Everything about Arms Sales To Iraq 1973-1990 totally explained
==Imports of conventional arms by Iraq 1973-1990, by source==
Values are shown in millions of US dollars at constant (1990) estimated values. "Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact" includes
Czechoslovakia,
East Germany,
Hungary,
Poland, and
Romania. The majority of these transfers came from the Soviet Union, followed by Czechoslovakia.
| Year |
Soviet Union
and
Warsaw Pact |
France |
China (PRC) |
United
States |
Egypt |
Others |
Total |
| 1973 |
1,321 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,326 |
| 1974 |
1,471 |
5 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,476 |
| 1975 |
1,087 |
35 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,122 |
| 1976 |
1,161 |
119 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,280 |
| 1977 |
1,062 |
106 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1,168 |
| 1978 |
1,827 |
26 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
20 |
1,873 |
| 1979 |
1,108 |
78 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
17 |
1,203 |
| 1973–79 |
9,037 |
374 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
37 |
9,448 |
| 1973–79 |
95.7% |
4.0% |
0% |
0% |
0% |
0.4% |
100% |
| 1980 |
1,665 |
241 |
0 |
0 |
12 |
114 |
2,032 |
| 1981 |
1,780 |
731 |
0 |
0 |
46 |
182 |
2,739 |
| 1982 |
2,023 |
673 |
217 |
0 |
71 |
227 |
3,211 |
| 1980–82 |
5,468 |
1,645 |
217 |
0 |
129 |
523 |
7,982 |
| 1980–82 |
68.5% |
20.6% |
2.7% |
0% |
1.6% |
6.6% |
100% |
| 1983 |
1,898 |
779 |
745 |
21 |
58 |
773 |
4,274 |
| 1984 |
2,857 |
883 |
1,065 |
6 |
0 |
116 |
4,927 |
| 1985 |
2,601 |
700 |
1,036 |
9 |
32 |
116 |
4,494 |
| 1986 |
2,663 |
251 |
918 |
9 |
70 |
86 |
3,997 |
| 1987 |
2,719 |
214 |
887 |
30 |
114 |
157 |
4,121 |
| 1988 |
1,202 |
355 |
301 |
125 |
118 |
196 |
2,297 |
| 1983–88 |
13,940 |
3,182 |
4,952 |
200 |
392 |
1,444 |
24,110 |
| 1983–88 |
57.8% |
13.2% |
20.5% |
0.8% |
1.6% |
6.0% |
100% |
| 1989 |
1,319 |
113 |
23 |
0 |
47 |
67 |
1,569 |
| 1990 |
537 |
281 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
33 |
851 |
| Total $'s |
30,301 |
5,595 |
5,192 |
200 |
568 |
2,104 |
43,960 |
| Total %'s |
68.9% |
12.7% |
11.8% |
0.5% |
1.3% |
4.8% |
100% |
Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
SIPRI makes the following comment of the methodology of this table:
"The SIPRI data on arms transfers refer to actual deliveries of major conventional weapons. To permit comparison between the data on such deliveries of different weapons and identification of general trends, SIPRI uses a trend-indicator value. The SIPRI values are therefore only an indicator of the volume of international arms transfers and not of the actual financial values of such transfers."
As a comment on these statistics, SIPRI's data are founded on open sources (newspapers, journals, declassified documents etc)
"The type of open information used by SIPRI can't provide a comprehensive picture of world arms transfers. Published reports often provide only partial information, and substantial disagreement among reports is common. Order and delivery dates, exact numbers, types of weapon and the identity of suppliers or recipients may not always be clear."
Arms suppliers to Iraq
The table shows the majority of conventional (non-
WMD) arms imported by Iraq during the 1970s, when the regime was building up the armies which were to attack
Iran in
1980, were supplied by the
Soviet Union and its satellites, principally
Czechoslovakia. The only substantial western arms supplier to Iraq was
France, which continued to be a major supplier until
1990, when Iraq invaded
Kuwait and all legal arms transfers to Iraq ended.
The
United States didn't supply any arms to Iraq until
1982, when Iran's growing military success alarmed American policymakers. It then did so every year until
1988. Although most other countries never hesitated to sell military hardware directly to Saddam Hussein's regime, the United States, equally keen to protect its interests in the region, adopted a more subtle approach. Howard Teicher served on the
National Security Council as director of Political-Military Affairs. According to his
1995 affidavit and other interviews with former Regan and Bush administration officials, the
Central Intelligence Agency secretly directed armaments and high-tech components to Iraq through false fronts and friendly third parties such as
Jordan,
Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and
Kuwait, and they quietly encouraged rogue arms dealers and other
Private military companies to do the same:
» "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."
The full extent of these hidden transfers isn't yet known. Teicher's files on the subject are held securely at the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and many other Reagan era documents that could help shine new light on the subject remain classified.
In
1996 the
Scott Report in the UK investigated arms sales to Iraq in the 1980s by
Matrix Churchill in what became known as the
Arms-to-Iraq scandal.
Table of major conventional arms sales to Iraq by country
Political implications
The
Soviet Union and her satellites were the main suppliers of arms to Iraq following the 1972 signing of the Soviet-Iraqi Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.
France was another important supplier of weapons to Iraq during the
1970s. The
United States, the world's leading arms exporter, didn't have normal relations with Iraq from
1967 (due to the
Six-Day War) until
1984.
Soviet-Iraqi relations suffered strains in the late 1970s. When Iraq
invaded Iran in 1980, the Soviet Union cut off weapons sales to Iraq and didn't resume them until 1982. During the war, the
People's Republic of China became a major new source of weapons for Iraq, with increasing sales from France, the
United Kingdom, and
Egypt. At this point the United States also began assisting Iraq through its CIA maintained
Bear Spares military aid program, which arranged for Soviet-made spare parts and ammunition to be sent to
Baghdad. "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," Howard Teacher recalled.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and of the communist regimes in its former satellites, and with the alienation of many western and Arab countries from Iraq following the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq became increasingly isolated internationally during the early 1990s. As years of inspection regimes and the aggressive enforcement of established no fly zones wore on, Iraq began to rely on the diplomatic support of France, Russia, and China.
During the controversy over the April
2003 invasion of Iraq by the
United States and its allies, the issue of US arms exports to Iraq became important politically; opponents of military action frequently mentioned US support for Iraq during the
Iraq-Iran War (despite its official neutrality) as an argument that US motivations for invading Iraq were not humanitarian, whereas supporters were quick to recall French, Soviet (and by extension, Russian), Chinese, as well as German sales of conventional and unconventional weapons to the regime.
Sources and References
- Kenneth R. Timmerman, The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991.
- Friedman Alan, Spider's Web: The Secret History of how the White House Illegally Armed Iraq. New York, Bantam Books, 1993.
- Jentleson Bruce, With friends like these: Reagan, Bush, and Saddam, 1982-1990. New York, W. W. Norton, 1994.
- Phythian Mark, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine. Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1997.
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