Iraq: March 6, 2004

Archives

The tons of documents captured from the former Saddam Hussein  government, and interrogations of former Iraqi officials, are yielding evidence of more embarrassing acts by nations that long supported Saddam. In this case, Russian missile engineers were helping Iraq develop longer range missiles. The peace agreement Iraq signed in 1991 limited Iraqi missiles to a range of 150 kilometers. The Russian missile experts were assisting in the design of much longer range missiles. The work was being done in Baghdad and Moscow. Some of the Russian engineers were in Baghdad as recently as 2001. The Russians were working for a Russian company, not the Russian government. But it is unlikely that this sort of thing was going on with no one in the Russian government being aware of it. It was long rumored that Russians were involved in this sort of thing. There were also rumors of French assistance in the development and maintenance of weapons.