[Q]
AT&T
(New York City, New York)
2000 ? Contracted with Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. to "optimize" Huawei?s products. Between 2000 and 2001, Huawei outfitted Iraq?s air-defense system with fiber-optic equipment, in violation of a U.N. trade embargo.
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AL HADDAD ENTERPRISES, INC.
(Formerly based in Nashville, Tennessee ? defunct)
1984 to 1985 ? Company sold 60 tons of DMMP, a material used to make sarin gas, to Iraq. Also provided chemical-production equipment to Iraq. In 1984, customs officials at Kennedy International Airport seized another Al Haddad shipment of 1,100 pounds of potassium fluoride, a chemical used in nerve-gas production. Al Haddad was not charged in this attempted transfer of chemicals, which were destined for Iraq?s Ministry of Pesticides. This firm also received letters of credit from BNL (an Italian bank) totaling $134,988 to sell knives and rubber blankets to Technical Corp. for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company. (Note: See Banca Nazionale del Lavoro entry for information about BNL?s Iraqi loans and letters of credit.)
The firm was owned by Sahib Abd al-Amir al-Haddad, an Iraqi-born, naturalized American citizen. According to corporate records from Tennessee?s Department of State, Al Haddad operated a number of registered firms, which are all inactive, dissolved or merged out. These firms included Al Haddad Enterprises, Inc.; A. Saleh & S. Al-Haddad, Inc.; and Al-Haddad Bros. Enterprises, Inc. 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. At last report, Al-Haddad, 59, was awaiting extradition to Germany, where he is charged with conspiring in the late 1990s to purchase equipment for the manufacture of a giant Iraqi cannon.
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ALCOLAC INTERNATIONAL, INC
(Formerly located in Baltimore, Maryland. Company was restructured as Alcolac, Inc., and it?s currently listed as an active Georgia corporation. Company?s assets now owned by French-based firm Rhodia, Inc., with U.S. operations based in Cranberry, New Jersey.)
1988 ? Allegedly sold more than 300 tons of thiodiglycol (precursor material used to make mustard gas) via Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation, which, according to congressional testimony and media reports, shipped the material to Jordan and then on to Iraq, through Iraq?s Industrial Procurement Company. In the same period, Alcolac also shipped thiodiglycol to Iran and pleaded guilty in 1988 to one count of export violations for its Iranian shipments. Alcolac is currently one of the corporate defendants in a Texas civil suit filed on behalf of some 3,500 Gulf War vets allegedly suffering from Gulf War syndrome. The suit initially named 64 American and international companies that allegedly provided Iraq with materials used to develop chemical and biological weapons. However, a number of those companies will likely be sued in European courts, and the current number of defendants is in flux. Ronald Welsh, the attorney representing Alcolac in that suit, denied any company wrongdoing in connection with Iraq and added that he had no "personal knowledge" of any Alcolac shipments of thiodiglycol to Saddam Hussein?s regime. But U.N. weapons-inspector reports, included in a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing on U.S. export policy toward Iraq, identified shipments of thiodiglycol that were sent to Iraq by Alcolac.
A spokesman for the company that now owns Alcolac emphasized that the "alleged illegal infractions" occurred before Alcolac was obtained by the current ownership.
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AMERICAN TYPE CULTURE COLLECTION
(Manassas, Virginia)
1985 to 1989 ? ATCC is a nonprofit that provides biological products, technical services and educational programs to private industry, government and academia. It sent to Iraq some 70 shipments of deadly germs, which included anthrax bacteria, E. coli bacteria, salmonella bacteria, bacillus megaterium (which causes meningitis), bacillus subtilus and bacillus cereus (which are strains of anthrax), brucella abortus (which causes influenza), brucella melitensis (a bacteria that attacks major organs), clostridum botulinum (a source of botulism), clostridium perfringens (which causes lung failure), clostridium tetani (which causes muscle rigidity), and Francisella tularensis (which causes tularemia).
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ASSOCIATED INSTRUMENTS DISTRIBUTORS, INC.
(Formerly based in Norcross, Georgia)
Date unknown ? Sold $12,161,502 worth of carbide cutting tools to Iraq?s State Machinery Trading Co., a procurement front for military materials and supplies, according to records introduced at a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing. The transaction was financed by a letter of credit from BNL (an Italian bank).
In 1992, company president Nash Rehmann told the Atlanta Constitution that the order was destined for the Huteen Establishment, a weapons factory outside of Baghdad. Rehmann elaborated on the transaction in an interview with the Weekly. "I got approval from the Commerce Department for the sale," he said. Rehmann also noted that he?d testified before a federal grand jury investigating the BNL loan scandal. (See listing for Banca Nazionale del Lavoro.) "I told them about my sale. They investigated me to see if I was involved in anything illegal, and I was cleared of any wrongdoing by government investigators," he added. "I have nothing to hide, because I did nothing wrong." Rehmann said he closed the company around the time of the first Gulf War.
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AXEL ELECTRONICS
(A former division of General Signal that was based in Jamaica, New York. Axel?s operations were later sold off and absorbed into other corporate entities.)
1987 ? Provided $84,000 worth of capacitors capable of powering a firing set for a nuclear weapon to Iraq?s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI). Hussein Kamel, one of Saddam Hussein?s son-in-laws, ran MIMI. In 1995, Kamel and his brother, also a Hussein son-in-law, left Iraq in 1995 and moved to Jordan. There they briefed U.N. weapons inspectors on Iraq?s programs to build weapons of mass destruction, handing over crates of documents. Six months later Kamel, his brother and their families returned to Iraq for a promised amnesty. However, Saddam?s daughters were forced to divorce their husbands. Then, Kamel and his brother, along with their father, sister and her children, were executed.)
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BANCA NAZIONALE DEL LAVORO
(An Italian international bank owned by the Italian government with U.S. headquarters in New York and a branch in Atlanta, Georgia; current U.S. operations are located in Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago.)
1988 to 1989 ? Authorized $2.16 billion in loans to Iraq, a portion of which Iraq used for various weapons programs. A portion of the BNL loans to Iraq was guaranteed through the U.S. Agriculture Department?s Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC). U.S. taxpayers ended up paying the cost of those loans (and some of these weapons programs) because the CCC had guaranteed repayment. BNL also issued approximately 2,500 letters of credit to Iraqi exporters totaling approximately $800 million. After Iraq defaulted on approximately $850 million in international loans, BNL filed a claim for more than $450 million against the U.S. government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. In 1995, the federal government agreed to pay the bank $400 million to settle the claims. Iraq is liable for reimbursing the U.S. Treasury, but repayment is considered unlikely.
The transactions funded by these BNL letters of credit and loans were almost certainly completed, said Jim Tuite, a former investigator for the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, in an interview with the Weekly. Some of the transactions were legally questionable from the start. In 1989, federal agents raided the BNL Atlanta branch. Six BNL employees eventually pleaded guilty to charges connected with off-the-books BNL loans to Iraq. The judge in the case also criticized the American policy of encouraging trade with Iraq as a counterweight to Iran. The court found that this policy created a business climate that encouraged BNL?s illegal activity.
From 1985 to 1991, the period of the BNL loans, the company?s paid "Consulting Board for International Policy" included former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who also was, during that same time frame, a member of the President?s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
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BECHTEL GROUP
(San Francisco, California)
1988 to August 1990 ? Until the invasion of Kuwait, the company served as engineering consultant for a $2 billion Iraqi petrochemical complex, known as Petrochemical Complex 2, near Baghdad. Bechtel?s contracts were with Iraq?s Technical Corp. for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company for military-related projects. Bechtel, a privately owned, multinational corporation, has just won a U.S. Agency for International Development contract to rebuild Iraq?s infrastructure. The contract, won without traditional competitive bidding, starts at $34.6 million and could eventually rise to nearly $700 million.
Bechtel?s ties with former and current U.S. government officials and agencies run deep. George Shultz, the U.S. secretary of state under Reagan, Bechtel?s former president, is currently on the company?s board of directors. Former Reagan Defense Secretary Casper Weinburger was Bechtel?s general counsel. Reagan?s head of the Atomic Energy Commission was W. Kenneth Davis, a former Bechtel vice president for nuclear development. Former CIA Director Richard Helms also worked as a Bechtel consultant. President George W. Bush appointed Ross Connelly, former head of Bechtel Investments, as chief operating officer of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
Bechtel representatives confirmed the company?s past business dealings with Iraq.
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BREEZEVALE, INC.
(Formerly based in Woodbridge, New Jersey)
Date uncertain ? Received letters of credit totaling more than $5.9 million (from BNL, an Italian bank) to supply tires and tubes for trucks and earthmovers to the Iraqi Trading Company. It is unclear how that heavy equipment was used. But Iraqi Trading Co. was identified by congressional testimony, researchers and media reports as a front company to purchase materials for Iraq?s military. Company may have ceased operations.
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CANBERRA INDUSTRIES
(Meriden, Connecticut)
1986 ? Canberra Industries and Canberra Elektronik GmbH, in Germany, provided $30,000 worth of electronic and computer equipment to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. In 2001, Canberra Industries became part of the newly formed $9 billion Areva Group, created from a merger of two leading companies in the nuclear field. Besides operations in nuclear-related fields, Canberra is now selling Homeland Security technology and equipment.
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CARL SCHENCK AG
(A German company, with various North American branches)
1987 ? Provided more than $10,000 worth of computers for process control and data evaluation to Saad 16, Iraq?s primary missile research-and-development site.
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CARL ZEISS
(A German company with American operations headquartered in Thornwood, New York)
1989 ? Supplied $105,000 worth of microcomputers to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, for use with a Zeiss planicomp (digital mapping) system for map-work measurements and calculations of photographic data.
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CATERPILLAR, INC.
(Peoria, Illinois)
Date uncertain ? Sold $9,902,605 worth of tractors to Iraq. They were used in construction projects involving Iraq?s nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile programs. Purchase was funded by BNL (an Italian bank), according to records compiled for a 1992 Senate Banking Committee report on U.S. export policies prior to Iraq?s invasion of Kuwait. Caterpillar currently has a number of contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense to supply the military with heavy equipment.
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COMTEC INTERNATIONAL, INC.
(Formerly based in Englewood, Colorado)
1988 ? Provided $117,000 worth of frequency synthesizers and equipment used to repair and maintain handheld radios of the Civil Defense Group of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which oversaw the secret police. Also supplied $161,000 worth of radio transmitters and amplifiers used at base stations to communicate with Civil Defense Group units. (In addition, Iraq received a loan for $36 million from BNL, an Italian bank, to buy a mobile satellite-tracking system from Comtech.) In 2002 the company reported an accumulated deficit of nearly $16.5 million. Company may have ceased operations.
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CONSARC
(Ranocas, New Jersey)
1989 to 1990 ? Contracted to supply high-performance furnaces, valued at $11 million, for making missile parts and melting zirconium, as well as $575,000 worth of numerical-control equipment for use in high-performance furnace systems. Material sold to the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), which was responsible for Iraq?s nuclear-, conventional-, missile and chemical-weapons programs. Hussein Kamel, one of Saddam Hussein?s son-in-laws, ran MIMI. In 1995, Kamel and his brother, also a Hussein son-in-law, left Iraq in 1995 and moved to Jordan. There they briefed U.N. weapons inspectors on Iraq?s weapons-of-mass-destruction programs, handing over crates of documents. Six months later Kamel, his brother and their families returned to Iraq for a promised amnesty. However, Saddam?s daughters were forced to divorce their husbands. Kamel and his brother, along with their father, sister and her children, were then executed.
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COPELAND INTERNATIONAL, INC.,
(Now Copeland Corporation, based in Sidney, Ohio. It?s a subsidiary of Emerson Electric Co., headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri.)
Date uncertain ? Received letter of credit for $147,120 from BNL (an Italian bank) to sell air-conditioning compressors to the Iraqi Trading Company, a front group for the Iraqi government. It?s unclear what the compressor was used for, but Iraqi Trading was identified by congressional testimony as a front company to purchase materials for Iraq?s military. A spokesman for Emerson Electric, which owns Copeland?s assets, said he has no information on Posi Seal?s exports to Iraq.
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DATA GENERAL CORP.
(Formerly headquartered in Westboro, Massachusetts. The company was purchased by EMC Corp., based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.)
1989 ? Supplied $324,000 worth of computers for mapping and surveying to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense.
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DEKTOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY, INC.
(Formerly based in Savannah, Georgia)
1985 ? Provided more than $38,000 worth of communication equipment to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, which oversaw the secret police. According to corporate records from Georgia?s Secretary of State Office, this company began operations in 1980 and was "administratively dissolved" in 1995.
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DOW CHEMICAL
(Midland, Michigan)
1988 ? Sold Iraq $1.5 million worth of pesticides. Iraq also received loans for $11,497,000 from BNL (an Italian bank) to buy chemicals and plastics from Dow. Critics have claimed these pesticides could have been used in Iraq?s chemical-weapons program. But Dow spokesman Scott Wheeler told the Weekly that none of the pesticides sold to Iraq could be "weaponized." Wheeler also said that Dow Chemical continued to sell "herbicides, fungicides and insecticides" to Iraq until February 2003. All recent sales were evaluated and approved by the U.N. Security Council, and in line with the U.N. trade embargo and sanctions in place since 1991, he added.
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DRESSER CONSTRUCTION AND EQUIPMENT
(Formerly based in Libertyville, Illinois, the company was purchased by Komatsu America Corp., which is based in Vernon Hills, Illinois, and affiliated with Japan-based Komatsu Industries.)
Date unknown ? Sold 25 wheel loaders worth $4,750,530 to Iraq?s State Machinery Trading Co., a procurement front for military supplies and items. The transaction was financed through a letter of credit from BNL (an Italian bank). Information about the transaction came to light during a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing.
DUPONT
(Wilmington, Delaware)
1989 ? Supplied $30,000 worth of fluorinated Krytox vacuum-pump oil used in the Iraqi centrifuge program (which produced materials for the nuclear-weapons program) to the Iraqi State Company for Oil Products. Krytox is a lubricating oil used in vacuum pumps where safety is critical. Michelle Reardon, a spokesperson for Dupont, confirmed the sale of Krytox oil but not its dollar value. "In 1989, Dupont was licensed by the U.S. to sell a specialty lubricant to the Iraqi state-run oil company. Two such shipments were authorized by the U.S. and occurred in 1989," said Reardon. "In the ensuing years and under very different relationships between the countries, these shipments were included in reports from Iraq to the United Nations in 1991 and probably the report for 2002."
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E G & G PRINCETON APPLIED RESEARCH
(Based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Company was restructured and eventually sold to Ametek Inc., which is headquartered in Paoli, a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.)
1989 ? Provided $55,000 worth of radio-spectrum analyzers for spectroscopic molecular analysis to the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education. Congressional testimony implicated this agency?s involvement in Iraq?s weapons programs. This equipment could have both scientific and military uses. A spokesperson for Ametek, Inc., said that it purchased the restructured E G & G in December 2001 and that Ametek has no information about E G & G?s past business dealings with Iraq.
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EASTMAN KODAK CO.
(Rochester, New York)
1989 ? Supplied more than $172,000 worth of equipment to analyze high-speed manufacturing processes for missile-development programs to Iraq?s Ministry of Defense. A Kodak spokesperson declined to discuss the company?s business dealings with Iraq before the first Gulf War, saying he had no knowledge of this reported sale. "Over the past 30 years, all of the company?s sales to Iraq have been in full compliance with U.S. and international law," said Gerard Meuchner. He added that he knows of only one sale to Iraq in the last five years, a supply of medical X-ray film.
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ELECTRONICS ASSOCIATES, INC.
(Formerly based in West Long Branch, New Jersey)
1987 ? Shipped $449,000 worth of advanced hybrid analog computer systems used in wind-tunnel experiments to Germany for shipment to Iraq via two other companies: MBB Helicopter Corp. and a German firm, Gildemeister Projecta AG, to Saad 16, Iraq?s primary missile research-and-development site. Company may have ceased operations.
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ENTRADE INTERNATIONAL, LTD.
(Formerly based in New York City ? firm appears to be defunct.)
Date uncertain ? During the 1980s, this company operated as an American subsidiary of a Turkish company named Enka. According to the Justice Department, company official Yavuz Tezeller allegedly conspired with a bank officer to defraud BNL (an Italian bank) through fraudulent loans and letters of credit. In one allegedly phony deal, Entrade received a BNL letter of credit, according to congressional records, to sell 300 tons of worsted yarn to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. Entrade would then present sham orders from Iraq for agricultural or consumer goods to BNL to get financing for military equipment or materials. Investigators were allegedly pressured to limit fallout from the BNL investigation, because the first Bush administration had backed loan guarantees to Iraq. Then?Attorney General William Barr would not allow Justice Department lawyers to go to Turkey to interview Tezeller, effectively ending the federal investigation of him.
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EVAPCO
(Taneytown, Maryland)
Date uncertain ? Supplied ion-exchange equipment, dollar amount not specified, for use in Iraq?s chemical-weapons program, according to records from U.N. weapons inspectors that were cited in the 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing on U.S. export policy toward Iraq prior to its invasion of Kuwait.
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FINNIGAN MAT US,
(Now called Thermo Finnigan MAT, based in Germany, with various U.S. locations)
1985 to 1988 ? Manufactured at least two mass spectrometers for Iraq?s nuclear program. U.N. inspectors found the two spectrometers during the 1990s. Company also supplied equipment used for work with gasses and solids in research related to the nuclear-weapons program. And Finnigan provided $1.14 million worth of computers and mass spectrometers for nuclear research to the University of Mosul, a procurement agent for Saad 16, Iraq?s primary missile research-and-development site.
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FOXBORO COMPANY
(Based in Foxboro, Massachusetts, it?s now a subsidiary of Invensys Systems, Inc.)
1985 to 1986 ? Sold more than $742,000 worth of computing equipment to the State Company for Oil Products, Baghdad.
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GERBER SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY
(Now known as Gerber Technology, based in Tolland, Connecticut)
1988 ? Provided more than $367,000 worth of computers, to program and run computer-controlled milling and turning machine tools to the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), which oversaw Iraq?s nuclear, missile and chemical-weapons programs. (return to company index)
GORMAN-RUPP CO.
(Mansfield, Ohio)
Date uncertain ? Supplied motors found in the first round of U.N. inspections in the 1990s that were used in Iraq?s chemical-weapons program. The company, however, takes issue with this finding, despite documentation from a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing. "We make pumps, not motors," said company president Tom Gorman. "I know about this report. I?ve had discussions with [the weapons inspectors] about it. And we had investigators from either the Commerce Department or Customs come out to our offices and do an investigation. But they couldn?t clear up the confusion either." Gorman claimed that his company was ultimately cleared. "As far as I know, we didn?t sell to Iraq, but something could have slipped through over the last 30 years. Anything is possible," he said.
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HARDINGE BROTHERS
(Now known as Hardinge, Inc., based in Elmira, New York)
Date uncertain ? Manufactured a super-precision turning lathe found by U.N. inspectors at Al Atheer, Iraq?s nuclear-weapons design-and-research center. A lathe would be used in the production of nuclear centrifuges, which are high-speed machines used to separate heavier uranium molecules from lighter ones. U.N. weapons inspectors destroyed the lathe in the first round of inspections.
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HEWLETT-PACKARD
(Palo Alto, California)
1985 to 1990 ? Supplied $96,000 worth of computers to design and manufacture molds to the Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries. Nassr procured Scud-enhancement equipment for the Taji chemical-munitions site. Nassr also procured and produced equipment for Iraq?s nuclear program and artillery plants. In addition, Hewlett-Packard provided more than $690,000 worth of computer equipment and frequency synthesizers to the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), responsible for Iraq?s nuclear-, conventional-, missile and chemical-weapons programs.
Other contracts: $254,000 worth of frequency synthesizers for developing surveillance radar; $834,000 worth of computers for engineering applications and cryptographic and related equipment to the Ministry of Oil; $25,000 worth of electronic-testing and computer-graphics equipment to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, which was responsible for nuclear-weapons research. Also, through German firm Messerschmidt Bolkow Blowm (Iraq?s main missile-technology supplier), sold more than $600,000 worth of testing and measurement equipment and general-purpose computers for developing and testing radar antennas, radio-spectrum analyzers and optical-fiber cable for use in labs at Saad 16, Iraq?s missile research-and-development center.
Also provided three computers for operating machine tools, which were discovered by U.N. inspectors at Al Rabiya, a manufacturing site for enriched uranium. (Hewlett-Packard also obtained letters of credit from BNL [an Italian bank] totaling $326,000 to sell computer-systems hardware and software to the Iraqi Trading Company, a front group for the Iraqi government. Iraq, in turn, received a BNL loan for $142,055 to buy spare parts from Hewlett-Packard.)
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HIPOTRONICS
(Brewster, New York)
1989 ? Sold nine power-supply units worth $287,000 ? key equipment used in Iraq?s nuclear-weapons program.
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HONEYWELL
(Morristown, New Jersey)
1984 to 1988 ? Provided more than $353,000 worth of computers to monitor heating, ventilation and air conditioning to the Iraqi Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI), which supervised nuclear-, conventional-, missile and chemical-weapons programs. Also prepared for Iraq a feasibility study and design data for a fuel-air explosive warhead for ballistic missiles.
Honeywell also sold compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers to Iraqi Airways, listed by the U.S. Department of Justice as a front company for military procurement. These components could be used for building ballistic missiles. In addition, Honeywell supplied a "process flow controller" used in Iraq?s chemical-weapons program.
Richard Silverman, a spokesman for Honeywell, declined comment on the company?s business dealings with Iraq during the 1980s. "Honeywell has been, and continues to be, in compliance with all U.S. export-control laws and with U.S. sanctions against Iraq," said Silverman.
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HUGHES HELICOPTER
(Was based in Culver City, California. The company is now called MD Helicopters, Inc., and is based in Mesa, Arizona, after being sold in 1984 to McDonnell Douglas.)
1983 ? Supplied Iraq with 60 civilian helicopters, eventually modified for military use. Sale approved by Reagan administration.
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IBM
(Armonk, New York)
2000 ? Provided switches, chips and processing technology to Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., a Chinese maker of communications networks. Between 2000 and 2001, Huawei outfitted Iraq?s air-defense system with fiber-optic equipment in violation of the U.N. embargo. Huawei also bought Commerce Department?approved supercomputers not only from IBM but also Digital Equipment Corporation and Hewlett-Packard.
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INTERNATIONAL IMAGING SYSTEMS
(Formerly located in Milpitas, California)
1981 to 1990 ? Sales to Iraq included $28,000 worth of electronic-imaging equipment to Iraqi Directorate General for purpose of enhancing satellite photos used in reconnaissance or missile targeting; more than $295,000 worth of electronic image-enhancement equipment to the Iraqi Space and Astronomy Research Center; $693,000 worth of infrared image-enhancement equipment for aerial reconnaissance and missile tracking to the University of Mosul, a procurement arm for Saad 16, Iraq?s primary missile research-and-development site. Records from California?s Secretary of State office indicate this company began operations in 1980 and has since been dissolved.
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INTERNATIONAL SIGNAL AND CONTROL CORP.
(Formerly located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania ? company defunct.)
1984 to 1989 ? ISC supplied, via Chilean arms dealer Carlos Cardoen, cluster-bomb technology and blueprints to build a cluster-bomb factory in Iraq. Cardoen is now on the run from a federal warrant for illegally exporting weapons to Iraq. ISC?s technology and blueprints were allegedly used to build a factory in Iraq to manufacture electronic fuses. James Guerin, now serving a 15-year sentence in federal prison in connection with illegal arms exports and other crimes, founded ISC. Some of the arms shipments made were diverted to Iraq. Before Guerin was exposed ? he later pleaded guilty in criminal proceedings in 1992 ? ISC was purchased by Ferranti International, a British company. Ferranti was forced into receivership because of the ensuing financial losses.
Guerin had filled his company with ex-U.S. military and intelligence officers. During the Ford administration, Guerin began illegally selling arms to South Africa as part of an intelligence operation in which the South African military agreed to spy on Soviet ships off its coast. (President Jimmy Carter later terminated the ISC-South African covert operation.) A former deputy CIA director, Admiral Bobby Inman, then head of Naval Intelligence, served as the liaison between Guerin and the U.S. government. And it was publicity about Inman?s connections to Guerin that ultimately cost him the chance to become CIA director.
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IONICS
(Watertown, Massachusetts)
Date Uncertain ? Ionics supplied a water-demineralization plant and pumping station costing $1,780,000 to the State Establishment for Heavy Engineering Equipment (SEHEE), a front for Iraq?s nuclear-weapons program. Deal was financed with a letter of credit from BNL (an Italian bank). Ionics also supplied SEHEE with a water-desalination plant costing $1,375,000, financed by a BNL loan. These transactions were documented in a 1992 hearing by the Senate Banking Committee.
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KENNAMETAL, INC.
(Latrobe, Pennsylvania)
1987 to 1990 ? Sold $900,000 worth of metalworking products to Iraq, including $81,917 to Al Kadisya State Establishment, a manufacturing program specializing in metallurgy. The Atlanta branch of BNL (an Italian bank) financed the deals. In a written statement, the company acknowledged sales of "approximately $900,000 of products that were used to tool machines ? some of those machines ended up in Iraq." But "all of the sales were in full compliance with the laws at the time and had been approved in advance and licensed by the British government," stated Riz Chand, Kennametal?s vice president of Human Resources and Corporate Relations. He also stated that two separate U.S. government reviews "found that Kennametal made no illegal exports and no charges were filed."
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LEYBOLD VACUUM SYSTEMS
(A German company with U.S. subsidiary based in Export, Pennsylvania)
1988 to 1989 ? Sold electron-beam welder, valued at $880,000, used to assemble centrifuges for enriching uranium and for the repair of military jet engines and rocket cases, to the Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries. Welder was shipped via German parent company, Leybold. Also sold a machine valued at $530,000 to operate the welder. Later installed machinery that doubled the size of the original.
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LINCOLN ELECTRIC CO.
(Cleveland, Ohio)
Date uncertain ? Supplied welding machines via company called Matrix Churchill, which were used to build Iraqi missile factories, according to U.N. inspectors. Received letter of credit for $840,000 from BNL (an Italian bank) to sell machines and supplies to Al Fao State Establishment, a military industrial facility. The equipment was used for Iraq?s nuclear and Condor II ballistic missile weapons programs. According to the 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing report on U.S. exports to Iraq prior to its invasion of Kuwait, Lincoln also supplied two welding machines worth $513,994 (also financed by BNL) to Iraq?s State Machinery Trading Company for use in Iraq?s nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile weapons programs.
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LITTON INDUSTRIES
(Formerly based in Beverly Hills, California. Purchased in 2001 by Northrop Grumman, which is based in Los Angeles, California.)
1984 to 1989 ? Helped bankroll German firms Gildemeister Projecta AG and Gipro, the main contractor for Saad 16, Iraq?s primary missile research-and-development site. Litton maintained a 14.3 percent share in Gildemeister throughout the life of its contract with Saad 16.
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LUMMUS CREST, INC.
(Bloomfield, New Jersey ? now part of ABB Global, Inc., a Swiss conglomerate with U.S. headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut.)
1985 to 1989 ? Provided more than $250,000 worth of radio-spectrum analyzers. Also provided computers for inventory, quality control, lab analysis and engineering calculations to Iraq?s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI). The equipment was used for Iraq?s multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex at Basra to make thiodiglycol, a chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas. Lummus also received letters of credit for $53,827,776 from BNL (an Italian bank) to sell machinery and supplies to the Technical Corps for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company, according to documentation provided for a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing.
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MBB HELICOPTER CORP.
(Formerly located in West Chester, Pennsylvania)
1989 ? Provided more than $957,000 worth of compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers to the Iraqi Air Force. According to records from Pennsylvania?s Department of State, this company was registered as a "foreign business corporation." MBB Helicopter Corporation began operations in 1979. Its last Pennsylvania filing was dated 1988. Company may have ceased operations.
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MACK TRUCKS, INC.
(Allentown, Pennsylvania ? Mack Trucks, Inc., is now a subsidiary of AB Volvo, based in Sweden.)
Date uncertain ? According to a 1992 Senate hearing report, Mack Trucks supplied $6,038,488 worth of truck parts, tractors, wreckers, trucks with cranes and dumpers to Iraq for use in building its nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile programs. Deals financed by BNL (an Italian bank).
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MAHO AG
(A German company that has become part of the Gildemeister Group, which is based in Bielefeld, Germany. Has various U.S. plants.)
Date uncertain ? Manufactured three milling machines found by U.N. inspectors, in first round of inspections, to have been used in Iraqi nuclear-weapons program.
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MATRIX CHURCHILL CORP.
(Formerly located in Cleveland, Ohio ? company defunct)
1988 to 1990 ? Constructed in Iraq a glass-fiber production plant, which made missile rocket-motor casings. Plant built at Nassr State Establishment, was known as Project 3128. And with the company XYZ Options, Matrix Churchill constructed at Al Atheer, Iraq?s nuclear weapons design-and-research center, a $14 million plant used to produce high-precision tungsten carbide tools for Iraq?s nuclear program. The plant, financed by Italian banking giant Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), was completed in 1990, but later destroyed under first U.N. inspection program. Matrix Churchill, along with other U.S. and European firms, was part of a complicated Iraqi arms-procurement network, controlled by the Iraqi entity TECO or Techcorp, officially called the Technical Corps for Special Projects. TECO was a sub-unit of Iraq?s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. TECO also ran Al-Arabi Trading Co., a front for Iraq?s biological-weapons program. Matrix Churchill also received a letter of credit for $81 million from BNL to supply machinery and other supplies to TECO and a letter of credit for $2,345,300 to sell precious metals to Nassr State Enterprises for Mechanical Industries, which procured equipment for Iraq?s missile program.
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