George Cenci, 61, of Costa Mesa, and Richard P. Nortman, 59, of Venice, on charges of conspiring to export restricted technical data, receiving stolen government property and violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act.

When FBI agents interrupted a meeting at the Marriott Airport Hotel on Feb. 11 and arrested the three men, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Modisett said, they were preparing to fly to Saudi Arabia to sign a protocol agreement for cluster bomb production.

Despite the two-way contacts between the defendants and Iraqis and Saudis interested in the cluster bomb, U.S. Atty. Robert C. Bonner said the government has no evidence that Saudi Arabian or Iraqi officials knowingly participated in a scheme that they knew was illegal.

Schroeder and Cenci formerly worked for Aerojet Ordnance Co. of Downey. The company said Schroeder was fired in March last year for purportedly trying to sell the cluster bomb system to Saudi Arabia. Cenci retired from the firm in January.