Arms Supplier for Iraq Sees Prolonged War

An international arms dealer who has supplied an estimated $1.6 billion in weapons to Iraq believes the worst part of the conflict with Baghdad still lies ahead.

Sarkis G. Soghanalian, whose annual earnings of $12 million rank him among the world’s richest arms brokers, says that despite intensive bombing of Iraq, the ground war will be agonizingly slow because the dug-in Iraqis are “fierce and hardened soldiers.”

He is a man who should know, having supplied Iraq with the bulk of its weapons during its long war with Iran during the 1980s. He also spent considerable time on Iraq’s front lines with its troops and commanding officers.

In April, Soghanalian will face trial in Miami federal court on charges he conspired to ship 103 civilian helicopters modified for military use to Iraq. The December, 1987, indictment alleges that he violated the federal arms export control act by seeking to arm the helicopters with TOW anti-tank missiles.

His attorney, Neal Sonnett, notes that Soghanalian has pleaded innocent and says that the transaction never took place. Soghanalian insists that his work for Iraq was entirely lawful.

But during an interview in his office near Miami International Airport, Soghanalian said he has regrets about the Gulf War.

“When I was supplying Iraq with weapons, they were at war with Iran, a greater enemy of the United States,” he said. “I had no idea that the United States one day would challenge Iraq. Who could foresee this?”

Although the Ronald Reagan Administration was officially neutral during that war and outlawed weapons sales to both nations, Soghanalian said there was a private tilt toward Iraq on the part of many U.S. officials because of Iran’s past hostage-taking.

His claims that he was in touch with U.S. intelligence officials is bolstered by a reference in the diary of former White House aide Oliver L. North, dated Feb. 7, 1984. In what seems to be a reference to arms support for the U.S.-backed Nicaraguan rebel forces, the entry in North’s handwriting reads: “Sarkis--delivered weapons. Gratis!”

Over the years, Soghanalian has run guns to the Christian forces in Lebanon, missiles to the Argentines in the Falklands War, munitions to Anastasio Somoza’s Nicaragua and rockets to Romania. In addition, he once reportedly supplied a small aircraft to the late Ferdinand E. Marcos in his aborted attempt to return to power in the Philippines.

Soghanalian, 61, a Turkish-born Lebanese citizen, lives in a palatial, heavily guarded home on Hibiscus Island in Biscayne Bay but has spent most of his working life in the Middle East.

Most of the weapons he supplied Iraq were French-made artillery pieces and Soviet-manufactured cannons, so his special expertise lies with Iraq’s ground war capabilities.

“Iraqi soldiers will not easily surrender,” he predicted. “I don’t mean to imply we don’t have equally strong troops. But . . . allied forces are more motivated by humanitarian concerns,” he said. “We worry about killing civilians. That will make clearing out Kuwait city particularly difficult.”

Soghanalian added that the conventional weapons he provided to Iraq, including long-range howitzers capable of hurling a shell 20 miles, may hold up better in the harsh, sand-blown climate of the Persian Gulf than what he called “the more fragile,” high-tech weapons operated by allied troops.

Soghanalian stressed he had not sold Iraq any of the Soviet- or Chinese-made Scud missiles that have been aimed at Saudi Arabia or Israel. Nor has he supplied any chemical weapons, he said.

As to Iraq’s leader, his experience with Iraqi military officials convinced him that Saddam Hussein is an emotional man given to “swings of mood from one direction to the other,” he said.

“He is not the type of person who would sit and think before acting,” he said. “And he will not tolerate people around him who disagree with him. He is a very determined man. If he says milk is black, it is black.”

As to whether Saddam can make good on his threat to unleash a mysterious new force or weapon in the war, Soghanalian declared:

“You have to remember that he is a politician, so his strength partly relies on propaganda. First of all, I don’t know what he is talking about, and secondly, he knows that the allies have more than what he has.”