NEW YORK
- When the 15-member United Nations Security Council
legitimized the US-imposed interim government in Baghdad
in June, the five-page unanimous resolution carried a
provision little publicized in the media: the lifting of
a 14-year arms embargo on Iraq.
The
Security Council's decision to end military sanctions on Iraq
has triggered a rush by the world's weapons dealers to
make a grab for a potentially multimillion-dollar new arms
market in the already over-armed Middle East.
The former US-run Coalition
Provisional Authority (CPA), which handed over power to the
new Iraqi government on June 28, finalized plans for
the purchase of six C-130 Hercules military
transport aircraft, 16 Iroquois helicopters and a squadron of
16 low-flying, light reconnaissance aircraft - all
for delivery by next April.
The proposed purchases
were part of an attempt to rebuild and revitalize Iraq's
sanctions-hit, weapons-starved military.
But
some experts question the strategy.
"The flow of
weapons to Iraq will not improve the security situation
in Iraq, nor will it make the country safe from outside
threats or an external invasion," said Naseer H Aruri,
chancellor professor (emeritus) at the University of
Massachusetts. "With 140,000 US military personnel,
20,000 from the so-called coalition of the willing and
another 20,000 contracted civilians, Iraq remains
occupied and denied effective sovereignty," said Aruri,
author of Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel and
Palestine.
"Purchasing weapons at this time, therefore, is more
relevant to the needs of the occupier relating to the
suppression of armed opposition, and consolidation of US
hegemony. Moreover, it is not appropriate for the
interim government, a subcontracting agency for
the United States, to go shopping for arms
as numerous arms exporting countries compete feverishly for
contracts," he told Inter Press Service (IPS).
The United States, the United Kingdom and Jordan are providing
assistance and training for the creation of a
40,000-person Iraqi army.
With blessings from
the US Congress, the former CPA also earmarked about
$2.1 billion for national security, including $2 billion
for the new army and $76 million for a civil defense
corps.
Since late last year,
Iraq has purchased 50,000 handguns from Austria, 421 UAZ
Hunter jeeps from Russia and millions of dollars' worth
of armored cars from Brazil and Ukraine, along
with AK-47 assault rifles, 9mm pistols, military
vehicles, fire-control equipment and night-vision devices.
The
biggest single deal was a $327 million contract with a
US firm to outfit Iraqi troops with body armor, radios
and other communications equipment. The contract has
been challenged by two non-US firms that lost out on the
bidding process.
The
decision by the CPA to purchase
the handguns from the Austrian gun maker Glock
late last year evoked a strong protest to the Pentagon.
"There are a number of US companies that could easily
provide these weapons," Representative Jeb Bradley, a
member of President George W Bush's Republican Party,
said in a letter to US Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, "Why were other firearms companies, namely
American companies, passed over?" he asked.
The US Army Corps of Engineers awarded
two contracts, totaling $2.7 million, to US firms in March
for transmission, distribution, communications and
controls for the Iraqi infrastructure. A third contract
valued at $7.8 million - for a modern, digital cellular,
command and control system to link the various sites of
the Iraqi armed forces and the Coalition Military
Assistance Training Team - was also awarded to a
US-based company.
The US has also awarded a
$150 million contract for the renovation of four
military bases at Umm Qasr, al-Kasik, Tadji and Numaniyah
in various parts of Iraq. And the Pentagon has plans to
expand existing military bases near Mosul, Baghdad and
Kut, specifically for the US Army. This contract is
estimated at about $600 million.
"It
does not seem wise to introduce new weaponry
and military capability into Iraq's volatile mix of ongoing
war and occupation, civil strife and
political transition," said Frida Berrigan, senior research associate
with the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the
World Policy Institute.
On average, more than
two US soldiers are killed each day, she said, and
inter-Iraqi violence is taking a deadly toll on
civilians and government officials. "Before Iraq is
outfitted with high-tech weaponry, it seems that the
low-tech needs of clean water and reliable electricity
should be met," Berrigan told IPS.
In addition,
if experience with the Iraqi police force is any
indication of what is to come from a US-armed and
-trained security force, she said, this is not the right
time for the interim leadership to embark on an arms
spending spree.
"Instead of aiding the United
States in putting down the uprisings, thousands from
Iraq's newly trained police force deserted, and many
reportedly turned over their US-issued weapons to street
fighters. How many of the 135 Americans killed during
that month faced American guns and ammunition?" Berrigan
asked.
"It's a well-known fact that Iraq
is saturated with weapons and ammunition,
particularly firearms and light machine-guns, but also others," said
Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst based in Jordan and
a contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle
East Report.
That is one reason the US has
experienced so much difficulty in its efforts to
eradicate the insurgency, he said: the insurgents do not
appear to be dependent on a flow of weapons from outside
their borders.
At the same time, the Iraqi
security forces, particularly the Iraqi national army
once it is properly reconstituted, does not have - or
has only very few - weapons systems normally associated
with national self-defense, such as combat aircraft,
artillery and air defenses, Rabbani said.
"One
can argue about whether or not investing in such systems
constitutes a particularly wise move by the Iraqi
national authorities given the numerous and severe
challenges facing Iraqi society," he told IPS.
But it is a fact that a sovereign Iraqi state
has a legitimate right to acquire sophisticated weapons
systems and, given the way political and military
leaders invariably behave, will seek to acquire them, he
added.
Rabbani said Iraq has a long military
tradition, some would even say a long tradition of
militarism, and the dissolution of the Iraqi armed
forces, combined with the destruction of much of the
heavy weaponry that was left at the end of a previous
war, means the government will have to invest
considerably more in developing an effective military
than would otherwise have been the case.
But, he
added, "It would be particularly reprehensible if
American and other arms exporters exploit their control
of Iraq and its government to foist upon it the purchase
and acquisition of weapons systems that are either
prohibitively expensive, including systems marked up in
price to make a fast buck, or unnecessary."
If
they do so, Rabbani said, they will be repeating a
pattern of weapons sales seen during the past several
decades to, for example, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf
states (part of the system known as petrodollar
recycling).
Overall military spending in the
Middle East is estimated to reach about $55 billion
annually by 2007, rising from about $52 billion in 2003,
according to Forecast International, a US-based defense
market research organization.
The big
spenders include Saudi
Arabia, which will average more than $18 billion in
defense spending annually through 2007, followed by
Israel (more than $9 billion), Iran ($4.5 billion),
the United Arab Emirates (about $3.7 billion) and
Egypt (more than $3 billion).
A large proportion of
the funds is earmarked for weapons purchases, mostly from
the US, the UK, France and Russia.
Iraq's
first decisions concerning military acquisitions will be
critical, Rabbani said, because they will virtually
determine subsequent purchases (in terms of
compatibility, for example).
"It therefore seems
to me crucial that such decisions be made by a genuinely
independent Iraqi government, upon the recommendation of
a professional assessment by a genuinely independent
Iraqi military high command, on the basis of both the
current and future needs of the country and its existing
traditions," he said.
Even "grants" of
sophisticated weapons by the US or other states with
military export industries will interfere with this
process, said Rabbani. "The pattern in Iraq so far is that it
is being seen as a financial bonanza - and
where civilian contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel
have gone, military contractors such as Lockheed and
Raytheon can be expected to follow."
