Inside the Ring

Iraq’s arms

A Pentagon report on weapons found in Iraq after the war revealed a staggering amount of armaments, almost all foreign-made.

The report, first disclosed in a new book by one of this column’s writers, Bill Gertz, reached this stark conclusion: “Foreign munitions were used against coalition forces during the war and continue to be a potential source of explosives for improvised explosive devices still being used to kill U.S. soldiers.”

According to the report cited in “Treachery: How America’s Friends and Foes are Secretly Arming Our Enemies,” 24 nations supplied armaments to Saddam Hussein. The total amount was between 650,000 tons and 1 million tons. By contrast, the entire U.S. military arsenal is between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tons.

The big three arms suppliers were Russia (and the Soviet Union), China and France: Russia supplied 122 different types of arms and a total of nearly 13 million items; China had provided 19 different types of arms and almost 380,000 items; France had supplied 12 different armaments and more than 115,000 items.

The report was produced by the office of deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security, John Shaw.

It found that Russia had violated U.N. sanctions on Iraq by selling Saddam Hussein Kornet-E antitank guided weapons. The report said that in March 2003, Kornet missiles, first developed in 1994, were fired at two U.S. Army M-1A1 Abrams tanks near Najaf, disabling them.

The report also stated that Syria purchased 500 to 1,000 Kornets from Ukraine “on behalf of Iraq”; the transfers took place in early 2003, the report said. The Ukrainians had bought the missiles from Russian manufacturers. The report concluded, “Possession of the Kornet-E violates U.N. Security Council Resolution 687,” which barred arms sales to Iraq.

Holdout

Count Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld among the dwindling few officials who believe weapons of mass destruction stockpiles still may be found in Iraq.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell tightened the circle of true believers a few notches when he said this week he doesn’t believe such stockpiles will ever be found.

“There was every reason to believe there were stockpiles,” Mr. Powell told a Senate panel. “There was a question about the size of stockpiles, but we all believed there were stockpiles. … It turned out that we have not found any stockpiles. … I think it is unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.”

But Mr. Rumsfeld told us this month it is too soon to say, as the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group continues to investigate.

“Would you acknowledge now, in the months before the war, or maybe a year or two years before the war, that Iraq no longer had stockpiles of chemical weapons?” we asked the secretary during an interview.

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