Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

REVUE DE PRESSE-PRESS REVIEW.;BERHEVOKA ÇAPÊ-RNISTA STAMPA-DENTRO DE LA PRENSA-BASIN ÖZETÎ
THE ECONOMIST SEPfEMBER 25TH 1993
Armsto Iraq
Unexploded bomb
Who was responsible for misleading parliament
, A S SCANDALS go, this one could still
fi prove devastating. Among the allegations:
secret government encouragement of
arms sales to a dictator who gases civilians;
ministers misleading parliament; perhaps
a quarterof the cabinet implicated,' But,
Lord Justice Scott, the appeal-court judge
charged with establishing the truth, is swimming
against a tide of well-honed excuses
and Whitehall obfuscation. On September
22nd and 23rd, William Waldegrave, the
first serving cabinet minister to testify, put
on a dazzling display of semantic agility.
The scandal began unravelling last November.
The trial of executives from Matrix
Churchill, a machine-tool company, had
collapsed. They were accused of breaching
an arms embargo to Iraq. Ministers had
tried, and failed, to suppress evidence
which showed that Whitehall had encouraged
them all along. An embarrassed John
Major ordered an inquiry by Lord Justice
"Scott. Having grilled bureaucrats and diplomats,
the inquiry is now summoning ministers.
This week Tim Renton, David Mellor
and William Waldegrave, all Foreign Office
ministers during the mid- to late 19805,took
the stand. In November comes Lady
Thatcher, in January Mr Major himself.
The inquiry has established the broad
story. During the late 1980s Britain was the
world's third-biggest arms exporter, and the
Middle East one ofits main markets. But in
1985 the government banned the export of
lethal equipment to Iran and Iraq in response
to the war raging between them.
When the two agreed a ceasefire in 1988,an
internal Whitehall war started up. The Department
of Trade and Industry and th~
Ministry of Defence argued that Britain's
defence companies, eager to export, should
be let off the leash. At first, the Foreign Officewanted
to maintain the guidelines. Like
everyone else, its officials knew Saddam
Hussein was ~assing Kurdish civilians.
and public?
But the diplomats were also keen to establish
Iraq as a bulwark against fundamentalism
in Iran, especially after Iran issued
itsfatwa against Salman Rushdie. So
the Foreign Officeagreed to a fudge. No new
policy was announced. Ministers told pärliament
after 1988 that guidelines on exports
to Iraq and Iran were being applied
rigorously to both countries. But between
1988and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990,
Saddam managed to buy £2S0m ($380m) of
British defence equipment. Few British
arms got to Iran.
There were two ways of selling to Iraq.
First, ministers privately agreed late in 1988
to interpret the guidelines liberally. They
would permit the export of equipment
which could be used for both military and
civilian purposes, provided the Iraqis
claimed to be using them for the latter. So
equipment such as machine tools, which
can make anything from cars to warheads,
often got in. Once in, enforcement was
sometimes lax, more often nonexistent. As '
early as 1987,the inquiry was told, intelligence
reports revealed that British lathes
were being used to make shell casings. After
the Gulf war, Matrix Churchill machinery
was found in a 'factory producing components
essential for nuclear weapons.
The second method was to route ship- ,
ments via J()rdan. Ordtech, a British company,
attempted to sell 300,000 artilleryshellfuses
to Iraq using certificates
indicating their destination was Jordan.
One Ordtech executive says MISknew about
his firm's intentions and did not try to stop
it. Intelligence reports (which reached the
Foreign Office) revealed that Jordan was
known to be a path for arms to Iraq. Never-
, theless, the government failed to extend its
arms-export ban to Jordan.
Diplomats told the enquiry that Britain
feared American criticism for, exporting
equipmenHo Ira.q.In fact, the BuslJ.administration
itself was helping to finance
Saddam's arms build-up. There is a more
plausible reason why Britain's change in
policy was kept quiet: ministers and bureaucrats
wanted to avoid public scorn.
The difficulty for Lord Justice Scott is
where to pin the blame. Witnesses, including
the three former Foreign Office ministers
questioned this week, often complain of
lapses in memory. Diplomats disclaim
responsibility. Ministers claim ignorance.
Mr Mellor" for example, explained that
intelligence reports about the end-use of
machine tools never reached him.
Mr Waldegrave had the bumpiest ride of
the ministers. He was at the Foreign Office
in 1988-90, when questionable exports to
Iraq were at their height. Defending himself,
he proved that heis adroit, if nothing
else. The relaxation of controis on exports to
Iraq did not require a public announcement,
he argued, because the guidelines remained
the same, only their "interpretation
was more flexible". The inquiry was,
unconvinced. Nor was parliament misled, ,
argued Mr Waldegrave. The guidelines were'
"scrupulously applied"; they only happened
to favour Iraq over Iran "for reasons
ofwider policy". And the Iraqis "deceived'
us" about the use of the exports. Mr'
Waldegrave is understood to have spent'
much ofhis summer preparing his response'
to the inquiry.
The inquiry may do more damage when
Lord Justice Scott turns to the Matrix Churchill
trial. Kenneth Clarke (nowchancellor),
Michael Heseltine (now industry secretary)
and, Malcolm Rifkind (now defence secretary),
all signed "public interest immunity"
certificates to withhold classified documents.
The judge overruled them. Had he
not, the defendants might now be in jail. In
November four executives from Ordtech
will appeal against their convictions for selling
arms to Iraq. Peter Lilley(now social security
secretary) and Kenneth Baker (then
home secretary, nowa backbencher) signed
certificates for their trial. One of the documents
withheld was a SOO-pageForeign Of- '
fice report about Jordan's contribution
Iraq's arms build-up. Stay tuned.
to
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