User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-Indian support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war

Export controls

"Until recently, companies in the United States, Japan and Europe have supplied the required chemicals for weapons programs in the Middle East. But officials said tighter export rules in the West, combined with greater diplomatic pressure from the United States, have made it significantly more difficult for Middle Eastern nations to buy the chemicals from industrialized countries.

American officials said they were trying to persuade India to adopt export laws similar to those of Japan, Europe, Australia and the United States. Those countries, in an informal alliance called the Australia group, have agreed to closely monitor and restrict sales of chemicals or technology needed for poison gas.

American experts say that many of the substances at issue are of dual use, meaning they have legitimate applications in pesticides, dyes or even ink for ballpoint pens.

Thus far, Indian officials have not been receptive to Western appeals. They argue that the chemicals are common industrial substances with legitimate uses, and they have sometimes portrayed the calls for controls as colonialism by Western countries that would hamper India's chemical industry. At the Paris conference on chemical weapons in January, Indian officials opposed an explicit call for export controls, advocating instead a worldwide ban on chemical weapons.

Administration officials believe a ban is, at best, years away.

This casts more doubt on the viability of the Australia group approach, said W. Seth Carus, a researcher at the the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It's pretty clear that a lot of third world countries with developing chemical industries have no inclination to sign on.

Chemical warfare

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 chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades. By far, the largest suppliers of precursors for chemical weapons production were in , India (2,343 tons). One Indian company, Exomet Plastics (now part of EPC Industrie) sent 2,292 tons of precursor chemicals to Iraq.

An Administration official said India's growing chemical industry is the one that worries us the most, because of India's location and previous inclination to export chemicals to countries believed to be stockpiling poison gas. Brazil also has an expanding chemical industry, officials said, but it has never been linked to any chemical weapons programs. Indian officials said last week that a state-owned trading company sold Iran 60 tons of thionyl chloride, a chemical used in mustard gas as well as in pesticides and other products, earlier this year.

A shipment of chemicals bound for Iran was returned to India after a timely discovery of the deal by American intelligence and a diplomatic offensive by the State Department.

The sale of thionyl chloride, an essential ingredient for mustard gas, was arranged by a West German company, Rheineisen, in a quantity that American officials said would be sufficient to supply a significant weapons program.

The West German concern in turn placed an order for 257 tons of the chemical with a company in Dubai called Shatef Trading. The Dubai company then placed its order with Transpek Private Ltd., an Indian chemical company, which contends that it was unaware of the ultimate destination.

An official at Transpek Private said the contract for the sale of thionyl chloride was signed in June. Company reports show that its production of the chemical increased from 150 tons in 1979 to 2,203 tons in 1987. A company official said several hundred tons had been exported in the past year.

The ship carrying the cargo in the June transaction, the Sea Crest Pioneer, was scheduled to set sail from Bombay to Dubai on June 30. Quick Response From Bonn

Administration officials said that after they became aware of situation, the decision was made to inform Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the West German Foreign Minister, during his lunch with Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d on June 21. American officials provided more details in a June 24 letter.

The American message prompted a quick response by Bonn, which has been criticized in the past for what American officials describe as a lackadaisical attitude toward export controls. Last year, American officials were frustrated by Bonn's initial response to assertions that German companies were helping Libya build what the United States says is a large chemical weapons factory.

In the new case, local authorities in West Germany raided Rheineisen, seizing its papers. And the Foreign Ministry in Bonn called in the Ambassador from the United Arab Emirates and asked that the shipment be blocked from landing or going forward to Iran. The United States expressed similar sentiments to Dubai, one of the emirates.

An article in The New York Times on June 27 described the West German company but did not name it. Within days, West German press reports disclosed the name, and a senior company official, Mojtaba Ashtari, told interviewers that while he believed that the chemical would be used for plastics or synthetic vitamins, he could not exclude the possibility of its use for military purposes and was therefore calling off the deal.

American officials termed his statements disingenuous. They said they believed that the Rheineisen company was a front for Iranian procurement activities. The corporate identity, Mr. Ashtari said, was bought a year ago for a nominal sum after the original owners, the Tigler family of Dusseldorf, West Germany, had run into financial difficulties.

In any event, the Sea Crest Pioneer left Dubai on July 2 still loaded with the thionyl chloride. It reached Bombay on July 4, port records show.

American officials said that intelligence reports also show that Indian companies sold chemicals that can be used to make weapons to Iraq and Egypt.

"According to the Iraqi 1997-98 declaration, one of the biggest suppliers was Exomet Plastics of Bombay, India, now part of EPC Industrie. An EPC attorney told CNN in late January that the only chemicals Exomet had shipped to Iraq were for pesticides. "There were no restrictions for exporting these chemicals at the time the exports were made," he added. But critics dismiss such corporate excuses as phony.

"Exomet shipped much more than mere pesticides, according to the Iraqi documents. It supplied materials usable only for CW, such as 1,000 tons of thionyl chloride, a chemical used to make mustard gas and sarin. It shipped 300 tons of phosphorus trichloride, 300 tons of dimethylamine HCl, 250 tons of phosphorus oxychloride and 250 tons of P2S5--all for use in manufacturing satin. It shipped another 192 tons of chlorethanol used for making VX between 1988 and 1990.

Pesticide manufacturing was a cover

"At the same time these shipments were occurring, the Iraqi Ministry of Agriculture purchased huge quantities of completely manufactured pesticides for agricultural purposes from ICI, Ciba Gigy, Dow Chemical, Roussel and others. "Negotiations were carried out in 1989-1990 with a number of companies to get the know-how to produce certain pesticides" the Iraqi documents state. While Iraq frequently disguised its CW programs behind pesticide production, few producers in Europe or elsewhere really were duped.