Arming Saddam Hussein

That data refers only to major conventional weapons as the source clearly states, but the nifty chart does not say that.
Also, it does not mention weapons that were illegaly funneled to Iraq trough other countries.

This article outlines the U.S. involvement in arming Iraq with chemical and biological weapons.

Most notable is how in 1986 the United States with Great Britain block[ed] all Security Council resolutions condemning Iraq's use of chemical weapons, and on March 21 the U.S. becomes the only country refusing to sign a Security Council statement condemning Iraq's use of these weapons.

Very good. Now go find the articles outlining WMD sales by other countries. Hint: they exist. Look under countries with names beginning with a G in particular.

I have no doubt that certain country sold its fair share of crap to Iraq - I just thought the graph was a tad misleading.
I agree with you that France, Russia, Germany, etc. would not take such a 'pacifist' stance if it wasn't in their best interest to do so: they like to sell weapons like everyone else...

Oh - and please post links to those articles, so we're fair towards everybody.

Because we are talking about arming countries I have to add this.

Sweden apparantly want to stop selling weapons to the US(not that it will hurt the US) because they have some laws that forbid companies to sell their weapons to countries in war. Just thought that was interesting. Maybe more countries should try the same law.

This has been well-explored over the past few months. I'm not going to run the searches again. I just wanted top point out that what you were doing was equally misleading. You pointed out that the chart only included conventional weapons - which is fair enough. It didn't include WMD. But then you went on to post a link about US WMD sales which implies that the US was the only WMD seller. That is wrong and misleading. If you had found an article about all WMD sales, that would have been better and more accurate.

Nah - moki's graph says:

Imported Weapons To Iraq ... by country

my comment was:

This article outlines the U.S. involvement in arming Iraq...

It does not assume only the US sold those weapons.

Except that if you talk about WMD and then post an article that only talks about US sales, it gives the impression that the US was the only WMD supplier. That's misleading by omission.

A like-with-like correction to the chart would have been something that showed WMD sales to Iraq by country.

Sorry, I just got it the other way round. The Swedish government lost its classical neutral role decades ago. They are in even more hot water since they cannot stop the weapon deals, because much development is outsourced to other countries, an important part to the U.S. (iirc this was about a new military jet)

PB.

****ing Greeks.

And Guatamalans.

Somewhat right. Sweden is still neutral, but the recent years they have been working with the US, among others, in defence matters. The problem is that most of the Swedish companies are partially owned by foreigners, mostly UK and US investors. That is the problem with the laws now. They are debating wether they can legally stop those companies. Another problem is that most armsdeals Sweden does are mutual(right word?), that is US buys something from Sweden and in the same deal Sweden buys something from the US. And because Sweden uses much material from the US that could in a way harm Swedens defence. So there is another problem. But the fact remains that Sweden has laws that forbid Swedish companies from selling weapons to countries in war.

Now about the fighter(JAS 39 Gripen) that is mostly a Swedish project but some of the components are "NATO" made because the project aims at being able to sell NATO countries the plane. That results yet again in the problem of compromising Swedish defence and future deals if the current contracts are in doubt.

But I would find it a very good decision if more countries would adopt similar laws. Let's hope some will.

p.s. Swedish exports(weapon systems) to US were about 3bn sek(about iirc 300 million dollars) so just thinking about stop selling those weapon systems is a big deal for Swedish economy and weapon system developer.

Doesn't it technically begin with a D - at least in it's native tongue?

Yes! D as in Deutsches Reich!
These damned Nazis!

PB

If you really want to be picky, its official name begins with a B.

True.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=362566

Here is another article about this. But this one isn't based on supposedly "leaked" documents.

It was what I could find in Google. If you have it all available, why didn't you post it yourself?

Interesting. Look who the TOP two are.

An excellent article and required reading. I am utterly disgusted by the reckless international trade in arms.

"What we need to draw from Iraq is a lesson. If Western powers sell the means to make horrific weapons, war is going to be the price we pay. Without a change in our export behavior, we will have to send our soldiers somewhere else to disarm another tyrant. Wouldn't it be cheaper--and more humane--not to create the problem in the first place?"

Doesn't look as if the Western Powers are the main problem here Mastrap.

Do you wish to elaborate on that statement?

You do realise that I was quoting, right?

The article that mastrap quoted from references the "Western power", but seems to include most of europe and Rssuia as a Western power. I think the author of the Article needs to look at a map and realize that. Of course, every country is west of somewhere.

"cue the "circle of life" music now please"