Chemical weapons
Iranian soldier with gas mask in the battlefield.According to Iraq's report to the UN, the know-how and material for developing chemical weapons were obtained from firms in such countries as: the United States, West Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the People's Republic of China.[38]
In December 2002, Iraq's 1,200 page Weapons Declaration revealed a list of Eastern and Western corporations and countries, as well as individuals, that exported a total of 17,602 tons of chemical precursors to Iraq in the past two decades. By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in Singapore (4,515 tons), the Netherlands (4,261 tons), Egypt (2,400 tons), India (2,343 tons), and Federal Republic of Germany (1,027 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq. The Kim Al-Khaleej firm, located in Singapore and affiliated to United Arab Emirates, supplied more than 4,500 tons of VX, sarin, and mustard gas precursors and production equipment to Iraq.[39]
According to Iraq's declarations, it had procured 340 pieces of equipment used for the production of chemical weapons. More than half came from Germany, the remainder mostly from France, Spain, and Austria. [6] In addition, Iraq declared that it imported more than 200,000 munitions made for delivering chemicals, 75,000 came from Italy, 57,500 from Spain, 45,000 from China, and 28,500 from Egypt. [7]
According to the Washington Post, the CIA began in 1984 secretly to give Iraq intelligence that Iraq used to "calibrate" its mustard gas attacks on Iranian troops. In August, the CIA establishes a direct Washington-Baghdad intelligence link, and for 18 months, starting in early 1985, the CIA provided Iraq with "data from sensitive U.S. satellite reconnaissance photography...to assist Iraqi bombing raids." The Post?s source said that this data was essential to Iraq?s war effort.[40]
In May 2003, an extended list of international companies involvements in Iraq was provided by The Independent (UK).[41] Official Howard Teicher and Radley Gayle, stated that 31 Bell helicopters that were given to Iraq by U.S. later were used to spray chemical weapons.[42]
Iraq's chemical weapons program was mainly assisted by German companies such as Karl Kobe, which built a chemical weapons facility disguised as a pesticide plant. Iraq?s foreign contractors, including Karl Kolb with Massar for reinforcement, built five large research laboratories, an administrative building, eight large underground bunkers for the storage of chemical munitions, and the first production buildings. 150 tons of mustard were produced in 1983. About 60 tons of Tabun were produced in 1984. Pilot-scale production of Sarin began in 1984.[43] Germany also supplied reactors, heat exchangers, condensors and vessels. France, Austria, Canada, and Spain provided similar equipment.[44]
The Al Haddad trading company of Tennessee delivered 60 tons of DMMP, a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in so-called Gulf War Syndrome. The Al Haddad trading company appears to have been an Iraqi front company. The firm was owned by Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad, an Iraqi-born, naturalized American citizen. Recent stories in The New York Times and The Tennessean reported that al-Haddad was arrested in Bulgaria in November 2002 while trying to arrange an arms sale to Iraq. Al-Haddad was charged with conspiring to purchase equipment for the manufacture of a giant Iraqi cannon. In 1984, U.S. Customs at New York's Kennedy Airport stop an order addressed to the Iraqi State Enterprise for Pesticide Production for 74 drums of potassium fluoride, a chemical used in the production of Sarin. The order was places by Al-Haddad Enterprises Incorporates, owned by an individual named Sahib al-Haddad. [8]
The U.S. firm Alcolac International supplied one mustard-gas precursor, thiodiglycol, to both Iraq and Iran in violation of U.S. export laws for which it was forced to pay a fine in 1989. Overall between 300-400 tons were sent to Iraq.[9] [10] [11][12]
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