Russian Perfidy
There’s now documentation that the Russians were selling arms to the Iraqis very recently:
A Republican Guard motor pool captured by U.S. troops during their advance into Baghdad suggests that Saddam Hussein sought to spend millions of dollars on military hardware even as economic sanctions were causing widespread hunger and suffering in Iraq.…
In an office at the motor pool, troops discovered a letter from a Russian weapons firm that appears to suggest Saddam was attempting to spend millions of dollars expanding his conventional weapons arsenal — even as he was complaining he was unable to feed the Iraqi people because of economic sanctions.
The letter, dated July 2001 and written in broken English, is signed by Colonel General Vladislav Achalov, who identifies himself as a representative of a Moscow-based company, FTW Systems Ltd.
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The letter apparently signed by Achalov says it is in response to an Iraqi request for the “delivery of equipment.” It offers 50 new gun barrels for T-72 tanks at the price of $124,000 each — a total of $6.2 million. It also offers 400 new engines for BTR troop carriers at $7,500 each — an additional $3 million.
The letter goes on to say the price of 200 30-caliber machine guns for BMP troop carriers would be stipulated during talks on a final contract after the Russian firm received a so-called “End-User Certificate.” This is a document required by international law to ensure that military equipment is not sold illegally or transported via a third country to nations that are under arms embargoes.
It is not clear the items listed in the Russian document were ever purchased — or that the letter represents a clear violation of the UN arms embargo on Iraq, which did not prohibit the sales of conventional weapons. But the letter, if it is genuine, seems to indicate that at a time of strict economic sanctions, the Iraqi regime was at least contemplating military purchases worth millions of dollars.
If the name Achalov sounds familiar, it’s because he was one of the retired Russian generals who designed Saddam’s war plan. I noted how foolish Achalov was before Baghdad fell:
What about the Russians, you say? Well, they’re just as misguided and misinformed. Take this example, from a former Soviet general yesterday:
Retired Col. Gen. Vladislav Achalov, a former Soviet deputy defense minister, said he had repeatedly visited Iraq just before the war and had inspected Baghdad’s “multiple defense rings.” He said they were “impossible to break straight away,” the Interfax-Military News Agency reported.…
“I believe the Americans have so far been unable to capture a single large locality because the Iraqis organized their defense using the combat experience of the Soviet army, obtained during World War II,” Achalov told Interfax-Military.
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“Units of the U.S. 3rd Mechanized Division and 1st Marine Division have been worn out in combat and marches through the desert. At present, they are simply incapable of launching an offensive,” he said, adding that storming Baghdad is “out of the question” until new forces arrive.
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