Syria Goes Arms Shopping With $1 Billion in Gulf Aid

Syria has been paid roughly $1 billion so far for participating in the coalition against Iraq and is trying to use this infusion of new cash to buy advanced weapons for its military, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

President Hafez Assad--who until the Persian Gulf crisis was desperately short of cash--is now seeking to buy what one U.S. official called “big-ticket items,” including surface-to-surface missiles, jet fighters and tanks, according to government analysts monitoring developments in Syria.

The first of these purchases was disclosed Wednesday when an Israeli military official in Jerusalem told reporters that North Korea has sold Soviet-made Scud-C missiles to Syria.

“The onset of the gulf crisis has been a blessing for the Syrians,” one U.S. official observed. “It has enabled them to improve relations with the West and to get some aid.” Saudi Arabia has contributed most of the $1 billion, while Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have also given Syria small amounts, U.S. officials confirmed.

Assad’s efforts to build up his military arsenal have heightened concerns that a strengthened Syria might emerge as a threat to stability in the Middle East after the gulf crisis ends--just as Iraq amassed power during the 1980s by attracting Western support in its war against Iran.

U.S. officials, scholars and other experts on Syria say that, although Assad has contributed Syrian troops to the effort against Iraq, he probably does not want an all-out war that would destroy Iraq’s military power. Assad still views the Iraqi army as a potential future ally against Israel, many experts believe.

“It would be better for Assad to use Iraqi power to face off against Israeli power,” said one U.S. government analyst.

During President Bush’s meeting with Assad in Geneva two weeks ago, the Syrian leader asked the United States to remove his country from its official list of terrorist states, according to a Middle East source close to the Syrians.

A White House official acknowledged that Assad complained about Syria’s listing as a terrorist state but said that he could not confirm that Assad had asked specifically to have Syria taken off the list.

Despite Assad’s recent efforts to court Western support, U.S. government analysts said, there has been no sign of any change in Syria’s policy of giving safe haven to terrorists. “Syria is still letting these people (terrorist groups) move around,” a State Department official said.

“I don’t think anyone would say he (Assad) has had a change of heart on terrorism, that it’s not the thing to do,” another U.S. official said.

A spokesman for Syria’s embassy in Washington said he was unable to confirm or deny any reports about payments to his country by Arab governments during the gulf crisis or about his country’s efforts to buy arms.

Repeating past Syrian statements, the Syrian spokesman said his government is opposed to violent acts against civilians or hijacking anywhere in the world. But he added that Syria does not consider actions against the Israeli military or occupation forces on Israeli-held territory to be acts of terrorism.

U.S. officials said Saudi and Kuwaiti officials pledged the $1 billion to Syria soon after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and that the money has already been disbursed. Syria may also be paid more next year, they said.

“My guess is that there is an understanding between the Saudis and the Syrians that there is more where that ($1 billion) came from,” said one U.S. official.

Much or all of the money will go for Assad’s military, the U.S. analysts believe. They said Assad is seeking to add to his existing supplies of MIG-29 and SU-24 fighter planes from the Soviet Union. He may also seek to buy new tanks, perhaps from Eastern Europe, they said.

But U.S. officials believe that the Syrian leader’s top priority is to obtain new, more advanced and accurate missiles.

“What Assad is looking for is a surface-to-surface missile capability--something he thinks his enemies, the Iraqis and Israelis, both have,” explained one government analyst. “The Syrians do have Soviet Scuds (missiles), but nothing with the range that the Iraqis showed they had in the Iran-Iraq War or that the Israelis are reported to have.”

The most likely place for Assad to shop for this new weapon is China, some U.S. officials said.

China’s army has been developing a new, mobile, surface-to-surface missile called the M-9, which has a range of about 400 miles. For two years, the Reagan and Bush administrations have urged China not to sell this new missile in the Middle East. Bush last year claimed to have obtained assurances from China that would preclude such sales.

However, China reportedly has continued to develop the missile, and it is expected to be ready for export some time next year. A number of U.S. and foreign analysts have said there will be no way of knowing until then whether China intends to export the M-9.

A high-ranking Israeli military officer in Jerusalem said Wednesday that the new Scud-C missiles Syria is buying from North Korea will have a range of just over 300 miles and will have better accuracy than the Soviet Scud-B’s already in the Syrian arsenal.

The missiles probably are meant to be aimed at Israel, the military official said, since it would take a longer-range missile to aim for likely targets in Iraq. However, he conceded that the missiles could be used against airfields in western Iraq.

“All the population in Israel is within range of this missile,” the Israeli official asserted. He added that the Soviet Union turned down a request by Syria for SS-23 missiles.

Whatever missiles the Syrians obtain could be equipped with chemical weapons. CIA Director William H. Webster testified last year that Syria began producing chemical warfare agents in the mid-1980s “and currently has a chemical-warfare production facility.”

William B. Quandt of the Brookings Institution, who was a Mideast specialist on the National Security Council in the Carter Administration, said it is “quite possible” that Assad will use the gulf crisis to make new arms purchases. But he cautioned that these purchases need to be kept in perspective.

Quandt said that even if the Syrians use the $1 billion they have obtained since August to buy more arms, their purchases “will probably be less than in the past.”

Syrian officials were said to have been incensed this fall when the Bush Administration provided Israel with the Patriot surface-to-air defense system and Apache attack helicopters.

In fact, some experts believe that one of the main reasons Assad sought to meet with Bush last month was to try to ensure that the United States would act to restrain Israel.

But Assad is believed to have had broader purposes as well, both economic and strategic, for meeting with Bush.

“Without being able to count on Soviet backing, the Syrians realize there’s only one place for them to look (for financial help)--to Europe and the United States--as distasteful as that may be to them,” one U.S. analyst said. “Assad is realizing he’s got to play with us.”

Five days after Assad met with Bush, the British government restored diplomatic relations with Syria. That action opened the way for Syria to receive about $190 million a year in development aid from the European Community. The aid had been blocked because of concerns about terrorism.

Beyond wanting economic help from the West, another American official said, Assad “wants to be seen as an important player in the Middle East.”

By meeting with the American President, these officials said, Assad has put himself in position to play a significant role in the Middle East at the end of the gulf crisis.

Quandt suggested that if the gulf crisis ends with Hussein and his military arsenal still intact, Syria “will be an important counterweight” to Iraqi power. “We have to think through how to anchor Syria in its present orientation, which is toward Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the West,” Quandt said.

Some American specialists on terrorism contend that the United States lost more than it gained when Bush sat down with Assad.

“We enhanced his (Assad’s) regional status by having this meeting. You didn’t need a presidential meeting,” said Vincent M. Cannistraro, formerly the CIA’s counterterrorist operations chief.

“The United States has given Assad equal stature in this alliance (against Iraq). We eliminated his pariah status, and in exchange for what?”

The President himself argued that his meeting with the Syrian leader helped solidify the international coalition against Iraq. “Mr. Assad is lined up with us with a commitment to force,” he explained. “They are on the front line, or will be, standing up against aggression.”

U.S. government analysts said that the Syrian press gave extraordinary and favorable coverage to Assad’s meeting with Bush, emphasizing that the session showed how pragmatic the Syrian leader is.

“Assad’s had to do a bit of justification at home for sitting down with Bush, but he certainly saw it as a successful meeting,” said one U.S. analyst.

Times staff writer Daniel Williams in Jerusalem contributed to this story.

BACKGROUND

In 1986, the State Department put Syria on its list of terrorist states because of the alleged role of Syrian officials in an attempt to blow up an Israeli El Al flight out of London. Syria has also been implicated in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people. Some groups holding Western hostages in Lebanon are believed to be Syrian-influenced, and Damascus has been acused of training terrorists in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.