MANY
HELPED IRAQ EVADE U.N. SANCTIONS ON WEAPONS
Artículo de
Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel
en “The
Washington Post” del 08/10/2004
Por su
interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en
este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)
BERLIN, Oct. 7 -- As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions
and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein
found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to
help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a
surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and
training.
Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to
Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in
Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to
acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on
such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Other French military contractors came to Baghdad
with offers to supply the Iraqi government with helicopters, spare parts for
fighter aircraft and air defense systems after 1998, when U.N. weapons
inspectors withdrew under pressure, according to a report issued this week by
Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector. The report cites evidence
that contacts between the French suppliers and Hussein's government continued
until last year, less than one month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
While not denying that the transfers took place, a spokesman for the
French Foreign Ministry, Herve Ladsous, said the accusations "were not verified
either with the people themselves or with the authorities of the countries
concerned," according to the Associated Press.
The French were hardly alone in helping Hussein to reinvigorate his
military forces during the 12 years that Iraq was under strict U.N. sanctions.
Arm dealers and military suppliers from the former Eastern Bloc -- Russia,
Poland, Romania, Belarus and Ukraine -- provided critical assistance to Iraq as
it tried to build a long-range missile program and other systems that weapons
inspectors feared could have been used someday to launch chemical, biological or
even nuclear attacks.
"It was well known within the U.S. government that individuals and
companies were selling Iraq various kinds of prohibited items," said Gary
Samore, a nonproliferation specialist in the Clinton administration who now
works as an analyst for the London-based International Institute for Strategic
Studies.
While the United States sought to shut down suppliers through diplomatic
and other means, Samore said, it was common knowledge that Iraq was able to
bypass sanctions by buying in small quantities and paying high prices, using a
network of front companies in Jordan, Syria and other countries in the Middle
East.
"The world is awash in conventional arms, and every time there's been an
arms embargo on a country they've been able to circumvent it," he said. "It's
much more difficult to buy more exotic technologies like nuclear weapons, but
there are so many private dealers and corrupt state entities, especially in the
former Soviet Union. The best you can do is slow down sales, obstruct them or
make it more expensive."
Numerous other nations bought and sold on the Iraqi military shopping
network, including such dictatorships as North Korea and the former Yugoslavia
before the downfall of President Slobodan Milosevic. While some of the countries
were politically friendly with or sympathetic to Iraq, the biggest motivation
was usually money, according to Duelfer's report to the CIA.
"As long as the regime had enough cash to pay for these items, it really
wouldn't have been too much of a problem to obtain these things and smuggle them
in," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East editor for Jane's Sentinel Security
Assessments, a London-based magazine. "It just takes people with enough money
and the ability to find the right contacts to get their hands on this stuff."
The Iraqi pipeline extended to four countries -- Bulgaria, Poland, Romania
and Ukraine -- that later sent troops to Iraq to join the U.S.-led military
coalition.
In Poland, Iraqi intelligence officers helped set up a front company
called Ewex, which obtained engines and guidance components for surface-to-air
missiles from Polish scrap dealers and middlemen who scoured military surplus
stockpiles for the parts, the report said.
U.S. inspectors estimated that Iraq bought about 280 engines from Poland
from 2001 to 2003 with the intent of using them to equip a new missile that
violated U.N. range limits. The engines had been removed from Polish missiles
decommissioned after the Cold War.
Polish authorities arrested some Ewex executives in 2003 on charges of
making illegal arms deliveries to Iraq. Purchasing documents confiscated later
showed that many of the engines were funneled through Syria.
In Bulgaria, a firm called the JEFF Co. exported
more than $7 million worth of warheads, missiles and launcher units to Baghdad
in 2002 in violation of U.N. sanctions, the report found. Other Bulgarian
traders sold chemicals and machine tools to Iraq that could be used for civilian
purposes but were really intended for missile components and other military
purposes.
In Romania, Iraqi intelligence agents used diplomatic pouches to send
photos of tanks and other military equipment available for sale in that nation
back to Baghdad. Although weapons inspectors said it was unclear how much
equipment was purchased by the Iraqi government, they did uncover documents
after the war showing that a Romanian firm, Uzinexport SA, signed a contract in
October 2001 to sell magnets to Iraq that "could have been suitable" for a
uranium enrichment program.
In most cases, U.S. weapons inspectors found no
clear evidence that officials in those countries were involved in the arms
deals. One exception was Ukraine, where leaders gave their blessing to military
sales to Iraq.
The Duelfer report calls Ukraine "one of the countries involved in illicit
military-related procurement with Iraq" after the 1991 Gulf War, noting that
President Leonid Kuchma personally approved the sale of a $100 million
antiaircraft radar system to Iraq via a Jordanian intermediary in 2000.
Ukrainian officials have since said the sale was never completed, and weapons
inspectors said they had not found any evidence that the radar system was
shipped to Iraq.
In 2001, Iraqi intelligence agents also bought five motors from a
Ukrainian company as part of a project to develop unmanned spy planes. The
motors were shipped to Iraq from Ukraine in diplomatic pouches to avoid the
attention of international inspectors, the report said.
A Ukrainian electronics professor whose private firm transferred missile
engines and motors to Iraqi companies was rewarded with vouchers and credits for
more than 7.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil from 1998 to 2000, the report found.
The professor, identified as Yuri Orshansky, made about $1.85 million in profits
under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was designed to generate revenue for
the Iraqi people under economic sanctions.
Some of the clearest evidence of government corruption, according to the
report, involved Russia, a country that has vast storehouses of military
technology.
Although the Russian government has denied past accusations that it played
a role in supplying arms and military equipment to Hussein's government, U.S.
weapons inspectors reported finding "a significant amount of captured
documentation showing contracts between Iraq and Russian companies."
In one case, a Russian general, Anatoly Makros, formed a joint company
with Iraqi partners in 1998 "just to handle the large volume of Russian
business," according to the report, which also cited a former Iraqi diplomat as
saying that Russian customs officials ignored the illegal commerce in exchange
for bribes.
Trade with Russia was so brisk that Iraqi Embassy officials smuggled
military supplies on weekly charter flights from Moscow to Baghdad, according to
the former Iraqi diplomat, who was not named in the report. The equipment
included radar jammers, night-vision goggles and small missile components.
One Russian company signed contracts valued at about $20 million to
provide material for Iraq's missile systems. Another Russian firm, Uliss,
negotiated a deal to support a tank project dubbed "Saddam the Lion," according
to the report.
Frankel reported from London.