Sanctions Busting Skeletons -- maybe that is why the Russians were against the UN resolutions

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Bob Drzyzgula <bob () drzyzgula org>
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2003 08:50:30 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Sanctions Busting Skeletons


Pavel Felgenhauer on Russian arms sales to Iraq,
in the Moscow Times:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/03/27/009.html

Thursday, Mar. 27, 2003. Page 9

Sanctions Busting Skeletons
By Pavel Felgenhauer

Is Russia supplying Saddam Hussein with illegal weapons
in violation of UN sanctions? Last Saturday, Russian
Ambassador to the United States Yury Ushakov was called to
the State Department and handed an official protest. The
story was also immediately leaked to the press.

The Russian authorities replied with a barrage of
denials. The Kremlin announced that President Vladimir
Putin had told President George W. Bush the allegations
were "unproven" and "could only damage relations between
the two countries." Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told
journalists that "for the last 12 years Russia has not
sold Iraq any equipment, including military equipment,
in violation of the sanctions regime."  State Duma Deputy
Andrei Kokoshin, a former secretary of the Security Council
and first deputy defense minister, told reporters Monday:
"There have been no deliveries officially authorized or
made by official Russian institutions. If any arms were
delivered, they are likely to have been Soviet-made. There
are plenty of such arms in other former Soviet republics
too, starting with Ukraine."

Kokoshin, who was in charge of arms export control inside
the Defense Ministry for several years, is clearly guarded
in the wording of his denial. Maybe this can be partially
explained by the fact that in 1997 I told Kokoshin I had
evidence Moscow was constantly and massively breaching
the arms sanctions regime on Iraq. (In 1997 Kokoshin did
not confirm, comment on or deny the allegations.)

In September 1990, after Saddam Hussein's invasion of
Kuwait, the Soviet government issued executive order
1422 that banned all arms and military technology trade
with Iraq "in accordance with the UN Security Council
resolution." Some 80 percent of the hardware of the Iraqi
military is Soviet-made. If sanctions had indeed been
watertight since September 1990, today there would not be
a single Iraqi jet or helicopter flying, tank rolling, or
radar or SAM battery operating due to a lack of spare parts
and adequate maintenance. Hussein's army and Republican
Guard would long ago have disintegrated.

There have been large-scale breaches of the sanctions
regime all these years. These violations are the main
reason that today so much force is needed to dislodge
Hussein.

In January 1997, I received reliable information that
in 1995 and 1996 Iraq acquired some 20 Mi-24 Hind attack
helicopters in clear violation of the sanctions regime. A
Bulgarian trading company called Kintex apparently shipped
the Hinds in containers into Iraq.

The country of origin of the Hinds may have been Russia
or Ukraine. In 1997, the CEO of the Mil Moscow Helicopter
Plant told me that he had sent technicians from Moscow
to Baghdad in 1996 to assemble the choppers and get them
into working order. In 1996, Hussein may have used the Hind
gunships during an attack on Erbil in northern Iraq. Iraqi
forces later withdrew from Erbil after massacring many
Kurds.

A Moscow banker (a former military officer and professional
arms trader in Soviet times) who had been involved
in financing arms export deals told me in 1997 that
spare parts for Russian-made Iraqi weaponry had been
shipped into Iraq with the help of Bulgarian and Turkish
intermediaries. The main sources of illegal weapons were
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Romania, Slovakia, the Czech
Republic and Poland were also mentioned as black market
arms hubs.

Russian government export controls are easily bypassed by
writing false end-user certificates. And now Washington
alleges that KBP of Tula has sent a substantial amount of
modern Kornet guided antitank missiles to Iraq, using Yemen
as a false end-user destination. Such a pattern would seem
to fit the pattern of Russian "black" arms exports.

A high-ranking Foreign Ministry official involved in arms
export control told me that the Hind deal I researched
in 1997-98 and more recent disclosures of Russian
sanctions-busting were only "the tip of the iceberg."

Russian arms producers and Hussein's regime were indeed
closely intertwined.

It's possible that adamant Russian opposition to regime
change in Iraq was fueled by fears that if Hussein
goes, the extent of his cooperation with Moscow will
be disclosed. The French may be troubled by the same
concerns. After the fall of Baghdad many unwanted skeletons
may come tumbling out of the closet.

Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.


------ End of Forwarded Message

-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/