WAR IN BRIEF : LOS ANGELES : New Accusations of German Aid to Iraq

Leaders of the Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies charged that German firms designed and built gas chambers, much like those used to kill millions in Nazi-era concentration camps, for Saddam Hussein’s regime. Executives of the German companies--which were indicted last year for allegedly helping Iraq produce poison gas--knew the chambers were intended for testing chemical weapons, according to officials of the center. A spokesman for the German Consulate in Los Angeles said, “I cannot imagine German companies would have done such a thing.”