The West’s Full Service to a Weapons Buyer : In too many ways, sellers’ greed brought us this war
Iraq did not become a regional military superpower--and an international menace--overnight or by accident. Iraq took plenty of time and care to develop itself into the world’s fourth-largest military machine, and it had plenty of help from the outside, some from countries whose armed forces are now involved in the task of repelling its aggression. As Times writers Henry Weinstein, William C. Rempel and Tyler Marshall have reported in recent days, in most cases that help was given not only willingly but even eagerly. True, there was fraud and deception involved in Baghdad’s acquisition of some war-making machinery. But in the main, what Saddam Hussein wanted he simply ordered up from suppliers who were quite happy not to inquire too closely into the probable end uses of their products. So long as Iraq’s checks didn’t bounce, the cascade of weapons, military materials and technical assistance rolled on.
THE DIRTY HANDS: The story is a somber one of greed, willful self-deception and a disinclination on the part of companies and governments to concern themselves with much beyond profits and the export balance. It is, in short, a story that has innumerable predecessors in the annals of international arms transfers. This time, though, the political and military consequences have turned out to be more far-reaching than usual. This time the outcome hasn’t been revealed in a local backwater conflict about which the world cares little, but in a full-scale war of great destructiveness and still unmeasurable geopolitical implications.
The United States isn’t the most culpable party, but its hands are dirty enough. In the latter half of the 1980s, the Commerce Department, despite objections from the Pentagon, approved $1.5 billion in sales to Iraq of high-technology and other equipment whose potential military applications were unmistakable. Much about these transactions remains secret. But the benefits to Iraq’s military capabilities, including its nuclear program, can easily be inferred.
What prompted these exports? In part they were motivated by an interest in helping Iraq stay involved in the war it had launched in 1980 against Iran, a country then seen as the much greater regional danger. In part it had to do with the Commerce Department’s traditional role in boosting U.S. sales abroad. No one paid much attention to the central policy question of whether building up Iraq was in fact a good thing for longer-term American interests.
All the while, of course, the Soviet Union was pouring tanks, planes, missiles and technical advisers into Iraq. France similarly went into the Iraqi arms market in a major way. Other suppliers, from Austria to Chile to South Africa, joined in. From Germany came the most frightening help of all, what Times correspondent Tyler Marshall describes as “the key ingredients to wage chemical and biological warfare, upgrade ballistic missiles and important components of nuclear self-sufficiency.” American military planners think that allied bombing has for now largely destroyed the Iraqi plants devoted to nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. But formidable stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons--one Soviet general estimates 20,000 tons--remain in Baghdad’s stocks.
THE ONLY SOLUTION: The sordid history of the recent past can’t be erased. But steps can be taken to prevent history from being repeated. It is politically as well as morally imperative that rigorous and diligently enforced international controls be clamped on exports of war-making products to aggressive, expansionist countries like Iraq. Saddam Hussein is the archvillain in this war. But he had a lot of help as he gathered the wherewithal to make his aggression and terrorism possible. The world will only be inviting more grief if it doesn’t act to prevent that kind of help from being given in the future.
