Talk:Arms sales to Iraq 1973-1990

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Interesting. This does conflict with what I know of the Arms to Iraq scandal in the UK. I guess we're included in "Others", but given that it was a major scandal at the time of the first gulf war, and that the UK took part in both military operations, maybe we should have seperate status. In any case, I'd be interested in the figures.

What was the name of the SIPRI report, exactly? Does the "value" represent the cost to Iraq (ie sales price) or the value of the machinery? Martin 15:17, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This is the SIPRI paper. Once you are in the SIPRI website you can probably find more. Adam 16:08, 25 Jan 2004 (UTC)

To further answer Martin's question, SIPRI has a pretty sophisticated system for describing the "value". It is not the cost to Iraq, it is SIPRI's independent classification of the value of the machinery. You can read their methods here. DanKeshet

Does the SIPRI paper or any others include financing for the arms sales? I had always assumed that when people said the US had supported Saddam, they meant that they had financed his purchase of weapons, not necessarily that they had directly sold them to him. (I don't know if this is true, though.) DanKeshet

Yes that had occurred to me, and it something that ought to be added to this article. I agree that the actual sale of arms is only one facet of the issue. Having said that, I would be surprised if the US even in the mid 1980s would have given what would have amounted to a massive indirect subsidy to the Soviet and Chinese arms industries by underwriting Iraq's debt to its arms suppliers. there was probably some financial support, but don't forget that until 1990 Iraq could pay for its arms imports quite easily through its oil revenues. Adam 05:22, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Early arms sales was to some extent paid by oil shipments which the Soviets then resold to the West. Later I believe a lot was sold on credit, the main seller countries are also included in the list of countries that are owed large amounts of money by Iraq. Prezen 09:13, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

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I changed around the emphasis some. It really bothered me too about how people kept on saying that the US armed Saddam, as if they were the only or principle Saddam backers. But the article should be informational, not counter-rhetoric. Also, I added a couple more sources. Non-SIPRI sources tend to say that the USSR cut off new sales between 1980 and 1982; I'll read SIPRI's longer report later. Could it be that this is the difference between "sales" and "transfers" (i.e. date of contract-signing and date of shipment) or state-sanctioned sales? Also, I'm not sure I agree with counting Yugoslavia simply as a "Soviet sattelite". I didn't get to the financial backing yet, either. DanKeshet

"the Soviet Union cut off weapons sales to Iraq and did not resume them until 1982." At the moment this statement appears to be contradicted by the table. This had better be clarified quickly. Adam 08:04, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I think that this is the difference between sales and transfers. The SIPRI table shows the date of shipment, not the date of the original sale/license. If you look at the more detailed SIPRI report, it shows both the years of the sales/licenses and the years of the shipment. SIPRI lists only one sale during the year 1981, and the 1981 date for the completion of the sale is classified, accoriding to SIPRI, as "Uncertain data or SIPRI estimate". There are, however, numerous shipments during that year. By contrast, there's 6 sales listed for 1982 and a number for 1979, 1980, 1983, etc. DanKeshet 17:54, Jan 27, 2004 (UTC)

This page also has some more bits about USSR, French, and US involvement in the Iran-Iraq War. It also has footnotes we can chase down to try to get closer to primary sources, and a bit more nuanced look at "military involvement" than raw numbers of weapons shipped, e.g. diplomatic aid. DanKeshet

If you're going make the first column "Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact" then the figures for Yugoslavia must be deducted from that column and added to the "Others" column. Has this been done? Adam 23:12, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yup. It wasn't a very big deal; they didn't send them very much compared to the Pact countries. DanKeshet

Contents 1 TDC read this 2 American supplies during the Iran-Iraq war 3 Include what other coutries sold 4 THe "Sources" 5 Covert transfers, SIPRI data doesn't go far enough 6 Summaries for eras

[edit] TDC read this

jingoist just because America selling Iraq WMD material does not fit into your narrow world view of America being a "beacon of freedom to the world" does not mean that you can delete it. Read the Book "The Death Lobby" which covers in great detail how America armed Saddam, along with other Western powers.

Yeah, I'll get right on that. Anyhoo, this article is a fairly narrow category, i.e. "arms sales". I am sure that dual use has its place, but not 40% of the article. TDC 17:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Anon: first off, bad start throwing names at contributors. Please talk about the article, not the contributors. Second: when this article started, it was started as a political argument. Please don't try to make it into a different political argument. For example, the juxtaposition of US arms sales to Iraq with the Halabja is strange unless you have specific reasons explaining their connection (e.g.: after Halabja Congress imposed sanctions). DanKeshet 17:30, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] American supplies during the Iran-Iraq war

If we are going to have stuff like this that isn't related to the article, then there should be statistics for other countries as well. CJK 00:36, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The point of the article is to assess how foreign governments armed Saddam. Obviously sales of dual-use materials by the UK and USA are of relevance here, and given the political fall-out and subsequent events, are also of particular interest. I understand that this article seeks to balance the popular view about UK/US culpability against what other countries were doing, but removing all mention of dual-purpose materials does not provide an objective view. R Bartholomew

[edit] Include what other coutries sold

The article is missing what items other sold to Iraq in the 1973-1990 period. It only mentions items what the US sold. All items of all involved country need to be listed. If not, then the article seems biased against one entity. --Doom Child 14:23, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

The answer to this sort of problem is to find the extra material required, not to remove the information already there.R Bartholomew

[edit] THe "Sources"

My God. I just totaled the figures and U.S. sales are .5%. All the book references are about the U.S. Someone better have a good explanation for this. CJK 23:05, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I assume the "good explanation" which you seek concerns the prevailing popular view about US arms sales. The answer is, of course, to be found in the issue of dual-use exports - which for some reason you believe should not be mentioned here.R Bartholomew

[edit] Covert transfers, SIPRI data doesn't go far enough

I have some problems with the SIPRI data specifically regarding U.S. facilitated shipments. It appears only to document direct "transfers of complete major conventional weapon systems." We know from Howard Teicher's sworn court affidavit (and Alan Friedman's excellent book on the topic, Spider's Web) that the United States secretly channeled armaments and high-tech components to Iraq through false fronts and friendly third parties such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait:

"The CIA, including both CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to Iraq. My notes, memoranda and other documents in my NSC files show or tend to show that the CIA knew of, approved of, and assisted in the sale of non-U.S. origin military weapons, munitions and vehicles to Iraq." [1]

CIA approved arms dealers - in Chile, Brazil, and elsewhere - would take receipt of Iraqi shopping lists and help fulfill huge military orders, yet there is no mention of the cluster bombs and other known CIA supplied systems on SIPRI's register list. [2]

The full extent of these covert transfers is not yet known. Teicher's notes on the subject are held securely at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Archives and remain classified.

The register diminishes America's overall role in other ways too. It's weapon description for thirty U.S. supplied MD-500MD Defenders reads "Light helicopter". According to military experts, the Defender is very specifically a military variant of this type of helicopter. Here is a picture. [3] "Combat helicopter" would be a more fitting description. According to the 'List of Gulf War military equipment' page [4], Iraq used these helicopters during the conflict.

I am not disputing for one moment that France, Germany and the former Soviet Union were Iraq's principle arms suppliers -- they irrefutably were. However, here too there is no word of the American "Bear Spares" program. According to Alan Friedman, this included buying Russian parts and armaments on the black market and secretly sending them to Iraq, to compliment its existing military hardware. Howard Teicher added:

"The United States and the CIA maintained a program known as the 'Bear Spares' program whereby the United States made sure that spare parts and ammunition for Soviet or Soviet-style weaponry were available to countries which sought to reduce their dependence on the Soviets for defense needs. If the 'Bear Spares' were manufactured outside the United States, then the United States could arrange for the provision of these weapons to a third country without direct involvement."

Perhaps the real problem lies not so much with the SIPRI data but rather the emphasis it has on this page. It simply dominates when, it can reasonably be argued, the issue is more complicated.

And so I think it would be a good idea if under the 'Arms suppliers to Iraq' subsection a paragraph is added, or the current one expanded, to briefly mention CIA facilitated shipments and other covert dealings, and perhaps include more prominently a link to the 'U.S. support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war' page. [5] Let's hear some other views. SMB 02:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

The SIPRI register is also missing an entry for the Agusta-Bell 212 Anti-Submarine helicopter. These were built in Italy under licence from Bell Textron in the United States. SMB 06:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Summaries for eras

It has been suggested that the figures could be summed for different eras, eg 1973-1979, 1980-1982 and 1983 - 1988. I've done it already and will enter it unless told not to. Prezen 09:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)