Germany Needs to Face This Honestly : Evil arms deals imperil Americans in the gulf

Foreigners from many countries are desperately seeking permission to leave Iraq, but one group of Germans is in no hurry to be repatriated. As Times correspondent Mark Fineman reported from Baghdad, a number of businessmen and scientists fear that if they return to the Federal Republic they will be indicted for contributing to Iraq’s development of weapons of mass destruction.

The extent of involvement by German companies and citizens in Saddam Hussein’s crash program to acquire advanced weapons is only now starting to emerge. In August, according to the Wall Street Journal, German Economics Minister Helmut Haussmann secretly briefed members of the Bundestag about aid provided by German companies to Iraq’s armaments industries. The activities of at least 170 companies are being looked into, and criminal proceedings have so far been launched against about 25.

Germany’s postwar constitution consciously reflects the bleakly cautionary lessons of modern German history. Among other things it bans weapons transfers to areas of international tension. That prohibition seems to have been evaded determinedly by various German firms.

Among the findings of the secret Haussmann report are that three German companies supplied Iraq with the components to build the gas centrifuges needed to separate uranium-238 from uranium-235, a key step in producing weapons-grade nuclear material.

At least one German company sold Iraq deadly mycotoxins for research to develop biological weapons. U.S. officials have revealed that Iraq will have such weapons operational within a few months.

Five German companies have helped Iraq upgrade its Soviet-supplied Scud-B missiles to carry conventional or chemical warheads greater distances.

A German firm was the major supplier for plants that make nerve and mustard gases. And now comes news that the German arms industry may have indirectly helped Iraq develop a new fuel-air explosive of enormous destructive power.

The greed of German companies--and the laxity of German officials in suppressing this deadly illicit trade--has helped give Saddam Hussein access to powerful weapons that not only threaten Iraq’s neighbors but now imperil the lives of American and other forces sent to stand against his aggression.

Germans, of course, were not the only villains in building up Iraq’s war-making capability. The Soviet Union and France especially, though not exclusively, contributed to Iraq’s potent arsenal. Americans may also have helped. The embargo has presumably put a stop to this trade for now, though what harm may yet result from what has gone before no one can say. The compelling lesson for the future is at any rate clear and unmistakable: Never again can civilized countries afford to permit such cynical and greed-driven trafficking in these appalling weapons. That is the lesson; the world can only pray now that it won’t take a hideous experience on a Persian Gulf battlefield to assure that it will be heeded.