The Ol’ Wink and Nod Again : Now it’s the Saudis who helped arm Baghdad

Congress is a co-equal branch of government, and increasingly in recent years it has moved to assert its oversight in the critical area of foreign policy. Among other things, it enacted the Arms Export Control Act, which requires the President to notify Congress whenever a foreign country is found to have transferred arms it obtained from the United States to a third country without Washington’s specific authorization.

The notification requirement aims precisely at preventing Congress from being deceived on matters affecting the national interest, as it was when the Reagan Administration used Israel as a conduit to covertly transfer U.S. weapons to Iran in the mid-1980s. But Iran, it’s now clear, wasn’t the only Persian Gulf country that secretly obtained American arms. As Murray Waas and Douglas Frantz reported in The Times, Iraq also had its war-making capability enhanced by timely shipments of American weapons. In addition to the previously disclosed transfers of U.S. intelligence data and dual-purpose high technology--as well as billions in commodity loans--Iraq was also able to get its hands on an undisclosed number of American-made 2,000 pound bombs. The conduit in that case was Saudi Arabia, and in clear violation of the law Congress seems to have been kept in the dark.

To what extent the Reagan Administration knew of the bomb transfers isn’t yet clear; Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell says he hopes to find out in the next few days. Senior U.S. officials told The Times that American authorities informally approved of the arrangement, as part of an effort to keep Iraq from losing the war it had launched against Iran in 1980. Other officials suggest that the Saudis unintentionally sent the Mark 84 bombs to Iraq along with large shipments of military supplies from their own stockpiles.

Anything, we suppose, is possible. But a failure of inventory control like the one that would have the Saudis mistakenly providing huge bombs to Baghdad is hard to credit. A one-ton bomb--and there may have been many of them involved--is not a tent peg or a canteen cup or a box of rations, something to be casually tossed aboard a cargo plane. It takes a lot of planning to move such weapons. Waas and Frantz say the transfers took place with “wink-and-nod approval from the White House.” That seems to us to be the more plausible explanation.

The secrecy involved--the deception--may have been intended to prevent Congress from stopping large arms sales to Saudi Arabia that were then pending. Ironically, another possible sale to the Saudis, this one involving 72 F-15 fighters, may soon be proposed. An earlier violation of the Arms Export Control Act could easily persuade Congress to refuse approval for new sales.

Several congressional committees have hearings pending on what the Reagan and Bush administrations did in the 1980s to aid Iraq. The scope of needed hearings has now grown larger. Serious questions have been raised. Full and honest answers must be demanded.