Who armed Iraq?

Remove all ads!

I have seen a lot of posts saying that America is responsible for arming Iraq. I have always that that was strange because we kept destroying Russian tanks. Well the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has done some research, and guess what, America isn't even in the top five!

Share per nation of sale of weapons to Iraq from 1973 through 2002.

USSR/Russia 57%
France 13%
China 12%
Czech 7%
Poland 4%
Brazil 2%

America is tied with Egypt, Romania, Denmark and Libya at 1%.

Lets see, the three nations that were against the action in Iraq had provided 82% of Iraq’s weapons. Makes me wonder about 2 things, were they afraid that these sales would dry up under the new Iraqi government, and were they afraid that no one would buy their weapons after they saw how inferior they are to US weapons?

 

Darkwolf, just two points here:

1. Laches already posted a link to a beatiful graph of this which does indeed show exactly these figures;

2. You're being a little misleading because: the arms sales in question all took place before the last Gulf War ie the figures included are up to and including 1990. If you actually look at the data you will see that for the period post Desert Storm, the sales are blank.

So, no I don't particularly think anyone was too worried about loosing arms sales since no-one were making any. At least neither official nor recorded.

 

IMHO the real question is not who armed Iraq with guns, tanks etc, but who armed Iraq with chemical weapons and WMDs. Every country has the former but the latter who has them?
As for scuds they are a russian design which was modified by the Iraqies. But who sold the chemicals Saddam used on the Kurds;

 

French companies were still selling parts for Gazelles and Mirages as little as a month before the war. I don't know if it was ever proven, but the US accused the Russians of supplying night vision devices during the conflict.

Given the history of the issue, when the sanctions were eventually lifted, who would the Iraqis be buying weapons from? IMO, there were probably already contracts on the table for the big 3. Though I don't know why, given the pitiful performance of these nations weapons. Hell Israel would rule the skies in a war against her neighbors with a few ancient F-4 Phantoms and even fewer F16 Falcons. When you want impressive looking things to fly over and parade past the people, go to China, France, and Russia, they are cheap and you can afford to buy in quantity. If you are actually going to have to fight with them, the US and UK are the only place to shop!

@Mithrantir: Do you think that the US are the only ones who supplied the Irqis with WMD and/or the equipement to develope them? France, Germany, Russia, China, N. Korea, Libya... the list is long and distinguished.

@Admins: If this issue has been discussed at length elsewhere, I apologize, I missed it. If appropriate please move, delete or lock as you see fit.

[ April 17, 2003, 16:18: Message edited by: Darkwolf ]

 

Does darkwolf work for the department of propaganda in America... all he ever seems to post are random "look, we're not as bad as all that" topics...

Massively boring...

 

Then stop reading my posts.


Maybe if a few people here would quit trying to lay the blame for every evil in the world at the feet of the US, I would stop pointing out their participation in them.

If you have a problem with my posts, address them to me directly, otherwise quit attacking me in third person.

 

@christopher_lee: I find Darkwolf's steady stream of "we're not so bad as all that" posts no more or less boring than the steady stream of "look what the big bad US has screwed up now" posts.

 

Ok, Darkwolf, I find your posts too patriotic and annoying, and you refuse to acknowledge the fact that the US have sold A LOT of things to Iraq, and that they do contribute to many of the evils of the world. There.

 

Please show me where I denied that the US sold/gave nasty bio and chem weapons to the Iraqis, or anyone else in the world.

Also, please show me where I said that the US is the altuistic, never have done anything wrong to anyone else nation.

You can't, because I haven't.

The US is guilty as charged on both counts, but so is everybody else. I am just tired of hearing that the US is the greatest evil in the world. Europe, China and Russia are just as guilty as the US. The difference is tha at the moment the US wants to do something about it and some others don't.

But thank you for addressing it to me directly. Maybe I have posted too many time trying to prove that we are not the greatest evil in the world. I will see if I can mix it up a little.

Thanks Rally, I think...

 

What little I know and if you are very general the division of arms sale to Iraq is like this; Russia sold them conventional weapons as did France. France also sold a nuclear reactor to Iraq which Israel later blew up. Germany or rather German companies has supplied most of the chemical weapons that Iraq had in the 80's. The US more or less only gave Iraq their biological weapons but in contrast to France and Germany it was the US government that did so while it was French and German companies that had buisness with Saddam. The German companies has been convicted in a court of law.

 

Darkwolf, we're evil too. Our goverment has decided yesterday, that is no longer illegal to sell weapons to the USA. So, the american army can look forward to a timely delivery of the weapons it has bought by us.

To the weapons sells. Our countries produce weapons. And if someone produces weapons, he wants to sell them.

So, who wants to buy weapons ? The thrid and second world. They kill eachother with the weapons we deliver them. And when their senseless wars have ended, they have nothing but a pile of rubbish and are so deeply in debt, that all their state income is swallowed up by interest rates.

 

Darkwolf, when it was legal to sell weapons to Iraq, URSS and France did it, they did it so well that they beat the US at it (same for recent oil contracts I think), that's the only thing your statistics show. As for accusing France and Russia of selling military stuff to Iraq after the first Gulf war, I've heard many accusations coming from the US lately, but not so many proofs (binLaden anyone?)

 

Yago,

You and I have found common ground! Personally, I don't like the fact that there is an ever escalating development of deadlier weapons. We make them to better defend ourselves (1st world community here folks, not just US) and then we sell our old ones to people who have no legitimate reason to need them to pay for the development of the next generation of weapons. The problem is, how to stop it. The US sells them to the Saudis to defend themselves from the Iranians who are buying them from the Russians to defend themselves from the Iraqis, and so on. I wish we could all just get along, but until that happens...

 

@Darkwolf - I did mean that kindly, so you're welcome!

@Yago - ...no, I don't think I'll ask that question after all. I really don't want to be offensive. But let me say that the myriad possibilities for what weapons the US could have ordered from Switzerland is bringing me a few good chuckles this afternoon! Thankx!

 

Well, germany mainly provided chemical plant technology to handle the very dangerous substances needed to produce chemical weapons. The chemicals were iirc from all over the world, from the US, belgium, france, germany, etc. Germany also sold chem protection suits and decontamination tools. Ironically germany, asides from helping Saddam building chemical weapons, also treated iranian gas victims (as I certainly know from a doctor who treated them).

France delivered aircraft and antitank-missiles, britain communications equipment, austria the renowned CHN-45 artillery designed by Gerald Bull, Brazil supplied light armored vehicles and long range rocket atillery and all that.

Now what was the US part? They barely sold weapons to iraq, right. Officially the US kept a "neutral" status. They, however, supported Iraq by fighting iranian forces in the persian gulf clandestinely. The US also provided training to the iraqis, camo techniques for example, and the iraqis learned very well. Thanks to that training the US had so serious difficulties spotting the Scud launchers of the gulf war.
And to take care the slaughter at the gulf didn't stop they supported the iranians with spare parts (anyone remebers iran-contra or irangate? ), even violating their own declared embargo.

Every major western nation made good money supplying arms to saddam. He's our little monster.

[ April 17, 2003, 20:05: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

Darkwolf's posts are very patriotic. So what? A large number of people post nothing on the boards but anti-American stuff. Defending your country or your beliefs is not indicative of a lack of brainpower.

Having said that, I will reiterate what others have said regarding the US policies regarding Iraq. IMHO, the Americans bolstered Iraq in the 70s and 80s to create an effective local counterweight to Iran. itmworked, and the two countries spent their resources fighting with each other instead of taking shots at the U.S. or other Western nations. The U.S. learned in the early 90s with the invasion of Kuwait that they had made a deal with the devil, and so had to go in and correct their mistake -- if mistake it really was -- 20/20 hindsight may say it was, but who knows what may have happened if Iraq and iran had not gone to war? Speculations may abound, but no one knows for sure.

 

at Rallymama

Swiss-cheese ? Swiss-army-knives ? High-precision-watches for marines ? High-quality chocolate to keep up the morale ?

No, 32 obsolete warplanes which will be used for pilot-training.

at Darkwolf

I am glad we agree. I think the Iran-Iraq example of Depaara just shows how insane and dangerous this whole system is. They fought their war, killed their own people and strengthend the grip of their dictatorships. After the war, Iraq faced a financial crisis. War is never good business, if your not winning. Solution ? Invade a neighbouring country (Kuweit) which is able to give the Iraqi-economy a boost through his wealth.

 

The Oracle: And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase? <crash>
The Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry.
The Oracle: I said don't worry about it.
Neo: How did you know?
The Oracle: Ohh...what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?
Thatvase.Wav or rather WhatSickDictatorareyoutalkingabout.wav

Is it really relevant to you guys who sold the weapons? The interesting aspect to me is rather, would they do it again, knowing what they know now.

The charm and curse of Online Board discussion. Babbling on and on and on in all directions with no focus on relevance and agreement. I said Charm too, didn't I.

[ April 24, 2003, 03:06: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

The UN inspectors were tasked with writing a report about who armed iraq. This report remains, in its details, secret and is in its full form, only available to the permanent members, on their request, and on request of countries like germany and japan. Evil to him who thinks evil. Is there anything to hide?

Most of the countries supplying arms and technology to Saddam were violating armament control restrictions, even national laws. It was tolerated by the governments of the proliferating countries. Germany's top stand in chemical tech makes their contribution best known. Russia sold iraq their conventional army. France and britain were deeply involved, as was brazil, austria and many others. Now for the US part:

In 2002 it came out that the US in March 1988 had instructed their diplomats to accuse iran of having killed the kurds in Halabja ... to protect their ally? ... surely just a result of insufficient intelligence When Saddam's attacks stalled, the US told Saddam how to build cluster-bombs, a hot and new technology in early 80s, to fight the numerically superior iranians. The US also delivered NSA intercepts of iranian communication and satellite imagery of iranian positions to the iraqis, telling them where to use their gas to best effect. Mind they were neutral after all ... err ...
When Saddam Hussein murdered his way to power in 1979 the US ambassador cabled to Washington: "Sure he's a bastard, but he's our bastard". Hmm, to understand one might need to remember that the Baath party traditionally was socialist
Saddam even asked a diplomatic "May I?" to washington before invading iran (Yes! Yes! Mullahs !!! !!! ) and Kuwait (April Glaspie nebulously answered along the line: "This an inner-arab dispute ..." what Saddam cheerfully understood it as an invitation). As Saddam invaded just a few days after asking he must have beamed his troops to Kuwait, unnoticed by US satellites, catching the Bush Sr. administration by surprise It needed Maggy Thatcher* to talk Bush Sr., who suddenly found himself abandoning an old buddy, into taking military action on Iraq, demonising Saddam as another Hitler . Remarkable that Saddam, who's really evil , took the time to ask before he went to war. Again, honi soit qui mal y pense.

Oh dear, could it be that america accidentally put a really mean criminal into power? How could that happen? Again?

* Separating Iraq and Kuwait has been a traditional approach of british foreign policy in the middle east - and a reason to take military action on iraq because of kuwait in the 1960s. IIRC the UK were obliged to assist Kuwait in case of agression - a daunting task for the UK alone.

[ April 25, 2003, 15:37: Message edited by: Ragusa ]

 

@ Darkwolf
I didn't imply that only USA had sold wmd and biological, chemical weapons to Iraq i simply asked who sold them.
I also want to say that even US weapons companies had sold weapons to Iraq during the sanctions (and Greece too I know that for sure don't ask how). I think i heard that recently the US goverment punished some companies for the violation of the sanctions.
But the real problem was Saddam not the weapons and to be more precise was the use of the oil wells not the wellfare of Iraq (as far as the US goverment concerned)