Arms Experts Challenge Bush Claim on U.S. Aid to Iraq : Weapons: The ex-head of a U.N. inspection team says American technology was used in Hussein’s nuclear program. Gaps in export control are cited.

The former head of the United Nations inspections team in Iraq and other weapons proliferation experts Wednesday sharply challenged President Bush’s assertion in the final presidential debate that no U.S. technology was used in Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program.

Post-war U.N. inspections at Iraqi facilities have found that American computers and other equipment played a role in Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, said David Kay, the former U.N. official.

“The U.S. equipment was there and there is no disputing that,” Kay said in a telephone interview from London. “I simply don’t see how the President can say that U.S. technology was not used in Iraq’s nuclear program.”

Presidential candidate Ross Perot raised the issue Monday night in the debate when he criticized Bush’s prewar assistance to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In an angry response, Bush said: “The nuclear capability has been searched by the United Nations and there hasn’t been one scintilla of evidence that there’s any U.S. technology involved in it.”

Kay and others expressed concerns that Bush’s statement glosses over serious gaps in the export control system here and in other countries and could undercut efforts to get them addressed.

Their statements came as two U.S. government agencies appeared to confirm that at least some U.S. technology licensed for export by the Bush Administration made its way into Hussein’s ambitious attempt to build nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Customs Service said that it is investigating American technology found at Iraqi nuclear weapons facilities by the U.N. teams. The State Department acknowledged that some U.S. equipment was found at the plants, but said that it “made no significant contribution” to the Iraqi effort.

Last December, the United Nations released a list of foreign technology discovered at Iraq’s nuclear weapons facilities that included one American firm--the DuPont Co., a chemical manufacturer.

In February of 1989, the Administration approved an export license allowing DuPont to sell $130,000 worth of nuclear-grade vacuum pump oil to the Iraqi government. U.N. inspectors later found the lubricant used in Iraq’s program to make bomb-grade uranium.

Among the other U.S. technology provided to Iraq in 1989 and 1990 and found at Iraqi nuclear weapons facilities were an advanced IBM computer and computer workstations, according to Kay.

Gary S. Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a group that opposes arms proliferation, said there is overwhelming evidence that Iraq obtained U.S. goods for its nuclear program.

“For example, the Administration’s export records show that a giant electron-beam welder was sold with U.S. consent and wound up making vital components for Saddam’s nuclear weapon production line,” said Milhollin.

Proponents of tighter export controls say that Iraq exploited lax restrictions in the United States and other countries by buying technology for commercial purposes and switching it to weapons programs.

“If you were to rank the countries that supplied Iraq’s nuclear program, the United States would be a small supplier,” Kay said. “But there will never be a worldwide effort to address the problem of proliferation unless the United States and other countries recognize this problem.”

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher defended U.S. export policy Wednesday, saying that no major exports of weapons technology were permitted for Iraq.

“In fact, the record of the (U.N.) inspections demonstrates that there was no significant contribution made by the stuff that came from the United States,” Boucher said.

A spokesman for the Customs Service said that the agency is investigating circumstances surrounding the export of the electron-beam welder and other U.S.-originated equipment found at Iraq’s weapons facilities by the U.N. teams. He declined to provide additional information.

Commerce Department records show that the $835,000 welder and a $53,000 companion computer were licensed for export to Iraq on Feb. 10, 1988. The use was declared to be “general military applications, such as jet engine repair, rocket cases, etc.”

Boucher, however, denied that the welder was licensed for export and said officials assume it was illegally diverted to Iraq.

The problem of nuclear proliferation is expected to worsen in coming years because of the potential availability of advanced technology from Russia and China. Kay and others said that the United States must lead the way in tightening controls.

Yet legislation to plug the loopholes in U.S. export laws that allowed Iraq to buy critical technology failed to win approval in Congress this year.

Daniel Horner, deputy director of the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonprofit research organization in Washington, said that the measure did not receive adequate support from key Democratic chairmen in the face of strong opposition from the Administration.