Who Made Iraq What It Is Today? : World exports of chemical weapons sure helped

When West Germany authorities recently arrested seven people on suspicion of supplying Iraq with equipment to make poison gas, it was a grim reminder of the key part outside aid has played in Baghdad’s acquisition of such dreaded weapons and an urgent object lesson for the future.

And it made the point that industrial nations, both individually and as part of a major international effort, must act to tighten their export controls over these toxic materials. Private companies cannot be counted on to withhold the means for producing weapons of mass destruction from regional bullies like Iraq. Where self-policing fails, governments have a moral obligation to act.

Brutal experience has made it tragically clear that chemical weapons--poison gas and nerve agents--are not just a theoretical part of Iraq’s arsenal or reserved as an ultimate deterrent. They are weapons of choice that the Iraqis have used freely, not only on the battlefield but also to murder unarmed civilians.

Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons against massed and unprepared Iranian troops was instrumental in finally getting Tehran in 1988 to accept the truce it had long scorned. Not long after that Iraq turned these same weapons on the village of Halabjah, killing thousands of its own defenseless Kurdish citizens.

Now dictator Saddam Hussein threatens to use these weapons again if conflict erupts with the United States and other forces that have gone to the Persian Gulf area in response to his seizure of Kuwait. Fortunately, these forces are equipped to deal with this threat and to respond in kind if need be. But it’s the future that must now be looked to: Everything must be done to prevent such threats from recurring.

That need is by no means limited to Iraq.

Two months ago the head of the West German chemical firm Imhausen was sent to prison for five years for selling Libya equipment to produce deadly nerve gases.

A Hamburg newspaper reports that this same company sold Iraq $20-million worth of equipment to produce sarin and tabun, two nerve gases. Even now, the horrific illicit trade goes on. Friday, the White House announced that despite the U.N.-approved embargo, Iraq continues to receive chemical warfare supplies from unnamed sources.

This is not something being done out of ignorance. No politically literate person can have any doubt about the nature of the regimes that rule in Iraq and Libya. Those who supply either with the means to advance their chemical and nuclear programs are being criminally irresponsible.

No one knows how the Persian Gulf crisis will be resolved. What is obvious is that an Iraq armed in the future with chemical weapons and steadily improving means for delivering them to ever-more distant targets would be a major threat to regional peace.

Infinitely worse, an Iraq that has come into possession of nuclear weapons would be a constant threat to world peace. Rigorous cooperative measures are needed now to head off that nightmarish possibility.