Suchergebnisse

A review essay on books by: Chris Cowley, Guns, Lies and Spies: How We Armed Iraq (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1992); Paul Henderson, The Unlikely Spy (London: Bloomsbury, 1993); David Leigh, Betrayed: The Real Story of the Matrix Churchill Trial (London: Bloomsbury, 1993); & John Sweeney, Trading with the Enemy: Britain's Arming of Iraq (London: Pan Books, 1993 [see listings in IRPS No. 77]). Reflections are offered on Iraq's procurement of arms-making equipment & components for nonconventional weapons during the late 1980s. Cowley offers an insider's view of Project Babylon -- an Iraqi arms initiative designed to produce a number of artillery & missile projects, including a "supergun." Cowley implicates Astra, the British fireworks company that expanded in the 1980s into ordnance production, & discusses the ideas of Dr. Gerald Bull, creator of the supergun. Sweeney examines the UK's arms export policy & how Iraq managed to procure arms-making equipment. The book is criticized for many factual errors & overgeneralizations. Leigh examines the Matrix Churchill scandal of 1990, in which two prominent conservative officials were arrested for breaches of UK arms export regulations. Henderson offers another insider's view of the UK's role in arming Iraq, arguing that selling machine tools that will make munitions components for hostile countries is an inescapable fact of industrialization. It is concluded that the real tragedy of British arms dealing with Iraq is the government's failure to explain its arms export policies to its own people. 5 References. W. Howard