Semetex Corporation: computers $5,155,781 Spectral Data Corporation: satellite data processing equipment $26,880 Wiltron Company: equipment for making radar antennas $49,510 [Insert from the New York Times, The Week in Review, Sunday, July 18, 1993E5.] IRAQ'S PURCHASES IN THE A-BOMB SUPERMARKET The Number of Deals The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control has compiled a list of all the publicly known deals in which Iraq bought technology and equipment for its nuclear and missile programs before the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Some purchases were made from brokers rather than directly from the manufacturer. A deal can mean construction of an entire factory, or supplying the machine tools or training to operate it. The vast majority of these deals were approved by or made through the governments. Breakdown of Iraq's purchases, weighted for importance to its nuclear and missile programs, as estimated by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. One example: although France had only six transactions with the Iraqis, one was to build the Osirak nuclear reactor, which Israel destroyed by bombing in 1981. [Source on all charts: Gary Milhollin and Diana L. Edensword, Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control.] A SAMPLING OF THE PURCHASES Types of technologies and equipment bought by Iraq from the five countries with the greatest share of responsibility BEEFING UP THE SCUD MISSILE: WHO HELPED The Soviet Union supplied Iraq with Scud missiles that had a range of 180 miles. They were used to bombard Israeli cities and a military base in Saudi Arabia where 28 American soldiers were killed after Saddam Hussein expanded the range to 380 miles. These companies and government agencies had roles: AUSTRIA WEST GERMANY AVL Designed rocket test tunnel for missile Anlagen Bau Contor Supplied laboratory Consultco Designed missile complex BRAZIL H.O. Piva; Embraer; Orbita Trained Iraqis in rocket technology, supplied assistance BRITAIN International Computer Systems Supplied computers at missile site International Military Services Designed and supervised construction of a missile testing complex Matrix Churchill Supplied scores of sensitive machine tools MEED international Front company for missile procurement Technology Development Group Front company for missile procurement TMG Engineering Front company for missile procurement SAUDI ARABIA Beaujean Developed and supplied test stands for missile propulsion BP; Carl Zeiss; Degussa; Tesa Supplied training in missile electronics, wind tunnels, test facilities Fritz Werner Subcontractor and supplier for missile complex Gildemeister Contractor for missile complex, blueprints, machine tools, furnaces, test stands, control facilities H & H Metalform Supplied rocketry equipment, cylindrical presses, testing plant for missile complex Havert Industrie Supplied material, equipment, fast-refueling pressure units Heinrich Mueller Supplied precision lathes Inwako Intermediary for delivery of components to install gyroscopes Saudi Pump Factory Helped supply test Leifeld Supplied cylindrical presses, rocket stand for turbo pumps SOVIET UNION motor nozzles Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm (MBB) Soviet Government Supplied at least 819 Subcontractor for missile complex SWITZERLAND Condor Projekt Supervised construction of missile fuel production site UNITED STATES Electronics Associates Supplied computer system for missile wind tunnel International Imaging Systems Supplied imaging enhancing equipment capable of missile targeting Litton Industries Financed West German firm Gildemeister, which built Iraq's missile complex Scientific Atlanta Supplied antenna testers (through West German firms) for missile complex Tektronix Supplied measuring equipment (through West German firm MBB) to missile site Wiltron Supplied network analyzers used to develop missile guidance MBB and Gildemeister Transferred American-made computers, electronic test equipment MBB and Transtechnica Helped build radar tracking station, rocket test stand for missile complex Nickel Supplied climate control technology for fuel stores at missile fuel production site Sauer Informatic Supplied computer plant for missile complex Schaeftelmaier Supplied electronic measurement and testing instruments for missile fuel production Siemens Supplied switching devices, transformers, electrical systems to control missile fuel production, equipped radio room at missile complex Thyssen Contract for 305 turbopumps (supplied 35) Carl Zeiss Supplied computerized mapping equipment WHO ARMED IRAQ? ANSWERS THE WEST DIDN'T WANT TO HEAR BY DOUGLAS JEHL WASHINGTON-The terms of the punishment forced on Iraq since the Persian Gulf War may be most valuable for what they have taught. Rarely has a country defeated in battle been so laid bare to outside scrutiny. To the victors, the answer to how Iraq gained its power is now dispiritingly clear: it was us the West, and German companies in particular. That conclusion is documented in stark detail in a new study by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Based in part on the work of United Nations inspectors, it identifies the Western companies who supplied the crucial parts in what was emerging as an extraordinary Iraqi arsenal. German firms were by far the worst offenders, but others in Switzerland, Britain, France, Italy and the United States were also instrumental. Without Western help, the report's author, Gary Milhollin, shows, Iraq could never have come so close to producing nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. The pattern is in some ways familiar. Countries aspiring to power have long turned to foreign merchants for muskets and machine guns. What has changed has to do with what has changed about war. Rather than in vast shipments, even the smallest of acquisitions may prove decisive in an era in which nuclear, biological and chemical weapons can hold populations hostage. And the goods sought for military value may just as well be produced by a supercomputer manufacturer or biotechnology company as by a munitions maker. A Western bolt found in an Iraqi missile is not necessarily a sign of complicity. A bolt has many peaceful uses, too. But the picture provided by the Wisconsin Project suggests just how instrumental such dual-use trade can be. Italian technology allowed Iraq to extract plutonium, and high-performance Swiss presses gave it the ability to make nuclear weapons parts. Most of what Iraq needed to extend the range of its Scud missiles came from Germany. American computers were used in virtually all Iraqi missile and nuclear sites. Of course, Iraq's most crucial acquisitions had even clearer military purposes. The Soviet Union openly sold Baghdad hundreds of Scud missiles; Brazil helped secretly in an effort to build an atomic bomb. But it was the wider Western flood, aided by lax laws and porous borders, that helped Iraq to refine those tools, outfit secret factories, and thereby to reach the verge of even more destructive force. 'Dairy Plant' Parts Just one example of that flow was first found in crates marked as dairy plant parts bound from Frankfurt for Baghdad. In fact the intercepted metal parts were a supplement to the 27,436 Scud missile parts worth $28.2 million that the German company, H & H Metalform, had already delivered to Iraq. A separate compression device was to have helped Iraq test a new intermediate-range missile. There was little mystery to its purpose, German intelligence found: the company had sold the same kind of rocket-testing device to Brazil. With the most dangerous of the projects dismantled, the tension between Iraq and the West is mostly about the future. In refusing again last week to permit U.N. inspectors to install cameras at a missile-test site, Iraq made clear its aversion to the next step of U.N. oversight, which under Security Council Resolution 715 calls upon the West to keep long-term watch as Iraq begins to build new weapons. An apparent apparent agreement on a separate U.N. plan calling for Iraq to sell oil to meet humanitarian needs suggested that Baghdad might still be open to a last-minute compromise. But even a fence-mending visit by Rolf Ekeus, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, left unclear by Friday whether Iraq would back down or brave a Western threat of a retaliatory strike. The new U.N. focus on monitoring-with its fixation on products-nevertheless carries a danger of being too narrow. There are signs that Western equipment remains a key ingredient in secret weapons programs, not only in Iraq but elsewhere. A report to Congress last month concluded that illegal shipments by Western companies had helped Iraq repair or rebuild nearly all of the military production capacity it lost during the war. American intelligence reports have similarly warned of newly aggressive efforts by Iran to acquire the technology needed to produce chemical and biological weapons. |