Arms Dealer Implicates Peru Spy Chief in Smuggling Ring
Weapons: Broker says ousted Montesinos duped him in buying guns apparently bound for Colombia rebels.
By WILLIAM C. REMPEL, SEBASTIAN ROTELLA, Times Staff Writers
The business was guns.
The place was a yacht club in Lima. And the gracious host of the lunch last year, according to the man who says he was the guest of honor, was the all-powerful chief of Peru's intelligence service, Vladimiro Montesinos.
Montesinos oozed charm, says Sarkis Soghanalian, a rotund arms trafficker and occasional U.S. intelligence informant known as "The Merchant of Death." The spy chief wined and dined his guest, Soghanalian said, thanking him for brokering Peru's purchase from Jordan of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles.
If that account is true, Soghanalian was understandably astounded in August when Montesinos accused him of belonging to a smuggling ring that had airdropped 10,000 AK-47s to Colombian guerrillas. Montesinos and Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori announced with great fanfare that the intelligence service had broken up the gun-running scheme involving, Soghanalian said, the rifles in the Jordanian deal that Montesinos himself had organized.
"The weapons I sold went to the Peruvian government," he said in an interview in Los Angeles. "None went to the Colombian side. If any illegality occurred, it was on the side of the Peruvians."
Soghanalian's allegations of an elaborate double-cross by Montesinos raise new questions about U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies' close ties to the spy chief, who was ousted in September and is now a fugitive.
As accusations about Montesinos piled up over the years, U.S. officials had repeated an insistent defense: Montesinos was a staunch ally in the fight against drugs and guerrillas, the top U.S. targets in the region.
It would therefore be embarrassing if he was involved in the smuggling of guns to the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which is deeply involved in the drug trade. Especially at a time when Washington was preparing the high-budget anti-drug package known as Plan Colombia.
U.S. officials have said they were aware of the deal and initially raised no objections, thinking that it was a sale to the Peruvian military. When it was learned that the arms were ending up in Colombia, U.S. officials say, they alerted Peru. But they have said little about Montesinos' role.
"Arms-dealing with the FARC has always been an interest of ours and will continue to be," a U.S. official said. "Are we going to look [in Peru]? You can presume we will look at everything."
Suspects in Lima Also Tell of Betrayal
U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement agents have asked to debrief Soghanalian, according to his lawyer in Los Angeles, Mark Geragos. Peruvian authorities also want to question him. The arms dealer's account of betrayal is echoed by suspects, some of them former Peruvian soldiers, who have been arrested in Lima, the Peruvian capital. The alleged ringleader accused Montesinos of recruiting him to set up the deal and claimed that the suspects were tortured to prevent them from implicating the spy chief.
"Montesinos was definitely involved in this deal," said Peruvian lawmaker Luis Iberico, whose investigations of corruption were key to Montesinos' downfall. "It is absurd to think that people like [the accused ex-soldiers] would not be commanded by Montesinos."
There have been previous allegations that Montesinos and military commanders did business with drug lords and gunrunners, despite their successes in coca eradication and other anti-drug operations, according to Peruvian critics.
"It was easy to organize something like this, lay the blame on underlings if necessary and even say you broke it up," said award-winning journalist Gustavo Gorriti, who has investigated Montesinos since the 1980s. "He has done it before. If there is any emblematic case, this could be it."
Montesinos has not responded to the allegations. Fujimori defended the official version at first but has not commented since the fall of Montesinos.
Some experts find it hard to believe that Montesinos aided the FARC and risked alienating his allies at the CIA. They theorize that the episode was a sting gone awry or a rogue operation by high-ranking Peruvian military officers.
"My guess is that Montesinos was aware of it but not part of it," said a former U.S. Embassy official. "He had plenty of ways to make money."
The case is so packed with intrigue that it may never be fully clarified. But Soghanalian adds a key piece to the puzzle: He is a veteran of the global underworld of guns, spies and gangsters in which Montesinos moved.
A Long History of Gunrunning
Soghanalian resembles an Armenian version of Sydney Greenstreet, the portly British character actor who played globe-trotting rogues in "Casablanca" and other films.
Soghanalian, 71, was born in Turkey to Armenian parents and married a U.S. citizen. He is a Lebanese citizen and owns homes and businesses in Miami, Paris and Amman, the Jordanian capital.
His resume: He brokered about $1.6 billion in weapons to Iraq during its 1980-88 war with Iran. He ran guns to Christian forces during Lebanon's civil war, shipped missiles to the Argentines during the Falklands War and sold munitions to the Nicaraguan regime of Anastasio Somoza Debayle. He provided a plane in a failed bid to help Ferdinand E. Marcos, the deposed Philippine dictator, return to Manila from exile in Hawaii.
Some ventures put Soghanalian, who jokes about his "Merchant of Death" nickname, on the wrong side of the law. In 1991, he was convicted in Miami for smuggling helicopters and rocket launchers to Iraq.
But he has been agile at protecting himself by supplying information to U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies. He served a brief portion of his federal prison term before he was released early after assisting the Secret Service in an international counterfeit currency investigation.
Recently, he has turned to business opportunities created by the collapse of the Soviet Union: retrofitting fleets of Soviet-made military equipment in countries that can no longer rely on the Russians for spare parts and maintenance support.
But last year, he was indicted in Los Angeles on charges that he conspired with others to defraud Great Western Bank of more than $3 million in an alleged money-laundering scheme. Recently released on bail, he is confined to Southern California while awaiting trial.
Soghanalian doesn't seem to think his allegations against Montesinos will hurt his standing with U.S. justice officials. He insists that his dealings with the Peruvian military were scrupulously legitimate and that he has documents to prove it.
Asked why the erstwhile spy chief would go to such lengths to arrange the deal and then turn on him, the arms dealer said: "He has to cover [himself]. This project went on for months. . . . He knew people would find out. It could not be hidden. And they would ask what kind of intelligence person knows nothing about such an open operation."
AK-47s Allegedly Sought for Military
Central aspects of Soghanalian's version are reinforced by court testimony in Lima, U.S. and Jordanian accounts, and a review of his passport by The Times.
His story begins in Paris, where, he says, he was approached in 1998 by Peruvian operatives.
Retired Peruvian army Lt. Jose Luis Aybar, later accused of being the smuggling ringleader, was interested in buying AK-47s for "the intelligence side" of the Peruvian military, according to Soghanalian. The Peruvian military has a great deal of Soviet-made equipment, the legacy of a populist military regime that did business with the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
The arms trafficker said he negotiated with the Peruvians in Jordan because he was licensed there and was invited by authorities in Amman to broker the sale of surplus East German AK-47s.
The Peruvians agreed to buy 50,000 rifles at $95 apiece, he said. They provided letters of credit, appropriate end-user certificates for export indicating that their government was the buyer, and documents identifying them as Peruvian army representatives, he said.
Soghanalian also said he urged review of the deal by the U.S. Embassy in Amman. The State Department confirms that Jordanian officials consulted U.S. officials, who did not object because there was no sign of anything illegal at the time.
The transaction soon hit a snag, however. A shipment of 4,000 AK-47s took off for Peru aboard a Dubai-registered 707 but got only as far as Spain. Delays made it impossible to reach Iquitos, the destination in the Peruvian Amazon, in a limited window of time for which landing was authorized, Soghanalian said. The plane returned to Amman with the rifles, which the Peruvians had already paid for.
Soghanalian said he wasn't suspicious at the time. The cargo was listed on the aircraft manifest as "military equipment," and he said he had the impression that the flight would avoid Colombian airspace.
"If we had been smuggling contraband, it would have been much easier," he said. "We could have lied."
The shipment was still in limbo when Soghanalian flew to Lima in mid-January 1999. Aybar and the other suspects testified that the arms merchant visited Lima and met with Montesinos and military commanders.
Aybar also testified that he was recruited for the Jordan venture by a man he identified as an aide to Montesinos. Aybar testified that he "conversed directly and personally with Dr. Montesinos." Montesinos had Aybar sign a document stating that "I would earn a commission of $50,000 for a job that would be strictly secret," according to court papers and Aybar's lawyer.
Aybar was on the welcoming committee that met Soghanalian at the Lima airport and drove in the motorcade that took him to a hotel. Officials led a tour of a military base, where the arms dealer says he observed training, inspected a tank division and was introduced to the chief of purchasing, a general.
Montesinos and his aides were courteous and appreciative, Soghanalian said.
"We talked about military equipment," he said. "They said Peru also was interested in extending relations with Middle Eastern countries. I said I wanted to send Fujimori an Arabian horse."
No horse was sent. But Montesinos was eager to talk about bigger business, according to the arms merchant: The spy chief allegedly proposed arms and equipment purchases amounting to about $80 million.
But Soghanalian said he wanted to concentrate on the $5-million rifle transaction first. "I said, 'Let's finish this and then see what happens.' "
The arms dealer says that the military scheduled a meeting with Fujimori but that it was postponed at the last minute and he couldn't reschedule his return to Miami. But before he left Lima, he said, he was taken by military helicopter over the drop zone where he was told his rifle pallets were to be parachuted to troops in the jungle.
Despite the blessing of top commanders, the planned parachute drops seemed unusual, Soghanalian admitted. The Peruvians explained that drops were the only way to get the weapons to troops in a remote area, he said.
More troubling, he said, was that Peruvian officials wanted to start paying in cash. Soghanalian feared that this would alarm U.S. authorities, because large currency transactions are a common practice of drug lords. He insisted on bank transfers, he said.
"Cash was the biggest issue," he said. "They begged me. They wanted to pay cash through the Peru Embassy in Spain. They said I could go there and pick it up. They said, 'This is how we work.' "
Soghanalian also acknowledges that the former soldiers who went to Jordan apparently represented themselves as high-ranking, active-duty officers. The Peruvian military accuses them of using fake credentials to pose as government representatives.
But Soghanalian said it clearly was high-ranking officials in Lima who secured a substitute aircraft, a Ukrainian-registered cargo plane, with the help of a Russian military attache in Lima. Because the Russian-made plane, piloted by a Russian-Ukrainian crew, lacked the range to fly directly to Peru, a circuitous route was devised for refueling purposes: Amman to the Canary Islands to Mauritania to Grenada. After the drop, the final destination was Iquitos.
It isn't clear how many shipments were made, but they were apparently all airdrops. The plane was modified for the mission, according to Soghanalian: The belly was refitted so that it could be depressurized at high altitude. Rollers were installed so that pallets could simply slide out through the tail cargo door.
The plane would descend to 10,000 feet, open the rear doors, then start to climb, putting a steep pitch to the floor. About 22 pallets weighing about a ton each would be released and slide out the back, a 24-ton load dropped in only seven seconds.
At least four airdrops were made in March, June, July and August of last year, delivering 10,000 rifles, according to court papers and Soghanalian.
But the weapons were dropped into Colombian territory. Despite denials by Aybar and the others, their accounts have weak points: They claim that they didn't know the cargo was rifles or that the drops occurred over Colombia.
In addition, there are suspicions that the cargo of the return flights from Peru--supposedly wood, coffee and other materials--actually concealed cocaine. Peruvian anti-drug police searched the plane in Iquitos after the March flight but found nothing, according to court papers.
Soghanalian says he got so suspicious that he pulled out of the deal in July or August 1999 after shipping 10,000 rifles and receiving payment for half of them. The Jordanian government broke off the contract when it received information that the weapons weren't going to the government of Peru, according to the U.S. State Department.
Soghanalian says he was disturbed by signs that Colombians, guerrillas and drug traffickers could be involved. He says that he called the FBI counter-terrorism unit in Miami and that the chief of the unit told him he would check into it.
What happened during the next year remains unclear. Colombian authorities have said they seized AK-47s from the FARC in March 1999 and, with CIA help, traced the rifles to the Jordan-Peru transaction. U.S. officials say a U.S. tip preceded the announcement in August by Montesinos and Fujimori.
Although the Peruvian leaders proclaimed a victory against international outlaws, they made little reference to the alleged role of Soghanalian, whose notoriety would make for a bombshell headline.
Critics allege that the spy chief organized the news conference as a preemptive cover-up, intending to use control of the courts to conceal signs of his participation.
"Montesinos didn't realize the magnitude this would have," asserted Heriberto Benitez, Aybar's lawyer. "In these kind of sales, you have high-level military representatives. My client and the other suspects are just mules, the transporters."
Whatever the truth, the original version appears to have unraveled. The Peruvian judge supervising the case made it clear in a report Oct. 19 that further investigation is needed, including an interrogation of Soghanalian. The case would be complex for any court system, let alone that of a crisis-torn nation where Montesinos still casts a shadow.
But things are clear to Soghanalian. He is at home in international labyrinths and gray areas. He says he adhered to his longtime code of avoiding leftist guerrillas. Although he has supplied weapons to tyrants and outlaws around the world, he indignantly denies doing business with Colombian narco-guerrillas.
"I would not want them to fire one bullet from my rifles," Soghanalian said.
In this case, "The Merchant of Death" insists, he was a dupe.
* * *
Rempel reported from Los Angeles and Rotella from Lima. Times staff writer Ann W. O'Neill in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Sarkis Soghanalian, One Of The World's Most Accomplished Arms Sale
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12/29/99 -- 11:46 AM
Convicted arms smuggler accused in bank scheme
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MIAMI (AP) - An international arms dealer convicted of smuggling high-tech weapons to Iraq and labeled a ``Merchant of Death'' has been arrested to face bank fraud and money-laundering charges.
Sarkis Soghanalian, 69, and four others are accused in California of scheming to steal two blank cashier's checks in 1995 from a bank where one of them worked.
A 10-count federal indictment alleges the defendants had one of the checks made out for $3 million and deposited in a Paris bank. The other check, made out for $300,000, was cashed in for chips at a Las Vegas casino, the indictment alleges.
Soghanalian was arrested Dec. 22 by Internal Revenue Service agents when he arrived on a flight from Paris. Federal prosecutors were expected to ask a U.S. magistrate to approve Soghanalian's transfer to California.
The New York Times today quoted a law enforcement official as saying Soghanalian also is a focus of two other investigations, one about large cash transfers in Miami and the other centering on arms trafficking involving Iraq.
Soghanalian was convicted in 1991 of conspiring to deliver military helicopters and rocket launchers to Iraq in the early 1980s during that country's war with Iran.
After that conviction, Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Tarbe argued for a lengthy prison term: ``He's a con man. He's a master manipulator who has perverted the American dream. He proudly wears the label 'Merchant of Death.'''
Soghanalian was sentenced in 1992 to six and a half years in prison but was freed in 1993.
After that early release, Soghanalian helped U.S. agents uncover a Middle East-based counterfeiting scheme, said Miami attorney Gerald Richman, who has often represented him.
Copyright 1999 Associated Press
Convicted arms smuggler accused in bank scheme
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MIAMI (AP) - An international arms dealer convicted of smuggling high-tech weapons to Iraq and labeled a ``Merchant of Death'' has been arrested to face bank fraud and money-laundering charges.
Sarkis Soghanalian, 69, and four others are accused in California of scheming to steal two blank cashier's checks in 1995 from a bank where one of them worked.
A 10-count federal indictment alleges the defendants had one of the checks made out for $3 million and deposited in a Paris bank. The other check, made out for $300,000, was cashed in for chips at a Las Vegas casino, the indictment alleges.
Soghanalian was arrested Dec. 22 by Internal Revenue Service agents when he arrived on a flight from Paris. Federal prosecutors were expected to ask a U.S. magistrate to approve Soghanalian's transfer to California.
The New York Times today quoted a law enforcement official as saying Soghanalian also is a focus of two other investigations, one about large cash transfers in Miami and the other centering on arms trafficking involving Iraq.
Soghanalian was convicted in 1991 of conspiring to deliver military helicopters and rocket launchers to Iraq in the early 1980s during that country's war with Iran.
After that conviction, Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Tarbe argued for a lengthy prison term: ``He's a con man. He's a master manipulator who has perverted the American dream. He proudly wears the label 'Merchant of Death.'''
Soghanalian was sentenced in 1992 to six and a half years in prison but was freed in 1993.
After that early release, Soghanalian helped U.S. agents uncover a Middle East-based counterfeiting scheme, said Miami attorney Gerald Richman, who has often represented him.
Copyright 1999 Associated Press
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UNITED STATES ARMS SALES TO IRAQ: EXCERPTS OF RECENT CBS `60 MINUTES' BROADCAST (House of Representatives - January 31, 1991)
[Page: H836]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Owens of Utah). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Moody] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MOODY. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, January 20, the CBS television network program `60 Minutes' broadcast an extraordinary interview with an international arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, who lives in Miami. I am placing in the Record a transcript of key excerpts from that interview.
The revelations and allegations made by Mr. Soghanalian are, and must be, extremely disturbing to every American. They are disturbing to Mr. Soghanalian. He gives a first-hand description of official and unofficial American involvement in the enormous buildup of arms to Saddam Hussein. Much of this buildup occurred after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. He gives chilling accounts of the cozy relationship among high past and present U.S. Government officials who permitted, and in some cases, actually assisted his sales of many of the lethal weapons Saddam Hussein is now using to bring death to American military personnel and civilians throughout the Middle East region.
I congratulate the staff of `60 Minutes' for bringing this explosive matter to the attention of the American public. Executive producer Don Hewitt, producer Lowell Bergman, and on-air reporter Steve Kroft have raised profound questions in this piece that demand further investigation.
Mr. Speaker, last week, after his interview on `60 Minutes' I traveled to Miami to spend a day with Mr. Soghanalian exploring in greater detail many of the issues he touched on in the TV broadcast. At a later time I will share some of these items with the Congress. At this time, I can only say to my colleagues that the outline contained in the following excerpts from the `60 Minutes' broadcast only scratches the surface of where and how the dictator Saddam Hussein acquired the deadly weapons he is now using against American and allied soldiers in the gulf war.
If our fears of a protracted ground war in Iraq are borne out--and I hope they won't be--hundreds and perhaps thousands of American soldiers will be wounded or killed by weapons our own Government helped Saddam Hussein acquire. Toward the end of this excerpted interview Mr. Soghanalian discusses the weaponry he has sold Iraq with the direct involvement and cooperation of various U.S. Government agencies.
Mr. Speaker, this matter calls out for further investigation.
Mr. Soghanalian is to be commended for his openness and his willingness to bring out into the open this most disturbing issue of the U.S. Government's role in arming Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the transcript of the `60 Minutes' interview.
[Page: H837]
The Man Who Armed Iraq
Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian is the arms dealer who armed Iraq. During the war between Iraq and Iran, despite a worldwide embargo, Sarkis sold billions in arms to Saddam Hussein.
This Lebanese Armenian has made a career out of breaking international embargoes--supplying arms to countries and groups with whom the United States in particular--did not want to be seen with in public.
Filling that niche made him rich. And supplying Iraq made him during the 1980s the largest private arms dealer in the world.
As you would imagine, Sarkis's intimate relationship with Iraq's military gives him unique insight into their strategy. For a couple of days earlier this week, he talked with us about the arms he sold to Saddam Hussein and gave us what his assessment of what might be in store for our own troops.
Sarkis. Iraqi troops will never surrender to foreign troops. If they use Egyptians on a front line, you know, for psychological reason, maybe Iraqi soldier will say, I am surrendering to another brother, but to surrender to a foreign troop like Germans or French or American, they don't . . . they will fight to their last bullet.
Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian not only provided weapons to Iraq, he inspected the front lines regularly during the war with Iran, checked out captured equipment, even helped develop Iraq's military strategy. The day before the war began, Sarkis told us in his Miami office that Iraq would, in fact, put up little or no resistance to U.S. air power. But his predictions about a ground war that is almost sure to follow are not so rosy.
Sarkis. The United States is facing hard core, tough battlefield trained ground forces.
Kroft. It's not going to be like Grenada?
Sarkis. No. Grenada was a vacation. Panama was the same way. This is not Panama, this is not Grenada. And you're fighting a different kind of people.
Kroft. What do you mean . . . ?
Sarkis. Well, Iraqi soldiers can go into the desert, into sand, and sit for two, three days. They don't need no heavy arms. They don't need no distilled water, no bottled water, you know. They can get milk out of a camel and survive, but they will dig in and wait for us to come in.
Kroft. Sarkis thinks the real battle will come when allied troops try to push the Iraqis out of populated areas like Kuwait City.
Sarkis. How we gonna kick those guys out of the houses? It's
gonna be like Berlin, wall to wall, and room to room . . . they will try to cause as much personal casualties as they can in order to embarrass our leaders here. That's their tactic. This is what's gonna be concentrated on. And Air Force superiority electronics-wise, maybe they jam all their equipment, that's . . . they don't care about that. But the major aim is how much casualty they can cause. . . . The [American] equipment is advanced equipment, but it is not for this war. You are not fighting in a climate like European climate, your fighting heat, rain, dust. It won't work.
Kroft. Sarkis says the equipment he sold to Iraq has been customized to withstand the heat and sand and dust of the Middle East. He says Iraq's military hardware may be more reliable.
Sarkis. Because it's not electronic . . . it's conventional weapons. Just like their tanks. They don't have air conditioning, no stabilizer, no nothing. They just, you know, the old-fashioned conventional thing. They dig a hole, they circle a couple of times, they make a hole. They sit there like a sniper and wait for the enemy to come in. And they have artillery superiority.
Kroft. You sold the Iraqis quite a bit of artillery, French artillery . . . the 155 Howitzer . . self propelled?
Sarkis. Yes.
Kroft. Why is it superior to anything the United States has?
Sarkis. We do not have the same range as this vehicle . . . this gun has. It's modified to 42 kilometers [25 miles]. What do we have in the field to match this gun?
Kroft. The Iraqis have a 20 kilometer [12 mile] advantage in terms of artillery range.
Sarkis. Yeah. They can fight from a distance.
Kroft. And Sarkis says that the French artillery pieces he sold to Iraq, over one hundred of them, are backed by thousands of specially modified Soviet long-range cannons, as well as advanced artillery purchased from South Africa by way of Austria. Sarkis used Austria as a middle man to get around U.N. sanctions against South Africa. A lot of different people had their hands in this, one way or another.
Sarkis. Oh, yeah the . . . the . . . war game.
Kroft. What do you mean the war game?
Sarkis. Well, some people lose blood, some people make money. That's why I don't want to get involved in this war. I don't want to make money on . . .
Kroft. You're already involved in this war, aren't you?
Sarkis. Well, I don't look at it that way.
Kroft. A lot of that equipment that's facing the United States right now was sold to the Iraqis by you, Sarkis.
Sarkis. Yeah, but I didn't sell it eight years ago to fight ourselves today. That was sold to fight Khomeini. And we were against Khomeini. U.S. had hostages there, and I said, I'll go ahead and take my share in it.
Kroft. So you sold the weapons to the Iraqis to fight the. . .
Sarkis. Khomeinis . . . not to fight the, you know, Americans.
Kroft. Right. Because that would be best for America . . . and best maybe for Sarkis.
Sarkis. Well, you get compensated sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. And if Sarkis wouldn't do it, somebody else would do it.
Kroft. And other arms dealers and countries did. Brazil provided thousands of armored vehicles. China and the Soviet Union sent tanks, missiles and munitions. German companies sold Saddam poison gas technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems.
This Chilean arms manufacturer [shown on screen] sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, and the United States allowed American computer technology to go to Iraq as well. It allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes. Sarkis told us that the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Sarkis. I did it with the knowledge of U.S. authorities, policy makers--and also they have delivered weapons that are equally weapons as I did. I do not have anything on my conscience. I did not sell the weapons to kill the American boys.
Kroft. Which agencies of the U.S. government knew about Sarkis and his deals with Iraq? Well, according to Sarkis, almost all of them. And federal court documents show that Sarkis Soghanalian had a relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies for decades, and has performed work on their behalf.
Not all of Sarkis's deals with Iraq involve weapons. He arranged the sale of $280 million in uniforms to the Iraqi army. And Sarkis's partners in the deal included former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a former Attorney General, Colonel Jack Brennan.
The partners used their influence to get ex-President Nixon to provide them with these letters of introduction [shown on screen] to heads of state around the world.
[To Sarkis] Do you think there was anything unusual about a former Vice President and a former Attorney General and a former Chief of Staff for the President of the United Stateas to want to be selling military uniforms to the Iraqis?
Sarkis. They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell their mothers if they could, just to make the money.
Kroft. Some of his partners in that deal aren't talking to him
at all today. They're in court suing Sarkis over the multimillion dollar commissions they say he hasn't paid them
... [To Sarkis] Are you a Merchant of Death? You are an arms salesman.
Sarkis. No. I am a coordinator of industries that produce arms. But I am not a salesman. I don't carry no bag. I don't carry no catalogue in my pocket to sell arms to anybody.
Kroft. Why did this international arms dealer [Sarkis]--who is currently under federal indictment in Miami--decide to talk with us? Well, Sarkis says this is one war he doesn't want any part of.
Sarkis. No, this war stinks. It's not to anybody's advantage. I don't know who's advising who. This is a dirty war for us. What are we gonna do with Kuwait? We lose so many men, and next spring the Emir of Kuwait is sitting in Monaco, in Monte Carlo, happy with European girls. I'd fight for anybody that I have faith in. ... The man has 80 wives. Which one can he love, you know, if he's raising a family or a country? What do you owe the Emir of Kuwait? Why? For all this much sacrifice, or for prestige?
Kroft. Which do you think?
Sarkis. I think it's for ego, somebody's ego. ...
Kroft. You don't think it's worth committing a half a million American troops to ...
Sarkis. Hell no. ... go to die for this garbage war, no way, not me. I obey my country. I obey my President. He's a lovely man. He's a good man. He's, ah, intelligent person, but how he's making this decision, I don't know.
Kroft. And Sarkis Soghanalian made a decision too. He says Iraq has approached him about breaking the current embargo and selling them more arms. He says he's not running their phone calls.
Sarkis. It against my principle ... to go against U.S. policy. I'm staying away 100 percent now because I don't want to supply them with nothing. No spare parts or nothing. No vehicles, no shoes, no clothes, no nothing because they will support the enemy of today. A friend of yesterday is an enemy of today.
[Page: H838]
... Kroft. And tomorrow?
Sarkis. Who knows? Maybe a friend again.
Kroft [closing]. For the last three years Sarkis Soghanalian has been under a federal indictment for--among other things--conspiring to sell 300 American-built Hughes combat helicopters to Iraq.
The case has been stalled largely because U.S. intelligence agencies have been reluctant to turn over classified files that Sarkis says he needs to conduct his defense.
END
[Page: H836]
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Owens of Utah). Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Moody] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. MOODY. Mr. Speaker, on Sunday, January 20, the CBS television network program `60 Minutes' broadcast an extraordinary interview with an international arms dealer, Sarkis Soghanalian, who lives in Miami. I am placing in the Record a transcript of key excerpts from that interview.
The revelations and allegations made by Mr. Soghanalian are, and must be, extremely disturbing to every American. They are disturbing to Mr. Soghanalian. He gives a first-hand description of official and unofficial American involvement in the enormous buildup of arms to Saddam Hussein. Much of this buildup occurred after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. He gives chilling accounts of the cozy relationship among high past and present U.S. Government officials who permitted, and in some cases, actually assisted his sales of many of the lethal weapons Saddam Hussein is now using to bring death to American military personnel and civilians throughout the Middle East region.
I congratulate the staff of `60 Minutes' for bringing this explosive matter to the attention of the American public. Executive producer Don Hewitt, producer Lowell Bergman, and on-air reporter Steve Kroft have raised profound questions in this piece that demand further investigation.
Mr. Speaker, last week, after his interview on `60 Minutes' I traveled to Miami to spend a day with Mr. Soghanalian exploring in greater detail many of the issues he touched on in the TV broadcast. At a later time I will share some of these items with the Congress. At this time, I can only say to my colleagues that the outline contained in the following excerpts from the `60 Minutes' broadcast only scratches the surface of where and how the dictator Saddam Hussein acquired the deadly weapons he is now using against American and allied soldiers in the gulf war.
If our fears of a protracted ground war in Iraq are borne out--and I hope they won't be--hundreds and perhaps thousands of American soldiers will be wounded or killed by weapons our own Government helped Saddam Hussein acquire. Toward the end of this excerpted interview Mr. Soghanalian discusses the weaponry he has sold Iraq with the direct involvement and cooperation of various U.S. Government agencies.
Mr. Speaker, this matter calls out for further investigation.
Mr. Soghanalian is to be commended for his openness and his willingness to bring out into the open this most disturbing issue of the U.S. Government's role in arming Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the transcript of the `60 Minutes' interview.
[Page: H837]
The Man Who Armed Iraq
Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian is the arms dealer who armed Iraq. During the war between Iraq and Iran, despite a worldwide embargo, Sarkis sold billions in arms to Saddam Hussein.
This Lebanese Armenian has made a career out of breaking international embargoes--supplying arms to countries and groups with whom the United States in particular--did not want to be seen with in public.
Filling that niche made him rich. And supplying Iraq made him during the 1980s the largest private arms dealer in the world.
As you would imagine, Sarkis's intimate relationship with Iraq's military gives him unique insight into their strategy. For a couple of days earlier this week, he talked with us about the arms he sold to Saddam Hussein and gave us what his assessment of what might be in store for our own troops.
Sarkis. Iraqi troops will never surrender to foreign troops. If they use Egyptians on a front line, you know, for psychological reason, maybe Iraqi soldier will say, I am surrendering to another brother, but to surrender to a foreign troop like Germans or French or American, they don't . . . they will fight to their last bullet.
Kroft. Sarkis Soghanalian not only provided weapons to Iraq, he inspected the front lines regularly during the war with Iran, checked out captured equipment, even helped develop Iraq's military strategy. The day before the war began, Sarkis told us in his Miami office that Iraq would, in fact, put up little or no resistance to U.S. air power. But his predictions about a ground war that is almost sure to follow are not so rosy.
Sarkis. The United States is facing hard core, tough battlefield trained ground forces.
Kroft. It's not going to be like Grenada?
Sarkis. No. Grenada was a vacation. Panama was the same way. This is not Panama, this is not Grenada. And you're fighting a different kind of people.
Kroft. What do you mean . . . ?
Sarkis. Well, Iraqi soldiers can go into the desert, into sand, and sit for two, three days. They don't need no heavy arms. They don't need no distilled water, no bottled water, you know. They can get milk out of a camel and survive, but they will dig in and wait for us to come in.
Kroft. Sarkis thinks the real battle will come when allied troops try to push the Iraqis out of populated areas like Kuwait City.
Sarkis. How we gonna kick those guys out of the houses? It's
gonna be like Berlin, wall to wall, and room to room . . . they will try to cause as much personal casualties as they can in order to embarrass our leaders here. That's their tactic. This is what's gonna be concentrated on. And Air Force superiority electronics-wise, maybe they jam all their equipment, that's . . . they don't care about that. But the major aim is how much casualty they can cause. . . . The [American] equipment is advanced equipment, but it is not for this war. You are not fighting in a climate like European climate, your fighting heat, rain, dust. It won't work.
Kroft. Sarkis says the equipment he sold to Iraq has been customized to withstand the heat and sand and dust of the Middle East. He says Iraq's military hardware may be more reliable.
Sarkis. Because it's not electronic . . . it's conventional weapons. Just like their tanks. They don't have air conditioning, no stabilizer, no nothing. They just, you know, the old-fashioned conventional thing. They dig a hole, they circle a couple of times, they make a hole. They sit there like a sniper and wait for the enemy to come in. And they have artillery superiority.
Kroft. You sold the Iraqis quite a bit of artillery, French artillery . . . the 155 Howitzer . . self propelled?
Sarkis. Yes.
Kroft. Why is it superior to anything the United States has?
Sarkis. We do not have the same range as this vehicle . . . this gun has. It's modified to 42 kilometers [25 miles]. What do we have in the field to match this gun?
Kroft. The Iraqis have a 20 kilometer [12 mile] advantage in terms of artillery range.
Sarkis. Yeah. They can fight from a distance.
Kroft. And Sarkis says that the French artillery pieces he sold to Iraq, over one hundred of them, are backed by thousands of specially modified Soviet long-range cannons, as well as advanced artillery purchased from South Africa by way of Austria. Sarkis used Austria as a middle man to get around U.N. sanctions against South Africa. A lot of different people had their hands in this, one way or another.
Sarkis. Oh, yeah the . . . the . . . war game.
Kroft. What do you mean the war game?
Sarkis. Well, some people lose blood, some people make money. That's why I don't want to get involved in this war. I don't want to make money on . . .
Kroft. You're already involved in this war, aren't you?
Sarkis. Well, I don't look at it that way.
Kroft. A lot of that equipment that's facing the United States right now was sold to the Iraqis by you, Sarkis.
Sarkis. Yeah, but I didn't sell it eight years ago to fight ourselves today. That was sold to fight Khomeini. And we were against Khomeini. U.S. had hostages there, and I said, I'll go ahead and take my share in it.
Kroft. So you sold the weapons to the Iraqis to fight the. . .
Sarkis. Khomeinis . . . not to fight the, you know, Americans.
Kroft. Right. Because that would be best for America . . . and best maybe for Sarkis.
Sarkis. Well, you get compensated sometimes. There's nothing wrong with that. And if Sarkis wouldn't do it, somebody else would do it.
Kroft. And other arms dealers and countries did. Brazil provided thousands of armored vehicles. China and the Soviet Union sent tanks, missiles and munitions. German companies sold Saddam poison gas technology, and France, not only approved the sale of artillery to Iraq, but [also sold] armed helicopters and antiaircraft missile systems.
This Chilean arms manufacturer [shown on screen] sold Saddam deadly cluster bombs--reportedly with technical assistance from U.S. companies, and the United States allowed American computer technology to go to Iraq as well. It allowed Sarkis to sell Hughes and Bell helicopters. The U.S. government approved the sale after Iraq promised that they would only be used for civilian purposes. Sarkis told us that the helicopters were used as transportation during Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
Sarkis. I did it with the knowledge of U.S. authorities, policy makers--and also they have delivered weapons that are equally weapons as I did. I do not have anything on my conscience. I did not sell the weapons to kill the American boys.
Kroft. Which agencies of the U.S. government knew about Sarkis and his deals with Iraq? Well, according to Sarkis, almost all of them. And federal court documents show that Sarkis Soghanalian had a relationship with U.S. intelligence agencies for decades, and has performed work on their behalf.
Not all of Sarkis's deals with Iraq involve weapons. He arranged the sale of $280 million in uniforms to the Iraqi army. And Sarkis's partners in the deal included former Vice President Spiro Agnew, a former Attorney General, Colonel Jack Brennan.
The partners used their influence to get ex-President Nixon to provide them with these letters of introduction [shown on screen] to heads of state around the world.
[To Sarkis] Do you think there was anything unusual about a former Vice President and a former Attorney General and a former Chief of Staff for the President of the United Stateas to want to be selling military uniforms to the Iraqis?
Sarkis. They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell their mothers if they could, just to make the money.
Kroft. Some of his partners in that deal aren't talking to him
at all today. They're in court suing Sarkis over the multimillion dollar commissions they say he hasn't paid them
... [To Sarkis] Are you a Merchant of Death? You are an arms salesman.
Sarkis. No. I am a coordinator of industries that produce arms. But I am not a salesman. I don't carry no bag. I don't carry no catalogue in my pocket to sell arms to anybody.
Kroft. Why did this international arms dealer [Sarkis]--who is currently under federal indictment in Miami--decide to talk with us? Well, Sarkis says this is one war he doesn't want any part of.
Sarkis. No, this war stinks. It's not to anybody's advantage. I don't know who's advising who. This is a dirty war for us. What are we gonna do with Kuwait? We lose so many men, and next spring the Emir of Kuwait is sitting in Monaco, in Monte Carlo, happy with European girls. I'd fight for anybody that I have faith in. ... The man has 80 wives. Which one can he love, you know, if he's raising a family or a country? What do you owe the Emir of Kuwait? Why? For all this much sacrifice, or for prestige?
Kroft. Which do you think?
Sarkis. I think it's for ego, somebody's ego. ...
Kroft. You don't think it's worth committing a half a million American troops to ...
Sarkis. Hell no. ... go to die for this garbage war, no way, not me. I obey my country. I obey my President. He's a lovely man. He's a good man. He's, ah, intelligent person, but how he's making this decision, I don't know.
Kroft. And Sarkis Soghanalian made a decision too. He says Iraq has approached him about breaking the current embargo and selling them more arms. He says he's not running their phone calls.
Sarkis. It against my principle ... to go against U.S. policy. I'm staying away 100 percent now because I don't want to supply them with nothing. No spare parts or nothing. No vehicles, no shoes, no clothes, no nothing because they will support the enemy of today. A friend of yesterday is an enemy of today.
[Page: H838]
... Kroft. And tomorrow?
Sarkis. Who knows? Maybe a friend again.
Kroft [closing]. For the last three years Sarkis Soghanalian has been under a federal indictment for--among other things--conspiring to sell 300 American-built Hughes combat helicopters to Iraq.
The case has been stalled largely because U.S. intelligence agencies have been reluctant to turn over classified files that Sarkis says he needs to conduct his defense.
END
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Posted 02 November 2000 - 07:31 PM
'Merchant of death's ' Miami hearing delayed
The Associated Press
Web-posted: 11:12 a.m. Dec. 29, 1999
Updated at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday
MIAMI -- A convicted arms dealer once known as the "Merchant of Death" was held here Wednesday after a hearing on his removal to face bank-fraud and money-laundering charges in California was rescheduled.
Sarkis Soghanalian, who went to prison in 1992 for conspiring to sell high-tech weaponry to Saddam Hussein, was arrested on Dec. 22 by Internal Revenue Service agents upon his arrival at Miami International Airport. He was flying in from Paris, where he now spends much of his time.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles say Soghanalian, 69, and others schemed to steal two blank cashier's checks in 1995 from a bank where one of them worked.
Soghanalian, held in pretrial detention without bond, was scheduled for a removal hearing Wednesday. But his attorney withdrew from the case. Oscar Arroyave will represent Soghanalian before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Dube on Jan. 5.
"Based on his track record, Mr. Soghanalian is entitled to bond," Arroyave said Wednesday. "He has never failed to appear at any hearing."
A 10-count indictment issued by a federal grand jury in October alleges Soghanalian and four co-conspirators had one of the checks made out for $3 million and sent to him in Paris, where he deposited it in a bank. The other check, made out for $300,000, was cashed in for chips at a Las Vegas casino, the indictment alleges.
Soghanalian was indicted in 1987 for conspiring to deliver military helicopters and rocket launchers to Iraq. He was sentenced in 1992 to six and a half years in prison, but freed in 1993.
Upon his release, Soghanalian helped U.S. agents uncover a Middle East-based counterfeiting scheme, said Miami attorney Gerald Richman, who has often represented him.
An ethnic Armenian born in Turkey, but a Lebanese citizen, Soghanalian has been a legal U.S. resident for more than 20 years.
His son and business partner, Garabet "Garo" Soghanalian, lives in Broward County.
For years, the elder Soghanalian owned a home on Miami Beach's Hibiscus Island and ran his now-defunct business, Pan Aviation, with his son from a hangar at Miami International
The Associated Press
Web-posted: 11:12 a.m. Dec. 29, 1999
Updated at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday
MIAMI -- A convicted arms dealer once known as the "Merchant of Death" was held here Wednesday after a hearing on his removal to face bank-fraud and money-laundering charges in California was rescheduled.
Sarkis Soghanalian, who went to prison in 1992 for conspiring to sell high-tech weaponry to Saddam Hussein, was arrested on Dec. 22 by Internal Revenue Service agents upon his arrival at Miami International Airport. He was flying in from Paris, where he now spends much of his time.
Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles say Soghanalian, 69, and others schemed to steal two blank cashier's checks in 1995 from a bank where one of them worked.
Soghanalian, held in pretrial detention without bond, was scheduled for a removal hearing Wednesday. But his attorney withdrew from the case. Oscar Arroyave will represent Soghanalian before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Dube on Jan. 5.
"Based on his track record, Mr. Soghanalian is entitled to bond," Arroyave said Wednesday. "He has never failed to appear at any hearing."
A 10-count indictment issued by a federal grand jury in October alleges Soghanalian and four co-conspirators had one of the checks made out for $3 million and sent to him in Paris, where he deposited it in a bank. The other check, made out for $300,000, was cashed in for chips at a Las Vegas casino, the indictment alleges.
Soghanalian was indicted in 1987 for conspiring to deliver military helicopters and rocket launchers to Iraq. He was sentenced in 1992 to six and a half years in prison, but freed in 1993.
Upon his release, Soghanalian helped U.S. agents uncover a Middle East-based counterfeiting scheme, said Miami attorney Gerald Richman, who has often represented him.
An ethnic Armenian born in Turkey, but a Lebanese citizen, Soghanalian has been a legal U.S. resident for more than 20 years.
His son and business partner, Garabet "Garo" Soghanalian, lives in Broward County.
For years, the elder Soghanalian owned a home on Miami Beach's Hibiscus Island and ran his now-defunct business, Pan Aviation, with his son from a hangar at Miami International
#5
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Posted 02 November 2000 - 07:34 PM
"THE MAKING OF A DICTATOR"
NARRATOR: When governments and corporations treat armaments like any other product and ship them to foreign dictators, tragic things can happen. Dictators can use the arms against their own people, against their neighbors, and against the people who deliver the arms in the first place.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]
Admiral GENE LaROCQUE (USN, Ret.): There's a well-kept secret in international affairs that has been developing over the past ten or fifteen years. Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."
That secret is simply this. The rich, powerful, demo-cratic nations of the world have made big business out of selling weapons to dictators throughout the world. The extent of that will surprise you. We're going to shed a little light on that subject today. I think you'll find it fascinating.
NARRATOR: For years the United States has helped arm dictators -- to keep them out of the communist bloc, to keep the oil flowing, to keep the arms makers happy. We have often found reason to regret it.
We armed the Shah of Iran before the militants in the streets overthrew him. We armed Suharto in Indonesia. He used American arms to invade East Timor and repress its people. We armed the generals and colonels throughout Central America. They ruled through death squads and terror even when civilian presi-dents were elected.
We armed the generals who ruled Pakistan, in violation of US law that sought to block aid to countries developing their own nuclear weapons. According to journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Pakistan and India almost used nuclear weapons against each other in May 1990.
We armed Marcos in the Philippines and Noriega in Panama. But the most flagrant case was the US Government's support, legal and illegal, for Saddam Hussein's military build-up.
ALAN FRIEDMAN: If your viewers recall that first night of the bombing of Baghdad in January 1991, the shots that looked like fireworks over Baghdad? What you were looking at there, in part, was anti-aircraft spray based on technology that had been supplied to Baghdad from Pennsylvania by way of South Africa in covert shipments.
NARRATOR: Alan Friedman, of the Financial Times of London, has been following the Western arms build-up of Saddam Hussein for years. Now the Financial Times correspondent in New York, he first learned of an Iraqi arms-buying network while reporting from the paper's Rome bureau in 1987.
Originally, Saddam Hussein depended on the Soviet Union for most of Iraq's weapons. Then, in the mid-1970s he began to reach out worldwide. Using money from the sale of oil, Saddam developed an elaborate, clandestine network for buying weapons. Most of his network has never been seen by an unsuspecting world.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Under the shadow of the Western tilt policy toward Iraq during the 1980s, a time when it was thought that helping Saddam Hussein would staunch the threat of Islamic funda-mentalism from Iran, a sophisticated procurement network was developed by Saddam, and bankers, and front companies in Europe and the United States that basically tapped into billions of dollars of US bank money that was borrowed through an obscure Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank and helped to fund nuclear, chemical, biological and other unconventional weapons programs.
NARRATOR: You'll hear more about that bank later in the program. It's called Banca Nationale del Lavoro, or BNL.
Joe Trento had an unusual glimpse of some of the key players in the Iraqi arms network in 1984. As a special corres-pondent for Cable News Network, he flew to Baghdad in Sarkis Soghanalian's private plane. Soghanalian was the biggest arms broker for the Iraqi government.
INTERVIEWER: You flew in on his plane?
JOE TRENTO: On his private plane. To my everlasting surprise, we weren't the only passengers. Richard Nixon's former Marine aide, Jack Brennan, was on the plane. It was very secretive, very strange. There were a couple of CIA guys on the plane.
INTERVIEWER: How did you know that?
Mr. TRENTO: Because I got a look at their diplomatic pass-ports later and had them independently identified by sources I have at the Agency.
NARRATOR: Today, Joe Trento directs the National Security News Service in Washington. Sarkis Soghanalian sits in jail in Miami for selling arms to Iraq. And Saddam Hussein remains in power in Baghdad.
From National Security News Service Video, Iraq, 1984:
SARKIS SOGHANALIAN: "You know, having a gun that's beautiful, effective gun, but you have to keep that gun alive so that, you know, it serves you."
"This is .50 belted -- "
JOE TRENTO: "Ammunition?"
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "Ammunition, yes."
Mr. TRENTO: "Which tank are we going to go look at now?
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "We go see the other M1-13s and the cannons."
NARRATOR: Lebanese-born Sarkis Soghanalian feels aggrieved. He claims that he has worked for the CIA and he felt that he had the full support of the US Government when he helped buy arms for Saddam Hussein.
Mr. TRENTO: Soghanalian had done a lot of favors for the various freedom fighters the Reagan administration was supporting around the world. He had supplied all kinds of things to
"Commander Zero," the leader of the contras, the first leader of the contras. Boots, this sort of thing. He'd done these things because he felt it was in his interests financially because, later on, if indeed the contras succeeded in their victory, they'd turn to him for arms supplying. He's a businessman.
From National Security News Service video:
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "Some people call us arm dealer. Some people call us arm smugglers. Some people call whatever they want to call. But remember one thing then: Those weapons are not sold by people like us. The State Department himself, the Army, Pentagon himself, your own government himself is arm dealer."
NARRATOR: The Reagan and Bush administrations tilted sharply in support of Iraq. How the dictator in Baghdad treated his own people was the last thing on their minds. The overthrow, in 1979, of the Shah of Iran, the so-called "pillar" of US policy in the Persian Gulf region, shook the American foreign policy establishment. US officials came to fear the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, a Soviet takeover of Iran, the loss of the Persian Gulf oil supply.
Iraq invaded Iran during the US election year of 1980.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Saddam Hussein took the place of the late Shah of Iran as the gendarme of the Persian Gulf in a series of simpleminded and mistaken US policies that, unfortunately, created another "Frankenstein" monster.
NARRATOR: Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, made a secret trip to Jordan in 1980 to restore relations with Iraq. After Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, he supported Saddam Hussein as the enemy of his enemy, Iran. President Reagan shared intelligence with Iraq.
Mr. TRENTO: We were supplying intelligence information. The CIA was setting up a downlink for spy satellite pictures, so they could process spy satellite pictures for Saddam of the opponents, the Iranians.
NARRATOR: President Reagan also urged Arab countries to send arms to Saddam Hussein. He removed Iraq from the list of countries aiding international terrorism, thereby encouraging free and easy business with Baghdad.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: I think we now understand a lot more about the tilt than we did in the 80s. I don't think the Reagan and Bush administrations were at pains to announce publicly their tilt for Iraq, although there were a series of congressional hearings during the 80s when they indicated some limited support for Iraq.
What we certainly didn't know then was the extent of intelligence-sharing, of apparent technology transfers, of degree to which a lot of information about Saddam's agents operating right here in the United States seems to have been ignored by our authorities, by the FBI, the CIA and other law enforcement auth- orities in the US.
NARRATOR: Between 1982 and '89, during the Reagan and Bush administrations, the Agriculture Department underwrote $25 billion worth of food sales abroad. Fully $5 billion worth, 20 percent of the full amount, went to Iraq.
Congressman Charlie Rose thinks Saddam Hussein exchanged US food for arms.
Rep. CHARLES ROSE (D-NC): Iraq would tell a vendor of some commodity that was selling to them that they wanted extra sales services, that they wanted some flatbed trucks with specially designed mountings on them. But frequently, the goods that were shipped themselves, when they were shipped would contain other things, such as parts, maybe even some instances of ammunition.
NARRATOR: Congressman Rose, chairman of the House Agricul-ture Subcommittee on Department Operations, is an active watch dog and leading critic of the food-for-arms traffic.
Rep. ROSE: Another way they got arms-for-food money, or the food loan guarantee, was to just actually barter the food away with the Russians and the Russians would give them munitions in return.
NARRATOR: Charlie Rose and crusading Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas have doggedly pursued evidence that American taxpayers helped finance Iraq's war machine.
Rep. ROSE: In many instances, no agricultural commodities went anywhere, that what left was cash.
NARRATOR: Iraq was a honey pot for arms sellers. It attracted governments, corporations, consultants and fixers. Their greed and Saddam Hussein's ability to lavish petrodollars on advanced weapons were a perfect match.
One hundred-ten German corporations sold materials and equipment for the production of weapons of mass destruction to Iraq, according to the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. British, Austrian, American and French corporations also figure prominently on the same list.
Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, and Hughes Helicopters were among the American companies.
German companies helped Iraq develop its own chemical weapons industry. Iraq and Iran used poison gas against each other during their eight-year war. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff found evidence that Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Iraqi Kurds in 1988. Iranian TV filmed the aftermath.
Three years later, when Iraq was defeated in Desert Storm, the United Nations ordered the destruction of Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons programs. In March 1993, the UN announced the elimination of 70 tons of Iraqi nerve gas and reported that the burning of 400 tons of mustard gas was progressing steadily.
The Iraqis began developing a nuclear weapons program in the 1970s. The Israelis bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. In the following years, the Iraqis became more secretive about their nuclear weapons program. American planes attacked Iraqi nuclear weapons facilities during Desert Storm.
After Desert Storm, special UN teams destroyed some of Iraq's nuclear weapons facilities under the terms of the cease-fire. But information about Iraq's foreign supply network has been hard to obtain from either Iraq or Western governments.
It was not only weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein bought from suppliers around the globe. To equip the fourth largest armed force in the world, the Iraqi leader bought conventional weapons of all kinds.
He bought $20 billion worth of French arms, and went to suppliers as far away as China and Brazil.
As the Iran-Iraq war dragged on and money became scarcer...
Mr. TRENTO (news broadcast): "...The war between Iran and Iraq is at a four-year peak..."
NARRATOR: ...Saddam Hussein developed his own arms industry. The Atlanta branch of the Rome bank BNL helped finance many Iraqi arms purchases.
INTERVIEWER: Congressman, could you explain the BNL situation to us?
Rep. ROSE: A lot of letters of credit that we saw being used to pay for ammunition or, let's say arms tool design systems, such as in Pennsylvania, came through BNL-Atlanta with the guarantee from the Rafidain Bank, the central bank in Iraq.
At the highest levels of our government, probably George Bush himself, knew or had given the okay for not only the CIA but the Justice Department to be involved in facilitating these transactions.
NARRATOR: In addition to its undercover money trail, Saddam's government perfected the art of camouflaging its arms purchases by buying civilian products, technologies and facili-ties and converting them to military use.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: One of the biggest series of shipments, totaling more than a billion dollars between 1985 and 1990, was approved by the Commerce Department, which issued export licenses for what is called "dual use technology," meaning technology that appears to have civilian application, but actually can be used in weapons systems.
NARRATOR: Joe Trento says Bell Helicopter trained Iraqi officers in Fort Worth in the early 1980s on dual use helicopters.
Mr. TRENTO: Saddam Hussein's cousin came into the country and was trained during that program. They were training officers in maintenance, in reconfiguring the helicopters and keeping up the helicopters, this sort of thing. Soghanalian would bring them in on his private jets, right into Fort Worth, and they'd be taken to a special secret building in the Bell complex and be trained there.
NARRATOR: Carlos Cardoen, a big Chilean arms maker, provided Iraq with cluster bombs. After being released, cluster bombs are opened in midair by an electronically programmed fuse and a number of bomblets are released. The fuses, says Alan Friedman, came from ISC Technologies.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: The fundamental technology for the Chilean-made cluster bombs that were shipped by Cardoen to Iraq came from International Signal and Control, a defense company in seemingly sleepy Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We believe it was smuggled down by people working with former offi-cials of the US Government.
INTERVIEWER: Former CIA agents?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Former members of the defense and intelli-gence establishment.
INTERVIEWER: With the knowledge of the US Government?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Well, the US Government has consistently denied any knowledge of this. Our sources, including former executives of the company, say that they did work with the CIA.
NARRATOR: International Signal and Control was not the only Pennsylvania company that had a link to Carlos Cardoen.
Kennametal, of Latrobe, near Pittsburgh, is a tool and die manufacturer. Its products were used in the tooling for large guns, shells and fuses.
Rep. ROSE: They were sending their products to a company in Britain that's now openly known to have been an Iraqi front organization, and that organization is called Matrix-Churchill. And a young lady who was a lawyer for Kennametal questioned why she was being told to go to a company in Atlanta to get paid for work that the company, Kennametal, had sent to Matrix-Churchill in England. And what she discovered was that the payment that came through this Iraqi front company in Atlanta was actually from the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad, Iraq. She started asking questions; she got fired.
NARRATOR: In 1984, the Iraqi honey pot attracted some top officials of the Nixon administration. Former Attorney General John Mitchell and President Nixon's Marine aide, Jack Brennan, mentioned earlier by Joe Trento, wanted to sell uniforms to the Iraqi army.
Mr. TRENTO: The uniforms were supposed to be US-made, made in Tennessee, through a company that was represented by none other than former Vice President Spiro Agnew. So, it was like the old administration getting together. And Brennan and Mitchell had their company, Agnew had his company, and everyone was going to be happy.
Then they brought Richard Nixon into the act. It seems that Agnew's company couldn't make the uniforms so there'd be enough profit for these guys.
NARRATOR: So, Richard Nixon wrote a personal letter to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu preparing the way for the manufacture of the uniforms in Romania.
Mr. TRENTO: If you're familiar with the quality of Romanian tailoring, it doesn't quite come up to US standards. And it's rather hot in Baghdad in the summertime and when the uniforms arrived, much to the fear and loathing of the procurement officers who ordered them, they were not suitable. And these officers were afraid they were going to get shot.
NARRATOR: When the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war finally ended, what did the Bush administration do about supporting Saddam Hussein?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: They stepped up US taxpayer dollar assistance for Iraq through loan guarantees for farm exports, many of which we now think were actually bartered for weapons for Iraq at US taxpayers' expense. And in the autumn of 1989, President Bush signed a presidential directive, which is now declassified, which shows a clear and explicit stepping up of financial and military conventional weapons assistance for Iraq.
Mr. TRENTO: The Iraqis, just two weeks before the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, were meeting with the Bell Helicopter people about establishing a Bell facility, an assembly facility in Iraq with the full knowledge and permission of the Bush administration.
NARRATOR: Many of the arms shipments and bank loans from the United States to Iraq were illegal, but the Reagan and Bush administrations closed their eyes to illegality.
Chairman Henry Gonzalez, of the House Banking Commit- tee, has relentlessly exposed the BNL money trail to Iraq and charges an overall cover-up by the Bush administration.
Rep. HENRY GONZALEZ (D-TX) (on the floor of the House):
"True to form, the Bush administration stuck to the bitter end with its refusal to turn over all documents related to Iraq and the BNL scandal requested by the Banking Committee, and also subpoenaed by the Banking Committee. Top officials of the White House, Justice Department, CIA, State Department and other agencies decided against turning over hundreds of BNL-related documents requested or even subpoenaed by the Banking Committee."
NARRATOR: The cover-up has taken on the name "Iraqgate."
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Iraqgate raises questions about how our checks and balances work, Congress and the executive branch, honesty in government, when it's right to subvert national security for foreign policy purposes, when foreign policy should be privatized, if ever. And I think we can learn a lot of impor-tant lessons about what American military and foreign policy was really about in the 1980s by looking further at Iraqgate.
NARRATOR: Now that we've seen how Western governments and corporations built up Iraq militarily and how the Bush admin-istration tried to cover its tracks, let's take a brief look at another example: US military and economic support for Mobutu in the resource-rich former Belgian colony of Zaire.
Mobutu's looting of the treasury in Zaire has put him in a class of his own among the world's dictators. Dr. William Close first went to Zaire as a physician in 1960. It was the same year the CIA helped overthrow the government of that newly inde-pendent country, which is slightly more than a quarter of the size of the United States. For 16 years, Dr. Close was able to observe Mobutu from close up, as chief doctor of the army and Mobutu's physician.
Dr. WILLIAM CLOSE: Along with the economic problems that the country ran into, he tried to go through a period of Zairian-ization. That's when he changed his name and where everybody had Zairian names. That's when he, for all intents and purposes, appropriated everybody's property and gave it to his cronies, which was a disaster.
NARRATOR: A new word, "kleptocracy," was invented to describe Mobutu's rule by thievery.
Dr. CLOSE: I think the kleptocracy started at that point. Where other dictators would do away with people by killing them, he bought them off.
NARRATOR: But, adds Dr. Close, corruption is a two-way street.
Dr. CLOSE: I think one of the things that the American -- our administrations in the past have done is shamelessly corrupted people we wanted to have as clients.
NARRATOR: Newly-arrived Ambassador Dean Hinton asked
Dr. Close in 1974 what he thought were Zaire's real needs.
Dr. CLOSE: And I said, "Well, I think the real needs of this country are that the women, the mothers and the fathers have some tiny hope that the situation with their children will be better than theirs. And I think upon that depends stability -- the stability of the country depends." And he said, "Well, that's the sort of answer I'd expect from a doctor." And I said, "Well, Mr. Ambassador, you've been here two days. Now what do you think is the most important thing?" And he said, "The army needs better equipment."
NARRATOR: Mobutu has remained in power with the help of a US-trained army, American arms and more than $1 billion in US economic aid. Congress, not the president, suspended military aid -- but not arms sales -- to Zaire in 1990.
In 1991, the latest date for which information is available, 59 authoritarian governments received US arms. Some of these arms were sold to them, others were given as military aid.
America's biggest arms buyer today is the medieval government of Saudi Arabia. What will happen if a pro-democracy movement arises in that latest pillar of US policy in the region?
The United States continues to sell arms for influence, especially in the Third World, as well as for profits and jobs. But there are alternatives.
Dr. William Close's long experience in Zaire has led him to conclude:
Dr. CLOSE: I think that the American government right now needs to do what the previous administration did not do, and that is to come out loud and strong with a policy that declares that the United States does not support in any way dictators, espec-ially tyrants, who have become obstructive to the chaotic and sometimes violent process of democratization in a country, even if they were very useful clients in the past.
Admiral LaROCQUE: We in America, for centuries, have been proud of our democracy. We'd like to see democracy spread around the world. It's often been said that democratic nations don't fight against one another. But it has been our policy for the last ten or fifteen years to encourage the sale of weapons to countries around the world, particularly to dictatorships, and that is counter to the spirit of democracy which we so admire. Some of this action by our government and by commercial enterprises has been legal, some barely legal, and some illegal. We need a policy in this country to cover all aspects of arms sales, and that simply is to reduce the sale of arms, particu-larly to dictators.
I hope you found the program interesting. Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.
NARRATOR: When governments and corporations treat armaments like any other product and ship them to foreign dictators, tragic things can happen. Dictators can use the arms against their own people, against their neighbors, and against the people who deliver the arms in the first place.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]
Admiral GENE LaROCQUE (USN, Ret.): There's a well-kept secret in international affairs that has been developing over the past ten or fifteen years. Welcome once again to "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR."
That secret is simply this. The rich, powerful, demo-cratic nations of the world have made big business out of selling weapons to dictators throughout the world. The extent of that will surprise you. We're going to shed a little light on that subject today. I think you'll find it fascinating.
NARRATOR: For years the United States has helped arm dictators -- to keep them out of the communist bloc, to keep the oil flowing, to keep the arms makers happy. We have often found reason to regret it.
We armed the Shah of Iran before the militants in the streets overthrew him. We armed Suharto in Indonesia. He used American arms to invade East Timor and repress its people. We armed the generals and colonels throughout Central America. They ruled through death squads and terror even when civilian presi-dents were elected.
We armed the generals who ruled Pakistan, in violation of US law that sought to block aid to countries developing their own nuclear weapons. According to journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker, Pakistan and India almost used nuclear weapons against each other in May 1990.
We armed Marcos in the Philippines and Noriega in Panama. But the most flagrant case was the US Government's support, legal and illegal, for Saddam Hussein's military build-up.
ALAN FRIEDMAN: If your viewers recall that first night of the bombing of Baghdad in January 1991, the shots that looked like fireworks over Baghdad? What you were looking at there, in part, was anti-aircraft spray based on technology that had been supplied to Baghdad from Pennsylvania by way of South Africa in covert shipments.
NARRATOR: Alan Friedman, of the Financial Times of London, has been following the Western arms build-up of Saddam Hussein for years. Now the Financial Times correspondent in New York, he first learned of an Iraqi arms-buying network while reporting from the paper's Rome bureau in 1987.
Originally, Saddam Hussein depended on the Soviet Union for most of Iraq's weapons. Then, in the mid-1970s he began to reach out worldwide. Using money from the sale of oil, Saddam developed an elaborate, clandestine network for buying weapons. Most of his network has never been seen by an unsuspecting world.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Under the shadow of the Western tilt policy toward Iraq during the 1980s, a time when it was thought that helping Saddam Hussein would staunch the threat of Islamic funda-mentalism from Iran, a sophisticated procurement network was developed by Saddam, and bankers, and front companies in Europe and the United States that basically tapped into billions of dollars of US bank money that was borrowed through an obscure Atlanta, Georgia branch of an Italian bank and helped to fund nuclear, chemical, biological and other unconventional weapons programs.
NARRATOR: You'll hear more about that bank later in the program. It's called Banca Nationale del Lavoro, or BNL.
Joe Trento had an unusual glimpse of some of the key players in the Iraqi arms network in 1984. As a special corres-pondent for Cable News Network, he flew to Baghdad in Sarkis Soghanalian's private plane. Soghanalian was the biggest arms broker for the Iraqi government.
INTERVIEWER: You flew in on his plane?
JOE TRENTO: On his private plane. To my everlasting surprise, we weren't the only passengers. Richard Nixon's former Marine aide, Jack Brennan, was on the plane. It was very secretive, very strange. There were a couple of CIA guys on the plane.
INTERVIEWER: How did you know that?
Mr. TRENTO: Because I got a look at their diplomatic pass-ports later and had them independently identified by sources I have at the Agency.
NARRATOR: Today, Joe Trento directs the National Security News Service in Washington. Sarkis Soghanalian sits in jail in Miami for selling arms to Iraq. And Saddam Hussein remains in power in Baghdad.
From National Security News Service Video, Iraq, 1984:
SARKIS SOGHANALIAN: "You know, having a gun that's beautiful, effective gun, but you have to keep that gun alive so that, you know, it serves you."
"This is .50 belted -- "
JOE TRENTO: "Ammunition?"
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "Ammunition, yes."
Mr. TRENTO: "Which tank are we going to go look at now?
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "We go see the other M1-13s and the cannons."
NARRATOR: Lebanese-born Sarkis Soghanalian feels aggrieved. He claims that he has worked for the CIA and he felt that he had the full support of the US Government when he helped buy arms for Saddam Hussein.
Mr. TRENTO: Soghanalian had done a lot of favors for the various freedom fighters the Reagan administration was supporting around the world. He had supplied all kinds of things to
"Commander Zero," the leader of the contras, the first leader of the contras. Boots, this sort of thing. He'd done these things because he felt it was in his interests financially because, later on, if indeed the contras succeeded in their victory, they'd turn to him for arms supplying. He's a businessman.
From National Security News Service video:
Mr. SOGHANALIAN: "Some people call us arm dealer. Some people call us arm smugglers. Some people call whatever they want to call. But remember one thing then: Those weapons are not sold by people like us. The State Department himself, the Army, Pentagon himself, your own government himself is arm dealer."
NARRATOR: The Reagan and Bush administrations tilted sharply in support of Iraq. How the dictator in Baghdad treated his own people was the last thing on their minds. The overthrow, in 1979, of the Shah of Iran, the so-called "pillar" of US policy in the Persian Gulf region, shook the American foreign policy establishment. US officials came to fear the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, a Soviet takeover of Iran, the loss of the Persian Gulf oil supply.
Iraq invaded Iran during the US election year of 1980.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Saddam Hussein took the place of the late Shah of Iran as the gendarme of the Persian Gulf in a series of simpleminded and mistaken US policies that, unfortunately, created another "Frankenstein" monster.
NARRATOR: Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, made a secret trip to Jordan in 1980 to restore relations with Iraq. After Ronald Reagan entered the White House in 1981, he supported Saddam Hussein as the enemy of his enemy, Iran. President Reagan shared intelligence with Iraq.
Mr. TRENTO: We were supplying intelligence information. The CIA was setting up a downlink for spy satellite pictures, so they could process spy satellite pictures for Saddam of the opponents, the Iranians.
NARRATOR: President Reagan also urged Arab countries to send arms to Saddam Hussein. He removed Iraq from the list of countries aiding international terrorism, thereby encouraging free and easy business with Baghdad.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: I think we now understand a lot more about the tilt than we did in the 80s. I don't think the Reagan and Bush administrations were at pains to announce publicly their tilt for Iraq, although there were a series of congressional hearings during the 80s when they indicated some limited support for Iraq.
What we certainly didn't know then was the extent of intelligence-sharing, of apparent technology transfers, of degree to which a lot of information about Saddam's agents operating right here in the United States seems to have been ignored by our authorities, by the FBI, the CIA and other law enforcement auth- orities in the US.
NARRATOR: Between 1982 and '89, during the Reagan and Bush administrations, the Agriculture Department underwrote $25 billion worth of food sales abroad. Fully $5 billion worth, 20 percent of the full amount, went to Iraq.
Congressman Charlie Rose thinks Saddam Hussein exchanged US food for arms.
Rep. CHARLES ROSE (D-NC): Iraq would tell a vendor of some commodity that was selling to them that they wanted extra sales services, that they wanted some flatbed trucks with specially designed mountings on them. But frequently, the goods that were shipped themselves, when they were shipped would contain other things, such as parts, maybe even some instances of ammunition.
NARRATOR: Congressman Rose, chairman of the House Agricul-ture Subcommittee on Department Operations, is an active watch dog and leading critic of the food-for-arms traffic.
Rep. ROSE: Another way they got arms-for-food money, or the food loan guarantee, was to just actually barter the food away with the Russians and the Russians would give them munitions in return.
NARRATOR: Charlie Rose and crusading Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas have doggedly pursued evidence that American taxpayers helped finance Iraq's war machine.
Rep. ROSE: In many instances, no agricultural commodities went anywhere, that what left was cash.
NARRATOR: Iraq was a honey pot for arms sellers. It attracted governments, corporations, consultants and fixers. Their greed and Saddam Hussein's ability to lavish petrodollars on advanced weapons were a perfect match.
One hundred-ten German corporations sold materials and equipment for the production of weapons of mass destruction to Iraq, according to the Republican staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. British, Austrian, American and French corporations also figure prominently on the same list.
Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell, and Hughes Helicopters were among the American companies.
German companies helped Iraq develop its own chemical weapons industry. Iraq and Iran used poison gas against each other during their eight-year war. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff found evidence that Saddam Hussein used poison gas against Iraqi Kurds in 1988. Iranian TV filmed the aftermath.
Three years later, when Iraq was defeated in Desert Storm, the United Nations ordered the destruction of Iraqi chemical and nuclear weapons programs. In March 1993, the UN announced the elimination of 70 tons of Iraqi nerve gas and reported that the burning of 400 tons of mustard gas was progressing steadily.
The Iraqis began developing a nuclear weapons program in the 1970s. The Israelis bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981. In the following years, the Iraqis became more secretive about their nuclear weapons program. American planes attacked Iraqi nuclear weapons facilities during Desert Storm.
After Desert Storm, special UN teams destroyed some of Iraq's nuclear weapons facilities under the terms of the cease-fire. But information about Iraq's foreign supply network has been hard to obtain from either Iraq or Western governments.
It was not only weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein bought from suppliers around the globe. To equip the fourth largest armed force in the world, the Iraqi leader bought conventional weapons of all kinds.
He bought $20 billion worth of French arms, and went to suppliers as far away as China and Brazil.
As the Iran-Iraq war dragged on and money became scarcer...
Mr. TRENTO (news broadcast): "...The war between Iran and Iraq is at a four-year peak..."
NARRATOR: ...Saddam Hussein developed his own arms industry. The Atlanta branch of the Rome bank BNL helped finance many Iraqi arms purchases.
INTERVIEWER: Congressman, could you explain the BNL situation to us?
Rep. ROSE: A lot of letters of credit that we saw being used to pay for ammunition or, let's say arms tool design systems, such as in Pennsylvania, came through BNL-Atlanta with the guarantee from the Rafidain Bank, the central bank in Iraq.
At the highest levels of our government, probably George Bush himself, knew or had given the okay for not only the CIA but the Justice Department to be involved in facilitating these transactions.
NARRATOR: In addition to its undercover money trail, Saddam's government perfected the art of camouflaging its arms purchases by buying civilian products, technologies and facili-ties and converting them to military use.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: One of the biggest series of shipments, totaling more than a billion dollars between 1985 and 1990, was approved by the Commerce Department, which issued export licenses for what is called "dual use technology," meaning technology that appears to have civilian application, but actually can be used in weapons systems.
NARRATOR: Joe Trento says Bell Helicopter trained Iraqi officers in Fort Worth in the early 1980s on dual use helicopters.
Mr. TRENTO: Saddam Hussein's cousin came into the country and was trained during that program. They were training officers in maintenance, in reconfiguring the helicopters and keeping up the helicopters, this sort of thing. Soghanalian would bring them in on his private jets, right into Fort Worth, and they'd be taken to a special secret building in the Bell complex and be trained there.
NARRATOR: Carlos Cardoen, a big Chilean arms maker, provided Iraq with cluster bombs. After being released, cluster bombs are opened in midair by an electronically programmed fuse and a number of bomblets are released. The fuses, says Alan Friedman, came from ISC Technologies.
Mr. FRIEDMAN: The fundamental technology for the Chilean-made cluster bombs that were shipped by Cardoen to Iraq came from International Signal and Control, a defense company in seemingly sleepy Pennsylvania Dutch country of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We believe it was smuggled down by people working with former offi-cials of the US Government.
INTERVIEWER: Former CIA agents?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Former members of the defense and intelli-gence establishment.
INTERVIEWER: With the knowledge of the US Government?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Well, the US Government has consistently denied any knowledge of this. Our sources, including former executives of the company, say that they did work with the CIA.
NARRATOR: International Signal and Control was not the only Pennsylvania company that had a link to Carlos Cardoen.
Kennametal, of Latrobe, near Pittsburgh, is a tool and die manufacturer. Its products were used in the tooling for large guns, shells and fuses.
Rep. ROSE: They were sending their products to a company in Britain that's now openly known to have been an Iraqi front organization, and that organization is called Matrix-Churchill. And a young lady who was a lawyer for Kennametal questioned why she was being told to go to a company in Atlanta to get paid for work that the company, Kennametal, had sent to Matrix-Churchill in England. And what she discovered was that the payment that came through this Iraqi front company in Atlanta was actually from the Rafidain Bank in Baghdad, Iraq. She started asking questions; she got fired.
NARRATOR: In 1984, the Iraqi honey pot attracted some top officials of the Nixon administration. Former Attorney General John Mitchell and President Nixon's Marine aide, Jack Brennan, mentioned earlier by Joe Trento, wanted to sell uniforms to the Iraqi army.
Mr. TRENTO: The uniforms were supposed to be US-made, made in Tennessee, through a company that was represented by none other than former Vice President Spiro Agnew. So, it was like the old administration getting together. And Brennan and Mitchell had their company, Agnew had his company, and everyone was going to be happy.
Then they brought Richard Nixon into the act. It seems that Agnew's company couldn't make the uniforms so there'd be enough profit for these guys.
NARRATOR: So, Richard Nixon wrote a personal letter to Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu preparing the way for the manufacture of the uniforms in Romania.
Mr. TRENTO: If you're familiar with the quality of Romanian tailoring, it doesn't quite come up to US standards. And it's rather hot in Baghdad in the summertime and when the uniforms arrived, much to the fear and loathing of the procurement officers who ordered them, they were not suitable. And these officers were afraid they were going to get shot.
NARRATOR: When the bloody eight-year Iran-Iraq war finally ended, what did the Bush administration do about supporting Saddam Hussein?
Mr. FRIEDMAN: They stepped up US taxpayer dollar assistance for Iraq through loan guarantees for farm exports, many of which we now think were actually bartered for weapons for Iraq at US taxpayers' expense. And in the autumn of 1989, President Bush signed a presidential directive, which is now declassified, which shows a clear and explicit stepping up of financial and military conventional weapons assistance for Iraq.
Mr. TRENTO: The Iraqis, just two weeks before the Iraqis invaded Kuwait, were meeting with the Bell Helicopter people about establishing a Bell facility, an assembly facility in Iraq with the full knowledge and permission of the Bush administration.
NARRATOR: Many of the arms shipments and bank loans from the United States to Iraq were illegal, but the Reagan and Bush administrations closed their eyes to illegality.
Chairman Henry Gonzalez, of the House Banking Commit- tee, has relentlessly exposed the BNL money trail to Iraq and charges an overall cover-up by the Bush administration.
Rep. HENRY GONZALEZ (D-TX) (on the floor of the House):
"True to form, the Bush administration stuck to the bitter end with its refusal to turn over all documents related to Iraq and the BNL scandal requested by the Banking Committee, and also subpoenaed by the Banking Committee. Top officials of the White House, Justice Department, CIA, State Department and other agencies decided against turning over hundreds of BNL-related documents requested or even subpoenaed by the Banking Committee."
NARRATOR: The cover-up has taken on the name "Iraqgate."
Mr. FRIEDMAN: Iraqgate raises questions about how our checks and balances work, Congress and the executive branch, honesty in government, when it's right to subvert national security for foreign policy purposes, when foreign policy should be privatized, if ever. And I think we can learn a lot of impor-tant lessons about what American military and foreign policy was really about in the 1980s by looking further at Iraqgate.
NARRATOR: Now that we've seen how Western governments and corporations built up Iraq militarily and how the Bush admin-istration tried to cover its tracks, let's take a brief look at another example: US military and economic support for Mobutu in the resource-rich former Belgian colony of Zaire.
Mobutu's looting of the treasury in Zaire has put him in a class of his own among the world's dictators. Dr. William Close first went to Zaire as a physician in 1960. It was the same year the CIA helped overthrow the government of that newly inde-pendent country, which is slightly more than a quarter of the size of the United States. For 16 years, Dr. Close was able to observe Mobutu from close up, as chief doctor of the army and Mobutu's physician.
Dr. WILLIAM CLOSE: Along with the economic problems that the country ran into, he tried to go through a period of Zairian-ization. That's when he changed his name and where everybody had Zairian names. That's when he, for all intents and purposes, appropriated everybody's property and gave it to his cronies, which was a disaster.
NARRATOR: A new word, "kleptocracy," was invented to describe Mobutu's rule by thievery.
Dr. CLOSE: I think the kleptocracy started at that point. Where other dictators would do away with people by killing them, he bought them off.
NARRATOR: But, adds Dr. Close, corruption is a two-way street.
Dr. CLOSE: I think one of the things that the American -- our administrations in the past have done is shamelessly corrupted people we wanted to have as clients.
NARRATOR: Newly-arrived Ambassador Dean Hinton asked
Dr. Close in 1974 what he thought were Zaire's real needs.
Dr. CLOSE: And I said, "Well, I think the real needs of this country are that the women, the mothers and the fathers have some tiny hope that the situation with their children will be better than theirs. And I think upon that depends stability -- the stability of the country depends." And he said, "Well, that's the sort of answer I'd expect from a doctor." And I said, "Well, Mr. Ambassador, you've been here two days. Now what do you think is the most important thing?" And he said, "The army needs better equipment."
NARRATOR: Mobutu has remained in power with the help of a US-trained army, American arms and more than $1 billion in US economic aid. Congress, not the president, suspended military aid -- but not arms sales -- to Zaire in 1990.
In 1991, the latest date for which information is available, 59 authoritarian governments received US arms. Some of these arms were sold to them, others were given as military aid.
America's biggest arms buyer today is the medieval government of Saudi Arabia. What will happen if a pro-democracy movement arises in that latest pillar of US policy in the region?
The United States continues to sell arms for influence, especially in the Third World, as well as for profits and jobs. But there are alternatives.
Dr. William Close's long experience in Zaire has led him to conclude:
Dr. CLOSE: I think that the American government right now needs to do what the previous administration did not do, and that is to come out loud and strong with a policy that declares that the United States does not support in any way dictators, espec-ially tyrants, who have become obstructive to the chaotic and sometimes violent process of democratization in a country, even if they were very useful clients in the past.
Admiral LaROCQUE: We in America, for centuries, have been proud of our democracy. We'd like to see democracy spread around the world. It's often been said that democratic nations don't fight against one another. But it has been our policy for the last ten or fifteen years to encourage the sale of weapons to countries around the world, particularly to dictatorships, and that is counter to the spirit of democracy which we so admire. Some of this action by our government and by commercial enterprises has been legal, some barely legal, and some illegal. We need a policy in this country to cover all aspects of arms sales, and that simply is to reduce the sale of arms, particu-larly to dictators.
I hope you found the program interesting. Until next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Gene LaRocque.
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Posted 02 November 2000 - 07:43 PM
Gun man meets gunman
Bull's Eye: The Assassination and Life of Supergun Inventor Gerald Bull
by James Adams
Times Books, 1992
317 pages; $23.00
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG
Despite its sensationalist trappings- most notably the grainy cover photo of Gerald Bull caught in the crosshairs of a gun scope-the latest book by London Sunday Times Washington bureau chief James Adams provides a balanced and informative account of Bull's career as one of the most notorious postWorld War II arms merchants. At a time when Western governments are preoccupied with the question of how to keep ex-Soviet weapons scientists and engineers from hiring out their talents to Third World dictators, Bull's story offers a chilling reminder of how much damage one determined weapons expert can do to the cause of nonproliferation.
The first third of Bull's Eye describes Bull's rapid rise in the scientific establishment of his native Canada, from his days as one of the youngest graduates ever to receive a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Toronto, to his role as founder and director of the joint U.S.-Canadian High Altitude Research Project (HARP) during the early 1960s. The HARP project was originally designed to fulfill his "dream" of constructing massive guns with the capacity to launch projectiles into space, but its main spin-offs were more mundane-long-range howitzers with specially built shells able to outdistance anything else available on the world market.
Adams uses the material on Bull's early career to launch one of his principal themes; that Bull's progression from "boy rocket scientist" to gun designer and eventually to arms merchant was a case of idealism gone sour, a byproduct of Bull's single-minded determination to find some way, any way, to finance and develop HARP. Adams argues that Bull's resentment of the Canadian and American governments, for not giving him the kind of support he felt HARP deserved, was an important motivating factor in his turn toward less reputable clients-the apartheid government in South Africa, the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
The book's most interesting sections deal with two infamous incidents in Bull's career, his 1980 conviction on charges of illegally exporting arms to South Africa and his role in Saddam Hussein's abortive effort to build a "supergun," the project which may have prompted his March 1990 assassination.
Bull's South African connection began innocently enough, with a contract to provide training simulators for air traffic controllers in the mid-1970s. But it was not long before the South Africans wanted to buy Bull's long-range artillery and shells, along with the know-how to build their own.
Bull gladly complied with their request, but as Adams makes clear, he did not act alone. Bull's dealings with South Africa depended on assistance from the U.S. Army, which provided shell casings from one of its own arsenals; the State Department's Office of Munitions Control, which unwittingly gave Bull a written "green light" for his roundabout scheme to get the weapons to South Africa; the governments of Israel and Antigua, which agreed to serve as transshipment points for the illegal sales; and the CIA, which turned a blind eye to Bull's activities because the agency wanted to put long-range artillery into the hands of U.S.and South Africanbacked forces in the Angolan civil war.
Before the whole sordid train of transactions was over, the South African government had stepped in as part owner of Bull's company, and an energetic U.S. Customs agent named Larry Curtis had gathered enough information to indict Bull on charges of illegal arms sales to South Africa. Bull was allowed to plead guilty to one count of exporting arms without a license, and he served a four-month term at the Allenwood Penitentiary.
According to Adams, Bull emerged from jail an embittered man, convinced that "he had certainly been let down by a number of officials from several U.S. government agencies, most notably the CIA, which had been perfectly aware of the arms traffic to South Africa and had endorsed it enthusiastically."
Shortly after his release, Bull was back in the arms business again. Operating out of his Space Research International office in Brussels, Bull went to work teaching the Chinese government the niceties of building long-range artillery, and he held some preliminary meetings with Iraqi military officials (arranged by Lebanese arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian). But it wasn't until 1987 that Bull struck a deal with the Iraqis to modify some of their howitzers, to help them develop several longer range versions, and to work on the much discussed Iraqi "supergun."
Adams speculates about what Saddam Hussein intended to do with such an unwieldy weapon, which could probably not have been fired more frequently than three times a day. He leaves open the possibility that Iraq did in fact plan to use the gun for Bull's original purpose, launching satellites. Leaving aside the question of the supergun's ultimate purpose, Adams provides the fullest account yet of Bull's contribution to Iraq's military capabilities, both through direct contracts with Iraq and through South African and Austrian arms manufacturers' sales of his howitzer design.
As for the lessons to be drawn from Bull's checkered career, Adams suggests in his concluding chapter that "Bull and his inventions are merely symbols of a greater problem: the failure of the international community to halt the spread of weapons throughout the world, and the seemingly endless cycle of proliferation that is a hallmark of the arms business."
Adams describes the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts to curb the spread of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional arms, and offers a few pointed observations about ways to improve them. The one thing missing from Adams's analysis-and it would make the strongest link with the rest of the book-is an analysis of how to deal with individuals like Bull who decide to sell their design and manufacturing knowledge to the highest bidder. A fuller presentation of Adams's views on this issue would have been a welcome addition to the book's concluding section.
Finally, the biggest mystery of the book-who killed Bull-is not definitively solved. It is clear that Bull was gunned down by a professional assassin outside his Brussels apartment in March 1990, for reasons connected with his ongoing activities as an arms merchant and scientific mercenary. Adams provides a reasoned analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a half dozen theories about who was behind Bull's assassination. He ends up leaning toward the now popular view that he was hit by Israeli intelligence, in part to stop the Iraqi supergun project, and in part to serve "as a warning to all the other dealers operating in the underground arms bazaar that trading with Israel's enemies is a dangerous business."
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William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms Transfer Control Project of the World Policy Institute in New York City. He is working on a book about the future of U.S. arms transfer policy
Bull's Eye: The Assassination and Life of Supergun Inventor Gerald Bull
by James Adams
Times Books, 1992
317 pages; $23.00
WILLIAM D. HARTUNG
Despite its sensationalist trappings- most notably the grainy cover photo of Gerald Bull caught in the crosshairs of a gun scope-the latest book by London Sunday Times Washington bureau chief James Adams provides a balanced and informative account of Bull's career as one of the most notorious postWorld War II arms merchants. At a time when Western governments are preoccupied with the question of how to keep ex-Soviet weapons scientists and engineers from hiring out their talents to Third World dictators, Bull's story offers a chilling reminder of how much damage one determined weapons expert can do to the cause of nonproliferation.
The first third of Bull's Eye describes Bull's rapid rise in the scientific establishment of his native Canada, from his days as one of the youngest graduates ever to receive a bachelor's degree in aeronautical engineering from the University of Toronto, to his role as founder and director of the joint U.S.-Canadian High Altitude Research Project (HARP) during the early 1960s. The HARP project was originally designed to fulfill his "dream" of constructing massive guns with the capacity to launch projectiles into space, but its main spin-offs were more mundane-long-range howitzers with specially built shells able to outdistance anything else available on the world market.
Adams uses the material on Bull's early career to launch one of his principal themes; that Bull's progression from "boy rocket scientist" to gun designer and eventually to arms merchant was a case of idealism gone sour, a byproduct of Bull's single-minded determination to find some way, any way, to finance and develop HARP. Adams argues that Bull's resentment of the Canadian and American governments, for not giving him the kind of support he felt HARP deserved, was an important motivating factor in his turn toward less reputable clients-the apartheid government in South Africa, the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
The book's most interesting sections deal with two infamous incidents in Bull's career, his 1980 conviction on charges of illegally exporting arms to South Africa and his role in Saddam Hussein's abortive effort to build a "supergun," the project which may have prompted his March 1990 assassination.
Bull's South African connection began innocently enough, with a contract to provide training simulators for air traffic controllers in the mid-1970s. But it was not long before the South Africans wanted to buy Bull's long-range artillery and shells, along with the know-how to build their own.
Bull gladly complied with their request, but as Adams makes clear, he did not act alone. Bull's dealings with South Africa depended on assistance from the U.S. Army, which provided shell casings from one of its own arsenals; the State Department's Office of Munitions Control, which unwittingly gave Bull a written "green light" for his roundabout scheme to get the weapons to South Africa; the governments of Israel and Antigua, which agreed to serve as transshipment points for the illegal sales; and the CIA, which turned a blind eye to Bull's activities because the agency wanted to put long-range artillery into the hands of U.S.and South Africanbacked forces in the Angolan civil war.
Before the whole sordid train of transactions was over, the South African government had stepped in as part owner of Bull's company, and an energetic U.S. Customs agent named Larry Curtis had gathered enough information to indict Bull on charges of illegal arms sales to South Africa. Bull was allowed to plead guilty to one count of exporting arms without a license, and he served a four-month term at the Allenwood Penitentiary.
According to Adams, Bull emerged from jail an embittered man, convinced that "he had certainly been let down by a number of officials from several U.S. government agencies, most notably the CIA, which had been perfectly aware of the arms traffic to South Africa and had endorsed it enthusiastically."
Shortly after his release, Bull was back in the arms business again. Operating out of his Space Research International office in Brussels, Bull went to work teaching the Chinese government the niceties of building long-range artillery, and he held some preliminary meetings with Iraqi military officials (arranged by Lebanese arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian). But it wasn't until 1987 that Bull struck a deal with the Iraqis to modify some of their howitzers, to help them develop several longer range versions, and to work on the much discussed Iraqi "supergun."
Adams speculates about what Saddam Hussein intended to do with such an unwieldy weapon, which could probably not have been fired more frequently than three times a day. He leaves open the possibility that Iraq did in fact plan to use the gun for Bull's original purpose, launching satellites. Leaving aside the question of the supergun's ultimate purpose, Adams provides the fullest account yet of Bull's contribution to Iraq's military capabilities, both through direct contracts with Iraq and through South African and Austrian arms manufacturers' sales of his howitzer design.
As for the lessons to be drawn from Bull's checkered career, Adams suggests in his concluding chapter that "Bull and his inventions are merely symbols of a greater problem: the failure of the international community to halt the spread of weapons throughout the world, and the seemingly endless cycle of proliferation that is a hallmark of the arms business."
Adams describes the strengths and weaknesses of current efforts to curb the spread of nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional arms, and offers a few pointed observations about ways to improve them. The one thing missing from Adams's analysis-and it would make the strongest link with the rest of the book-is an analysis of how to deal with individuals like Bull who decide to sell their design and manufacturing knowledge to the highest bidder. A fuller presentation of Adams's views on this issue would have been a welcome addition to the book's concluding section.
Finally, the biggest mystery of the book-who killed Bull-is not definitively solved. It is clear that Bull was gunned down by a professional assassin outside his Brussels apartment in March 1990, for reasons connected with his ongoing activities as an arms merchant and scientific mercenary. Adams provides a reasoned analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a half dozen theories about who was behind Bull's assassination. He ends up leaning toward the now popular view that he was hit by Israeli intelligence, in part to stop the Iraqi supergun project, and in part to serve "as a warning to all the other dealers operating in the underground arms bazaar that trading with Israel's enemies is a dangerous business."
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William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms Transfer Control Project of the World Policy Institute in New York City. He is working on a book about the future of U.S. arms transfer policy
#7
MosJan
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Posted 11 August 2001 - 05:07 AM
After examining a secret government document, a Los Angeles federal judge on Monday agreed to sentence an international arms dealer with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency to 10 months in prison--time already served--on a charge of wire fraud.
In exchange for Sarkis Soghanalian's cooperation in an unspecified investigation, the U.S. attorney's office recommended that he spend no further time behind bars.
At the outset of Monday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew appeared to be leaning toward a stiffer sentence, but he shifted ground after a federal prosecutor showed him the government document during a whispered sidebar huddle. Assistant U.S. Atty. Terri A. Law declined afterward to reveal any details of Soghanalian's cooperation. "It's all under seal," she told reporters.
As an arms dealer, the 71-year-old Soghanalian has brokered billions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions over the years to the Christian militia in Lebanon, to Argentina during the Falklands war, to the Nicaraguan Contras and to Iraq during that country's war with Iran.
Soghanalian, nicknamed "the Merchant of Death," claims many of those deals were aided or tacitly approved by the CIA.
During the early 1990s, Soghanalian served two years of a 6 1/2-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to smuggle 103 combat helicopters to Saddam Hussein's military. He had his sentence reduced after providing intelligence that helped U.S. authorities break up a counterfeiting ring that was dumping millions of dollars in fake $100 bills in Lebanon.
In the current case, Soghanalian pleaded guilty earlier this year to taking part in a scheme to cash a stolen $250,000 cashier's check, a crime punishable by up to five years behind bars.
Millions Donated to Armenian Projects
Soghanalian, a heavyset man who walks with a limp and suffers from heart disease, was accompanied to court Monday by Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian, primate of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America, based in Burbank.
Defense lawyer Mark Geragos said Soghanalian, who is of Armenian heritage, had donated millions of dollars for Armenian community projects, including the construction of schools and the airlift of relief supplies to Armenia after the 1988 earthquake that killed nearly 100,000 people.
Although he once maintained homes in Miami, Paris, Athens and Amman, Jordan, and owned a 136-acre farm in Wisconsin, Soghanalian is a pauper today, Geragos told the judge. He lives with friends and relatives in the Los Angeles area, the attorney said.
Originally Charged in 10-Count Indictment
Arrested when he arrived in Miami on a flight from Paris in December 1999, Soghanalian was originally charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiring to defraud Great Western Bank in Los Angeles out of more than $3 million. Although held without bail as a flight risk, Soghanalian was freed with the government's consent after 10 months behind bars. His passport was returned to him as well, and he was allowed to travel from Los Angeles to Amman, reportedly to retrieve documents involving the sale of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles to Vladimiro Montesinos, the former all-powerful chief of Peru's intelligence service. The guns allegedly wound up in the hands of Colombian rebels.
In its plea deal with Soghanalian, the U.S. attorney's office agreed to recommend that he be treated leniently in exchange for his "substantial assistance to law enforcement." The prosecutor told the judge Monday that Soghanalian had lived up to his part of the bargain.
Judge Lew offered Soghanalian an opportunity to address the court before sentencing, but he declined.
In addition to his 10-month sentence, Soghanalian was placed on three years' probation on the wire fraud charge, in which he admitted depositing a stolen $250,000 check from City National Bank into his Paris bank account in return for 40% of the proceeds. The check never cleared, however. The other charges against Soghanalian were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
In exchange for Sarkis Soghanalian's cooperation in an unspecified investigation, the U.S. attorney's office recommended that he spend no further time behind bars.
At the outset of Monday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew appeared to be leaning toward a stiffer sentence, but he shifted ground after a federal prosecutor showed him the government document during a whispered sidebar huddle. Assistant U.S. Atty. Terri A. Law declined afterward to reveal any details of Soghanalian's cooperation. "It's all under seal," she told reporters.
As an arms dealer, the 71-year-old Soghanalian has brokered billions of dollars worth of weapons and munitions over the years to the Christian militia in Lebanon, to Argentina during the Falklands war, to the Nicaraguan Contras and to Iraq during that country's war with Iran.
Soghanalian, nicknamed "the Merchant of Death," claims many of those deals were aided or tacitly approved by the CIA.
During the early 1990s, Soghanalian served two years of a 6 1/2-year federal prison sentence for conspiring to smuggle 103 combat helicopters to Saddam Hussein's military. He had his sentence reduced after providing intelligence that helped U.S. authorities break up a counterfeiting ring that was dumping millions of dollars in fake $100 bills in Lebanon.
In the current case, Soghanalian pleaded guilty earlier this year to taking part in a scheme to cash a stolen $250,000 cashier's check, a crime punishable by up to five years behind bars.
Millions Donated to Armenian Projects
Soghanalian, a heavyset man who walks with a limp and suffers from heart disease, was accompanied to court Monday by Archbishop Vatche Hovsepian, primate of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Church of North America, based in Burbank.
Defense lawyer Mark Geragos said Soghanalian, who is of Armenian heritage, had donated millions of dollars for Armenian community projects, including the construction of schools and the airlift of relief supplies to Armenia after the 1988 earthquake that killed nearly 100,000 people.
Although he once maintained homes in Miami, Paris, Athens and Amman, Jordan, and owned a 136-acre farm in Wisconsin, Soghanalian is a pauper today, Geragos told the judge. He lives with friends and relatives in the Los Angeles area, the attorney said.
Originally Charged in 10-Count Indictment
Arrested when he arrived in Miami on a flight from Paris in December 1999, Soghanalian was originally charged in a 10-count indictment with conspiring to defraud Great Western Bank in Los Angeles out of more than $3 million. Although held without bail as a flight risk, Soghanalian was freed with the government's consent after 10 months behind bars. His passport was returned to him as well, and he was allowed to travel from Los Angeles to Amman, reportedly to retrieve documents involving the sale of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles to Vladimiro Montesinos, the former all-powerful chief of Peru's intelligence service. The guns allegedly wound up in the hands of Colombian rebels.
In its plea deal with Soghanalian, the U.S. attorney's office agreed to recommend that he be treated leniently in exchange for his "substantial assistance to law enforcement." The prosecutor told the judge Monday that Soghanalian had lived up to his part of the bargain.
Judge Lew offered Soghanalian an opportunity to address the court before sentencing, but he declined.
In addition to his 10-month sentence, Soghanalian was placed on three years' probation on the wire fraud charge, in which he admitted depositing a stolen $250,000 check from City National Bank into his Paris bank account in return for 40% of the proceeds. The check never cleared, however. The other charges against Soghanalian were dropped as part of the plea agreement.
#8
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#9
Lev7
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Posted 14 March 2006 - 05:13 PM
I wonder if he helped Armenia with arms duirng the Karabagh war?
#10
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Posted 16 March 2006 - 09:26 AM
I think there was a story about him on 60 Minutes about 10-15 years ago.
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Posted 17 March 2006 - 12:00 PM
Here is a quote from his interview
" What's your biggest accomplishment?
I helped a lot of countries keep their independence. ... I never lost a war. I helped Lebanon. They at least kept their republic. I squeezed Khomeini and helped my country's cause. There are other countries whose names I don't want to mention. I helped my country Armenia when they needed me. That's all I can say. ... "
" What's your biggest accomplishment?
I helped a lot of countries keep their independence. ... I never lost a war. I helped Lebanon. They at least kept their republic. I squeezed Khomeini and helped my country's cause. There are other countries whose names I don't want to mention. I helped my country Armenia when they needed me. That's all I can say. ... "
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#12
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Posted 07 October 2011 - 03:04 PM
At times one of the most well known Armenian , if notoriously so Sarkis Soghanalian has passed away.
WE have spoken about him on the Forum, the latest. See here what he (not)had said about helping Armenia;
http://hyeforum.com/...=1
Many sites say he was born in turkey, some describe him as furkish Armenian. An Armenian site says he was born in Beirut. Turns out he was born in the then Syrian Alexandretta. There is another tidbit that is omitted. If I remember correctly he was a chauffeur/ mechanic for the then King Hussein of Jordan where he may have rubbed elbows with world leaders. Also note below that the “memorial Srevice will be held at the L.D.S.** chapel in Miami”
**LDS= Latter Day Saints , i.e Mormon. Partially explained by the fact that his daughter Melo Hansen lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
http://www.nytimes.c...dies-at-82.html
WE have spoken about him on the Forum, the latest. See here what he (not)had said about helping Armenia;
http://hyeforum.com/...=1
====Posted 17 March 2006 - 12:00 PM
Here is a quote from his interview
" What's your biggest accomplishment?
I helped a lot of countries keep their independence. ... I never lost a war. I helped Lebanon. They at least kept their republic. I squeezed Khomeini and helped my country's cause. There are other countries whose names I don't want to mention. I helped my country Armenia when they needed me. That's all I can say. ... "
Many sites say he was born in turkey, some describe him as furkish Armenian. An Armenian site says he was born in Beirut. Turns out he was born in the then Syrian Alexandretta. There is another tidbit that is omitted. If I remember correctly he was a chauffeur/ mechanic for the then King Hussein of Jordan where he may have rubbed elbows with world leaders. Also note below that the “memorial Srevice will be held at the L.D.S.** chapel in Miami”
**LDS= Latter Day Saints , i.e Mormon. Partially explained by the fact that his daughter Melo Hansen lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Another trivia is that he had lived in Binghamton, NY before moving to Miami, and that his mother lived there until her last days.Arms dealer Sarkis Soghanalian dead at 82
The Miami Herald
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@miamiherald.com
Sarkis Soghanalian, the Turkish-born Armenian arms dealer who sold weapons to foreign governments and rebels on behalf of the United States — including Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, before he became America’s arch enemy — was known as the Merchant of Death.
“I asked him about it and it really didn’t bother him,’’ said his son, Garo Soghanalian of Miami. “He said, ‘I don’t care what people think of me, as long as they spell my name right.’’’
Which it often wasn’t.
Born Sarkis Garabe Soghanalian on Feb. 6, 1929, in Iskanderun, Turkey, he died Wednesday of heart failure at Hialeah Hospital, his son said.
He was 82, “an overweight 5-foot-8,’’ his son said, with a profound appreciation for Chivas Regal Scotch and late nights on the town with business associates.
Born into the Armenian Orthodox Church, “he was no altar boy,’’ his son said, and he never became a U.S. citizen, but he believed strongly in America’s causes and wanted to help.
Doing so took him to some of the most dangerous places on the planet, including war-torn Lebanon and Iraq, as well as to various federal prisons, once for about two years. But judges generally released him soon after learning he was on official government business.
One judge let him go to Jordan in the late 1990s to assist in the investigation of Vladimiro Montesinos, then Peru’s national security chief, suspected of stealing U.S.-provided drug war cash.
In addition to his son, Soghanalian is survived by his wife, the former Shirley Adams of Miami; daughter Melo Hansen of Salt Lake City, and sister Anahis Hartz.
Memorial services will be held at 7 p.m. Friday at the L.D.S. Chapel, 9900 W. Flagler St., Miami.
http://www.nytimes.c...dies-at-82.html
#13
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Posted 18 October 2011 - 03:14 PM
So Sarkis Soghanalian did not do ANYTHING for Armenia. Is that correct?
#14
Johannes
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Posted 19 October 2011 - 01:59 PM
So Sarkis Soghanalian did not do ANYTHING for Armenia. Is that correct?
Ըստ ոչ հաւաստի տեղեկութիւնների՝ Արցախ է ուղարկել հակօդային հրթիռներ, Սադդամից ազատել է պարսկահայ գերիներ:
#15
MosJan
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:04 PM
http://en.wikipedia....kis_Soghanalian
Sarkis Soghanalian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian (Armenian:; February 6, 1929 – October 5, 2011), nicknamed Merchant of Death, was an international private arms dealer who gained fame for being the "Cold War's largest arms merchant"[1] and the lead seller of firearms and weaponry to the former government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.[2]
Soghanalian, then a permanent resident living in Virginia Gardens, Florida, was hired on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency to sell arms to help Iraq in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War.[3] With the encouragement of the Reagan Administration and the backing of US intelligence agencies, he coordinated the transaction of several crucial arms deals, including the sale of artillery from France which cost an estimated $1.4 billion USD.[citation needed]
In addition to Iraq, he also sold weapons to other groups such as the Polisario forces in Mauritania, to Phalange militias during the Lebanese Civil War and to Latin American countries such as Nicaragua, Ecuador, and to Argentina during the Falklands War.[1] He extended his services to other regions of the world including Africa. Prior to the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, Soghanalian appeared in several television interviews, detailing the work he had done in Iraq along with naming several top US government officials who were involved in the arms transactions.
With this, the Justice Department charged Soghanalian for "conspiracy of shipping unauthorized weapons" to Iraq where he was found guilty and sentenced to jail.[4] He was released several years later when he helped the Clinton administration unsuccessfully break up a counterfeiting ring in Lebanon. He moved his office from the United States and opened up operations in France and Jordan. In 2001, was arrested once more by the US government on bank fraud charges but was released a year later after he revealed the weapons transactions deals that were going on between CIA and Peru, an account which arguably led to the collapse of the Alberto Fujimori government.[4]
Sarkis Soghanalian
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian (Armenian:; February 6, 1929 – October 5, 2011), nicknamed Merchant of Death, was an international private arms dealer who gained fame for being the "Cold War's largest arms merchant"[1] and the lead seller of firearms and weaponry to the former government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein during the 1980s.[2]
Soghanalian, then a permanent resident living in Virginia Gardens, Florida, was hired on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency to sell arms to help Iraq in the midst of the Iran–Iraq War.[3] With the encouragement of the Reagan Administration and the backing of US intelligence agencies, he coordinated the transaction of several crucial arms deals, including the sale of artillery from France which cost an estimated $1.4 billion USD.[citation needed]
In addition to Iraq, he also sold weapons to other groups such as the Polisario forces in Mauritania, to Phalange militias during the Lebanese Civil War and to Latin American countries such as Nicaragua, Ecuador, and to Argentina during the Falklands War.[1] He extended his services to other regions of the world including Africa. Prior to the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, Soghanalian appeared in several television interviews, detailing the work he had done in Iraq along with naming several top US government officials who were involved in the arms transactions.
With this, the Justice Department charged Soghanalian for "conspiracy of shipping unauthorized weapons" to Iraq where he was found guilty and sentenced to jail.[4] He was released several years later when he helped the Clinton administration unsuccessfully break up a counterfeiting ring in Lebanon. He moved his office from the United States and opened up operations in France and Jordan. In 2001, was arrested once more by the US government on bank fraud charges but was released a year later after he revealed the weapons transactions deals that were going on between CIA and Peru, an account which arguably led to the collapse of the Alberto Fujimori government.[4]
#16
MosJan
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:05 PM
FRONTLINE > Foreign Affairs / Defense >
Cold War “Merchant of Death” Dies in Miami
FRONTLINE has learned that Sarkis Soghanalian, a Lebanese-born arms dealer who sold weapons to rebels and autocrats, including Saddam Hussein, died of natural causes on Tuesday in Miami. He was 78.
Featured in our 1990 documentary, The Arming of Iraq, Soghanalian spoke candidly about how, with secret support from the U.S. government, he became the former Iraqi dictator’s major arms supplier during the peak of the Iran-Iraq war. Once fabulously wealthy, with a vast fleet of jet cargo planes and homes in a dozen countries including luxury villas in in Miami and Palm Springs, and a horse ranch in Fort Lauderdale, he died virtually broke, his family insists.
Capable of negotiating in eight languages, Soghanalian was a Lebanese citizen of Armenian descent, who proclaimed he was also a “patriotic American.” For several decades, he had a close working relationship with the CIA and U.S. military intelligence services. But eventually, these relationships soured when his weapons sales began running counter to U.S. policy. Nor did he pay taxes on his arms-dealing: Documents show that by the late 1990s, he had accumulated a massive IRS judgment nearing a billion dollars.
In his heyday, Soghanalian forged a close alliance with the Reagan administration, particularly with the office of then Vice President George Bush. That alliance snapped when the U.S. went to war with Iraq in 1991, and he was prosecuted for the sale of helicopters to Iraq during its war with Iran. Soghanalian always insisted that his sales to Iraq were done with Washington’s not-so-secret blessing.
Soghanalian also supplied Saddam with billions of dollars in weaponry from France, Brazil, Chile, and Austria, in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. All this was done with the knowledge of the U.S. government, according to Soghanalian, whose testimony was corroborated by officials interviewed for the documentary.
Publicly, the U.S. maintained it obeyed the United Nations embargo of the combatants in the Iran-Iraq war. But privately, Washington wanted Iran’s theocratic regime to be bludgeoned by the eight-year conflict with Saddam.
Like so many other things about Soghanalian, he was not what he seemed. The rotund gunrunner was also a philanthropist, donating generously to Armenian earthquake victims. He professed to be a staunch anti-communist, yet he had no qualms about turning to the Soviets to provide weapons for the Christian militias in Lebanon’s civil war. During the Falklands War he armed Argentina with French made Exocet missiles used to sink a British cruiser. He later acknowledged he “regretted” that transaction, saying it happened before war broke out with Great Britain.
Profiled twice on CBS’ 60 Minutes, as well as on FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, Soghanalian, was finally sentenced in 1993 to six-and-a-half years in prison for conspiring to smuggle 103 combat helicopters to Saddam, breaking the U.N. embargo. He wound up having his sentence reduced to two years by trading intelligence on the secret location in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where the Iranians and Hezbollah were printing counterfeit U.S. $100 bills. Known as “Supernotes,” these $100 bills were so authentic-looking that they were deemed a threat to U.S. national security.
Soghanalian landed in trouble again with U.S. authorities when he was indicted in 1999 for wire fraud and held without bail. His sentence was reduced to 10 months after U.S. authorities intervened on his behalf claiming he had provided “substantial assistance to law enforcement.” As part of the deal, Soghanalian turned over to U.S. officials details of a sale of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles he made in 1999 to the former Peruvian intelligence chief, Vladimir Montesinos, an erstwhile American ally, that ended up with leftist Colombian rebels. Soghanalian was allowed to leave for Amman, where he had close ties with the Jordanian monarchy.
Soghanalian traded information for favors from the U.S. government for decades. He maintained an ongoing relationship with the FBI after he became estranged from the CIA. Overweight and in poor health, Soghanalian finally returned to Miami to be with his family. At first, he was held in custody, but as his health worsened, leaving him crippled, he was allowed to stay with his family.
“He lived large and he played hard,” says his former attorney, Mark Geragos, who defended him in the Peruvian arms-running case. “Until I met him, I never believed one-half of one percent of the things he was supposed to have done. But they all turned out to be true.”
Photo: Soghanalian leaves federal court in Miami, Fla. on Oct. 4, 1991. (AP Photo/Bill Cooke)
Cold War “Merchant of Death” Dies in Miami
FRONTLINE has learned that Sarkis Soghanalian, a Lebanese-born arms dealer who sold weapons to rebels and autocrats, including Saddam Hussein, died of natural causes on Tuesday in Miami. He was 78.
Featured in our 1990 documentary, The Arming of Iraq, Soghanalian spoke candidly about how, with secret support from the U.S. government, he became the former Iraqi dictator’s major arms supplier during the peak of the Iran-Iraq war. Once fabulously wealthy, with a vast fleet of jet cargo planes and homes in a dozen countries including luxury villas in in Miami and Palm Springs, and a horse ranch in Fort Lauderdale, he died virtually broke, his family insists.
Capable of negotiating in eight languages, Soghanalian was a Lebanese citizen of Armenian descent, who proclaimed he was also a “patriotic American.” For several decades, he had a close working relationship with the CIA and U.S. military intelligence services. But eventually, these relationships soured when his weapons sales began running counter to U.S. policy. Nor did he pay taxes on his arms-dealing: Documents show that by the late 1990s, he had accumulated a massive IRS judgment nearing a billion dollars.
In his heyday, Soghanalian forged a close alliance with the Reagan administration, particularly with the office of then Vice President George Bush. That alliance snapped when the U.S. went to war with Iraq in 1991, and he was prosecuted for the sale of helicopters to Iraq during its war with Iran. Soghanalian always insisted that his sales to Iraq were done with Washington’s not-so-secret blessing.
Soghanalian also supplied Saddam with billions of dollars in weaponry from France, Brazil, Chile, and Austria, in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. All this was done with the knowledge of the U.S. government, according to Soghanalian, whose testimony was corroborated by officials interviewed for the documentary.
Publicly, the U.S. maintained it obeyed the United Nations embargo of the combatants in the Iran-Iraq war. But privately, Washington wanted Iran’s theocratic regime to be bludgeoned by the eight-year conflict with Saddam.
Like so many other things about Soghanalian, he was not what he seemed. The rotund gunrunner was also a philanthropist, donating generously to Armenian earthquake victims. He professed to be a staunch anti-communist, yet he had no qualms about turning to the Soviets to provide weapons for the Christian militias in Lebanon’s civil war. During the Falklands War he armed Argentina with French made Exocet missiles used to sink a British cruiser. He later acknowledged he “regretted” that transaction, saying it happened before war broke out with Great Britain.
Profiled twice on CBS’ 60 Minutes, as well as on FRONTLINE and FRONTLINE/World, Soghanalian, was finally sentenced in 1993 to six-and-a-half years in prison for conspiring to smuggle 103 combat helicopters to Saddam, breaking the U.N. embargo. He wound up having his sentence reduced to two years by trading intelligence on the secret location in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley where the Iranians and Hezbollah were printing counterfeit U.S. $100 bills. Known as “Supernotes,” these $100 bills were so authentic-looking that they were deemed a threat to U.S. national security.
Soghanalian landed in trouble again with U.S. authorities when he was indicted in 1999 for wire fraud and held without bail. His sentence was reduced to 10 months after U.S. authorities intervened on his behalf claiming he had provided “substantial assistance to law enforcement.” As part of the deal, Soghanalian turned over to U.S. officials details of a sale of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles he made in 1999 to the former Peruvian intelligence chief, Vladimir Montesinos, an erstwhile American ally, that ended up with leftist Colombian rebels. Soghanalian was allowed to leave for Amman, where he had close ties with the Jordanian monarchy.
Soghanalian traded information for favors from the U.S. government for decades. He maintained an ongoing relationship with the FBI after he became estranged from the CIA. Overweight and in poor health, Soghanalian finally returned to Miami to be with his family. At first, he was held in custody, but as his health worsened, leaving him crippled, he was allowed to stay with his family.
“He lived large and he played hard,” says his former attorney, Mark Geragos, who defended him in the Peruvian arms-running case. “Until I met him, I never believed one-half of one percent of the things he was supposed to have done. But they all turned out to be true.”
Photo: Soghanalian leaves federal court in Miami, Fla. on Oct. 4, 1991. (AP Photo/Bill Cooke)
#17
MosJan
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:29 PM
The Death of The Merchant of War
In late summer 1995, a fax arrived at my office. The written invitation came by mail a week later. Sarkis Soghanalian, the international arms dealers, had been released from an American prison and had set up shop in Paris. He was hosting his coming out party. A larger than life character, he wanted the world to know he was back in business. He also wanted to thank his friends and family who had stood by him through that awful ordeal. I was included because I had kept in touch with him throughout his prison term, bringing journalists to interview him. I knew if the media was watching, the authorities would be less reticent to try something sinister.
Sarkis with his assistant, Veronique Paquier, at the Paris air show.
I supported Sarkis, not because I was a friend, but because I had watched American intelligence officials over the years use men like Sarkis and Ed Wilson, the arms dealer who supplied Muammar Gaddafi, and then discredit them as convicted felons to undermine the information they had on U.S. actions. Men like Sarkis were no boy scouts, but I felt that if they were in prison for what they had done, then many American politicians and intelligence officers should be in there with them.
When Sarkis threw a party to reintroduce himself to society, it was not a small intimate affair. Sarkis entertained the people who had not abandoned him while he was in prison at his apartment on the Champs-Elysees with balconies overlooking Rond-Point and at nightclubs and restaurants in Paris on the days leading up to the big event.
On Monday, September 11, 1995, Sarkis threw a Gala Soiree at the Chateau de Versailles honoring his friend, Shimon Perez, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Like every visit with Sarkis, the festivities had intrigue. After walking across the cobblestone courtyard, I entered the palace and was escorted by Chanel models to my boxed seat overlooking the Versailles Royal Opera House stage. Zubin Mehta conducted the Israel philharmonic. Sarah Chang, dressed in the powder blue gown that matched the velvet curtain, was the featured soloist. American Ambassador Pamela Harriman sat in the audience.
From left: Sarkis, his wife, and myself and Susan Trento
After the concert I walked through the Hall of Mirrors to the Hall of Battles for dinner. I was diverted, I later learned, from my place at the head table to another table far away from the guests of honor. Over dinner Israeli MOSSAD officers questioned me about Sarkis and his relationship with Shimon Peres. They did not understand why Saddam Hussein’s arms supplier was hosting a dinner honoring the Foreign Minister of Israel. They did not know that they were friends.
One officer talked about the car bomb that had exploded outside a Jewish community center in July 1994, killing 85 people, in Argentina. They did not hide their contempt for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who, with Shimon Peres, had won the peace prize the year before for their work on the Oslo Accords. One even said that he deserved to die. It was quite chilling, especially from men who were supposed to provide security for Israeli officials. Two months later, Yigal Amir, a right-wing Israeli radical who opposed the Oslo Accords, assassinated Rabin after he spoke at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Sarkis was nothing like any movie version of an arms dealer. No writer was talented enough to create him. He began life by avenging the death of his father. He killed the man who killed his father in Lebanon with a machine gun. He armed the Christians during the Lebanese civil war and welcomed the U.S. Marines when they came ashore.
Over several decades Soghanalian took me into the bizarre world of arms dealing. He was a key source on a range of major stories. I introduced him to many other reporters and the result was the most realistic journalism ever done on the arms trade – an inside look at how American foreign policy really works. He did it because Sarkis loved the attention and used to say in his Turkish accent, “Joe, I do it because it is good for business.”
He was a brilliant man who outsmarted the governments who used him again and again. He made himself a target of the CIA and, because he dealt in huge amounts of money, he was a constant target for shakedowns by public officials who wanted a piece of the action.
The gap between who Sarkis really was and the media was never closed. He hated the CIA because he found the Agency largely incompetent. He would have been furious at his New York Times obituary, which had him working with the CIA. He never did. His case officers came from the Defense Intelligence Agency and White House. He made the CIA nervous because he repeatedly ran into their less than stellar arms buying operations and exposed and embarrassed them.
One episode involved the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile. The Chinese government asked Soghanalian to represent the missile which was capable of sinking the largest US ships. He discovered that the CIA had hired a company called Vector Microwave to buy a sample missile. What the CIA seemed not to know was that the American with whom they went into business was actually already selling the missile system to places like Iran. When Sarkis discovered in 1997 that Iran had amassed hundreds of an upgraded version of the missile, he asked me to bring in US naval intelligence so the United States could develop a defense against the missile. I stepped out of my reporter role and brought in the Navy through a source. When Soghanalian offered to get a copy of the missile, the Office of Naval Intelligence was forced to drop it because of the CIA’s fear their source would be exposed.
Still Sarkis agreed to try and help and even kept talking to the Navy about trying to get them a copy of the missile through Jordan. When terrorists attacked the USS Cole, Sarkis revealed to me that it was not a simple bomb that blew a forty foot hole in the ship’s hull but the warhead of a C-802 missile. That information remains highly classified to this day.
Flying over the Iran/Iraq front in a Russian helicopter, shortly after this photo was taken the helicopter crash landed.
Soghanalian was a charming rogue who loved a good time and had total contempt for most of the ministers and politicians with whom he had to deal. Before he would agree to take me and my CNN crew into Iraq in February 1984, he insisted we spend a week with him in Geneva largely meeting people who wanted to sell weapons to Saddam Hussein through Sarkis. In the evenings we would retreat to a Euro-trash hangout called Griffins.
I flew to the front of the Iran-Iraq war with Sarkis on a Russian helicopter. The battlefield was immense. We transferred to a smaller helicopter and flew close to the marshes Saddam had order flooded. I could see the bodies fallen in the gas attacks. I remember a tough interview with Sarkis where I asked him about how he felt supplying weapons that killed so many. His on camera response was tougher than my question and upset the US government. It was an eye opening experience.
Sarkis and I used each other. I was looking for great stories and he wanted access to the world media. When George H.W. Bush feared Soghanalian would reveal embarrassing details of his relationship with him, a number of Reagan aides and even Richard Nixon, the Justice Department went to extraordinary lengths to destroy the arms dealer’s credibility by convicting him of a crime. It succeeded. He was sentenced to six years for shipping illegal weapons to Iraq. The conviction was a joke. I was on Soghanalian’s plane when he ferried US intelligence officers into Iraq, supposedly when he was shipping missiles to Saddam in the 727’s cargo compartment.
Soghanalian was not stupid. The problem for his enemies was Soghanalian always had something to buy his way out of trouble. The first Bush Administration tried to keep him from the media by moving him from prison to prison. I tracked him down in the Dufeniak Springs county jail in northern Florida and brought George Lardner from The Washington Post with me to visit him. Sarkis told Lardner the bizarre role Richard Nixon played in a deal to sell the Iraqi Army $400 million dollars worth of military uniforms.
Spiro Agnew had a friend who was going to make the uniforms in Tennessee. But President Nixon’s former aide, John Brennan, used his old boss to go into business with the then Romania dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who made the uniforms for a much cheaper price. The uniforms were so poorly made that Saddam refused to pay for them and Brennan and his partners, including former Attorney General John Mitchell, sued Soghanalian. The lawsuit discovery was a tour guide into the greed of these Nixon cohorts. Soghanalian won the case.
When Soghanalian was moved into yet another Florida prison, I brought in a British TV crew for the show Dispatches. The arms dealer detailed how Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark was involved in a deal to sell unlicensed and illegal US night vision equipment to Saddam through a British company called United Scientific.
When the Clinton Administration took over, Sarkis provided the US Secret Service with the means to stop a $100 bill counterfeiting operation Hezbollah was running in Lebanon. At the time, Sarkis was in the same prison as Manuel Noreiga. Each day the Secret Service would pick Sarkis up, and they put together a plan to destroy the counterfeiting ring. In return he was released from prison and began operating out of a beautiful apartment in Paris. The French government provided him several watchers and Sarkis thrived.
The CIA still went after Soghanalian. A very strange American with ties to George W. Bush offered him weapons financing. Instead of taking the bait, Soghanalian contacted the FBI in Miami and told them about the approach. The Bush associate, in fact, was involved in a prime loan fraud scheme.
In one of his many moments of candor, he told me that no arms dealer can operate successfully without working with a major power. In Soghanalian’s case, it was largely the United States and France that backed his secret operations – rarely at the same time. During the Iran-Iraq War, Israel supplied weapons to Iran as Sarkis and the United States supplied Iraq. They deliberately fueled a war that killed a million people and kept two dangerous countries busy killing each other for a decade.
I was with him in Paris when the Saudi Royal family met at the Scribe Hotel to try and figure out how to deal with Osama bin Laden’s threats. They voted to fund bin Laden if he agreed to stay out of Saudi Arabia and conduct no operations there. Bin Laden prompted the meeting by sending death threats to the King on his personal fax machine. Sarkis predicted correctly that bin Laden would give the United States fits and the Royal family would always support him.
Sarkis Soghanalian with Peruvian reporter Angel Perez, who broke the story that broke down the government.
When George W. Bush decided to arrest Soghanalian once again, the old arms dealer revealed to the National Security News Service that he was behind an arms deal involving the CIA’s most important asset in Latin America, the then head of Peru’s intelligence service who had been supplying small arms to Colombia’s Marxist FARC insurgency. I tried to get The New York Times to do the story. They were not interested. I turned the story, instead, over to La Republica in Lima. They flew their star reporter from Peru to interview Sarkis. The story resulted in the collapse of the Peruvian government and serious questions about how little the CIA knew about its own paid “assets.”
I am posting the documentary I did for CNN in 1984 –Merchants of War – about international arms dealers. In the coming weeks we will post the last television interview Soghanalian did with dcbureau.org.
Later this year we will post the story of Soghanalian’s last secret: His role as an undercover witness for the FBI that targeted in a criminal probe one of the most powerful men in the US government.
The legendary arms dealer – the man the Reagan Administration used to arm Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against Iran – died on October 5 at age 82 in Miami.
You can learn more about Sarkis Soghanalian in the book, Prelude to Terror, available on Amazon.- See more at: http://www.dcbureau....h.MBtTVya2.dpuf
In late summer 1995, a fax arrived at my office. The written invitation came by mail a week later. Sarkis Soghanalian, the international arms dealers, had been released from an American prison and had set up shop in Paris. He was hosting his coming out party. A larger than life character, he wanted the world to know he was back in business. He also wanted to thank his friends and family who had stood by him through that awful ordeal. I was included because I had kept in touch with him throughout his prison term, bringing journalists to interview him. I knew if the media was watching, the authorities would be less reticent to try something sinister.
Sarkis with his assistant, Veronique Paquier, at the Paris air show.
I supported Sarkis, not because I was a friend, but because I had watched American intelligence officials over the years use men like Sarkis and Ed Wilson, the arms dealer who supplied Muammar Gaddafi, and then discredit them as convicted felons to undermine the information they had on U.S. actions. Men like Sarkis were no boy scouts, but I felt that if they were in prison for what they had done, then many American politicians and intelligence officers should be in there with them.
When Sarkis threw a party to reintroduce himself to society, it was not a small intimate affair. Sarkis entertained the people who had not abandoned him while he was in prison at his apartment on the Champs-Elysees with balconies overlooking Rond-Point and at nightclubs and restaurants in Paris on the days leading up to the big event.
On Monday, September 11, 1995, Sarkis threw a Gala Soiree at the Chateau de Versailles honoring his friend, Shimon Perez, who had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Like every visit with Sarkis, the festivities had intrigue. After walking across the cobblestone courtyard, I entered the palace and was escorted by Chanel models to my boxed seat overlooking the Versailles Royal Opera House stage. Zubin Mehta conducted the Israel philharmonic. Sarah Chang, dressed in the powder blue gown that matched the velvet curtain, was the featured soloist. American Ambassador Pamela Harriman sat in the audience.
From left: Sarkis, his wife, and myself and Susan Trento
After the concert I walked through the Hall of Mirrors to the Hall of Battles for dinner. I was diverted, I later learned, from my place at the head table to another table far away from the guests of honor. Over dinner Israeli MOSSAD officers questioned me about Sarkis and his relationship with Shimon Peres. They did not understand why Saddam Hussein’s arms supplier was hosting a dinner honoring the Foreign Minister of Israel. They did not know that they were friends.
One officer talked about the car bomb that had exploded outside a Jewish community center in July 1994, killing 85 people, in Argentina. They did not hide their contempt for Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who, with Shimon Peres, had won the peace prize the year before for their work on the Oslo Accords. One even said that he deserved to die. It was quite chilling, especially from men who were supposed to provide security for Israeli officials. Two months later, Yigal Amir, a right-wing Israeli radical who opposed the Oslo Accords, assassinated Rabin after he spoke at a peace rally in Tel Aviv.
Sarkis was nothing like any movie version of an arms dealer. No writer was talented enough to create him. He began life by avenging the death of his father. He killed the man who killed his father in Lebanon with a machine gun. He armed the Christians during the Lebanese civil war and welcomed the U.S. Marines when they came ashore.
Over several decades Soghanalian took me into the bizarre world of arms dealing. He was a key source on a range of major stories. I introduced him to many other reporters and the result was the most realistic journalism ever done on the arms trade – an inside look at how American foreign policy really works. He did it because Sarkis loved the attention and used to say in his Turkish accent, “Joe, I do it because it is good for business.”
He was a brilliant man who outsmarted the governments who used him again and again. He made himself a target of the CIA and, because he dealt in huge amounts of money, he was a constant target for shakedowns by public officials who wanted a piece of the action.
The gap between who Sarkis really was and the media was never closed. He hated the CIA because he found the Agency largely incompetent. He would have been furious at his New York Times obituary, which had him working with the CIA. He never did. His case officers came from the Defense Intelligence Agency and White House. He made the CIA nervous because he repeatedly ran into their less than stellar arms buying operations and exposed and embarrassed them.
One episode involved the Chinese C-802 anti-ship missile. The Chinese government asked Soghanalian to represent the missile which was capable of sinking the largest US ships. He discovered that the CIA had hired a company called Vector Microwave to buy a sample missile. What the CIA seemed not to know was that the American with whom they went into business was actually already selling the missile system to places like Iran. When Sarkis discovered in 1997 that Iran had amassed hundreds of an upgraded version of the missile, he asked me to bring in US naval intelligence so the United States could develop a defense against the missile. I stepped out of my reporter role and brought in the Navy through a source. When Soghanalian offered to get a copy of the missile, the Office of Naval Intelligence was forced to drop it because of the CIA’s fear their source would be exposed.
Still Sarkis agreed to try and help and even kept talking to the Navy about trying to get them a copy of the missile through Jordan. When terrorists attacked the USS Cole, Sarkis revealed to me that it was not a simple bomb that blew a forty foot hole in the ship’s hull but the warhead of a C-802 missile. That information remains highly classified to this day.
Flying over the Iran/Iraq front in a Russian helicopter, shortly after this photo was taken the helicopter crash landed.
Soghanalian was a charming rogue who loved a good time and had total contempt for most of the ministers and politicians with whom he had to deal. Before he would agree to take me and my CNN crew into Iraq in February 1984, he insisted we spend a week with him in Geneva largely meeting people who wanted to sell weapons to Saddam Hussein through Sarkis. In the evenings we would retreat to a Euro-trash hangout called Griffins.
I flew to the front of the Iran-Iraq war with Sarkis on a Russian helicopter. The battlefield was immense. We transferred to a smaller helicopter and flew close to the marshes Saddam had order flooded. I could see the bodies fallen in the gas attacks. I remember a tough interview with Sarkis where I asked him about how he felt supplying weapons that killed so many. His on camera response was tougher than my question and upset the US government. It was an eye opening experience.
Sarkis and I used each other. I was looking for great stories and he wanted access to the world media. When George H.W. Bush feared Soghanalian would reveal embarrassing details of his relationship with him, a number of Reagan aides and even Richard Nixon, the Justice Department went to extraordinary lengths to destroy the arms dealer’s credibility by convicting him of a crime. It succeeded. He was sentenced to six years for shipping illegal weapons to Iraq. The conviction was a joke. I was on Soghanalian’s plane when he ferried US intelligence officers into Iraq, supposedly when he was shipping missiles to Saddam in the 727’s cargo compartment.
Soghanalian was not stupid. The problem for his enemies was Soghanalian always had something to buy his way out of trouble. The first Bush Administration tried to keep him from the media by moving him from prison to prison. I tracked him down in the Dufeniak Springs county jail in northern Florida and brought George Lardner from The Washington Post with me to visit him. Sarkis told Lardner the bizarre role Richard Nixon played in a deal to sell the Iraqi Army $400 million dollars worth of military uniforms.
Spiro Agnew had a friend who was going to make the uniforms in Tennessee. But President Nixon’s former aide, John Brennan, used his old boss to go into business with the then Romania dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, who made the uniforms for a much cheaper price. The uniforms were so poorly made that Saddam refused to pay for them and Brennan and his partners, including former Attorney General John Mitchell, sued Soghanalian. The lawsuit discovery was a tour guide into the greed of these Nixon cohorts. Soghanalian won the case.
When Soghanalian was moved into yet another Florida prison, I brought in a British TV crew for the show Dispatches. The arms dealer detailed how Margaret Thatcher’s son Mark was involved in a deal to sell unlicensed and illegal US night vision equipment to Saddam through a British company called United Scientific.
When the Clinton Administration took over, Sarkis provided the US Secret Service with the means to stop a $100 bill counterfeiting operation Hezbollah was running in Lebanon. At the time, Sarkis was in the same prison as Manuel Noreiga. Each day the Secret Service would pick Sarkis up, and they put together a plan to destroy the counterfeiting ring. In return he was released from prison and began operating out of a beautiful apartment in Paris. The French government provided him several watchers and Sarkis thrived.
The CIA still went after Soghanalian. A very strange American with ties to George W. Bush offered him weapons financing. Instead of taking the bait, Soghanalian contacted the FBI in Miami and told them about the approach. The Bush associate, in fact, was involved in a prime loan fraud scheme.
In one of his many moments of candor, he told me that no arms dealer can operate successfully without working with a major power. In Soghanalian’s case, it was largely the United States and France that backed his secret operations – rarely at the same time. During the Iran-Iraq War, Israel supplied weapons to Iran as Sarkis and the United States supplied Iraq. They deliberately fueled a war that killed a million people and kept two dangerous countries busy killing each other for a decade.
I was with him in Paris when the Saudi Royal family met at the Scribe Hotel to try and figure out how to deal with Osama bin Laden’s threats. They voted to fund bin Laden if he agreed to stay out of Saudi Arabia and conduct no operations there. Bin Laden prompted the meeting by sending death threats to the King on his personal fax machine. Sarkis predicted correctly that bin Laden would give the United States fits and the Royal family would always support him.
Sarkis Soghanalian with Peruvian reporter Angel Perez, who broke the story that broke down the government.
When George W. Bush decided to arrest Soghanalian once again, the old arms dealer revealed to the National Security News Service that he was behind an arms deal involving the CIA’s most important asset in Latin America, the then head of Peru’s intelligence service who had been supplying small arms to Colombia’s Marxist FARC insurgency. I tried to get The New York Times to do the story. They were not interested. I turned the story, instead, over to La Republica in Lima. They flew their star reporter from Peru to interview Sarkis. The story resulted in the collapse of the Peruvian government and serious questions about how little the CIA knew about its own paid “assets.”
I am posting the documentary I did for CNN in 1984 –Merchants of War – about international arms dealers. In the coming weeks we will post the last television interview Soghanalian did with dcbureau.org.
Later this year we will post the story of Soghanalian’s last secret: His role as an undercover witness for the FBI that targeted in a criminal probe one of the most powerful men in the US government.
The legendary arms dealer – the man the Reagan Administration used to arm Saddam Hussein in his bloody war against Iran – died on October 5 at age 82 in Miami.
You can learn more about Sarkis Soghanalian in the book, Prelude to Terror, available on Amazon.- See more at: http://www.dcbureau....h.MBtTVya2.dpuf
#18
MosJan
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:31 PM
“Merchant of Death” Sarkis Soghanalian lived and worked in VG
Published Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The River Cities Gazette
By THEO KARANTSALIS
Dubbed the “Merchant of Death,” he peddled rocket launchers, .50-caliber machine guns and Huey helicopters from his Virginia Gardens-based office, near Denny’s.
Sarkis Soghanalian, 82, the Cold War’s largest arms dealer, once had a fleet of cargo jets and a luxury home on Miami Beach’s Hibiscus Island. He died quietly on Oct. 5 at Hialeah Hospital, his family by his side.
“A lot of people don’t know even one percent of what he did,” said Mark Geragos, a Los Angeles-based attorney who described Soghanalian, who tipped the scale at 300 pounds, as “larger than life.” Geragos defended Soghanalian in 1999 against federal charges he air-dropped 10,000 AK-47 assault rifles into a jungle that rained into the hands of Colombian guerrillas. “At first, I didn’t believe 99 percent of what he said. But then I learned it was true.”
Fluent in eight languages, Soghanalian separated himself from “amateurs” by not talking “too much.” When he did talk, the unsavory characters who listened included Anastasio Somoza, Sadam Hussein and Moammar Ghadafi.
“I helped a lot of countries keep their independence,” Soghanalian said during an interview for a PBS documentary. His murky arms deals have since been weaved into suspense books.
Soghanalian filled orders for jungle dictators, international spies and the U.S. military, and was featured twice on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He also inspired the main character in the 2005 film “Lord of War.”
In the ’70s and ’80s, he flushed countries like Nicaragua, Argentina and Iraq with weapons. A missile he sold to Argentina, for example, sank a Royal Navy ship during the Falklands War.
In the early ’90s, a Miami federal judge sentenced Soghanalian to six years in prison. He tried to sell Iraq more than one hundred “civilian” Hueys (Hughes helicopters) from his Virginia Gardens-based business, Pan Aviation, located near the airport perimeter road, two blocks from his home.
In the 1990 PBS-produced “The Arming of Iraq,” Soghanalian claimed he had the U.S. government’s blessing to load Hussein with weapons at the peak of the Iran-Iraq war. His sentence was reduced after he traded information about a Lebanese counterfeit ring.
Weapons sales were brisk, as records show he owed hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes to the IRS. When he wasn’t being chased by the tax man — or ducking contracts on his life by terrorists for arming Christian militias in Lebanon — he stood before judges to plead his case.
But Soghanalian, when convicted, never seemed to stay behind bars too long. He had a “get-out-of-jail-free card” courtesy of his best customer, the U.S. government. After all, his clients included the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon and the White House.
The reasons for his early releases from jail remain shrouded in secrecy.
Born in Syria to an Armenian family, Soghanalian once qualified through marriage to become a U.S. citizen, though he chose not to do so. He was especially proud of his Armenian heritage.
“Sarkis was a legend in the Armenian community,” said Geragos, also of Armenian descent, who is often a featured guest on cable news. “He was one of the most giving and philanthropic men I have ever known.”
When he could, Soghanalian used his power and connections to help his countrymen. In 1988, for example, he sent surplus aircraft to Russia after an earthquake killed and displaced thousands of Armenians. For these actions, he received kudos from President George H.W. Bush and Mother Teresa.
He “strengthened the ties that unite mankind,” Bush said in a statement after the aid.
Last March, Soghanalian re-established a special tie when he pulled a marriage license to re-wed his former wife, Shirley Adams. Adams declined comment.
“We never had any problems with (Soghanalian),” said Spencer Deno, the mayor of Virginia Gardens, who recalled a wheelchair ramp being installed in front of the home two years ago without a permit. “A nonprofit organization built it.”
Property taxes on the modest home purchased in 1999 for $57,000 haven’t been paid for almost 10 years, records show.
“Can we meet at another location to talk about this?” asked Soghanalian’s son, Garo Soghanalian, when the Gazette visited him at the Virginia Gardens home last week and asked about his father’s past. He agreed to be interviewed at Starbucks the following day, but never showed up.
One neighbor, who saw the family “every day,” took a long drag from a cigarette, then flicked it in the street after hearing about Soghanalian’s past. He declined to give his name but described Soghanalian as “friendly.”
Each day, he said, his wife pushed him around the block in his wheelchair while his Yorkshire Terrier barked and stood guard on his lap.
As cargo planes took off across the street from Miami International Airport, he recalled, Soghanalian paused and glanced up, as if he wondered where they were headed.
Photo of Sarkis Soghanalian courtesy of Miami-Dade Corrections.
Watch Discovery Channel "Merchant of Death" video below.
Published Tuesday, October 25, 2011
The River Cities Gazette
By THEO KARANTSALIS
Dubbed the “Merchant of Death,” he peddled rocket launchers, .50-caliber machine guns and Huey helicopters from his Virginia Gardens-based office, near Denny’s.
Sarkis Soghanalian, 82, the Cold War’s largest arms dealer, once had a fleet of cargo jets and a luxury home on Miami Beach’s Hibiscus Island. He died quietly on Oct. 5 at Hialeah Hospital, his family by his side.
“A lot of people don’t know even one percent of what he did,” said Mark Geragos, a Los Angeles-based attorney who described Soghanalian, who tipped the scale at 300 pounds, as “larger than life.” Geragos defended Soghanalian in 1999 against federal charges he air-dropped 10,000 AK-47 assault rifles into a jungle that rained into the hands of Colombian guerrillas. “At first, I didn’t believe 99 percent of what he said. But then I learned it was true.”
Fluent in eight languages, Soghanalian separated himself from “amateurs” by not talking “too much.” When he did talk, the unsavory characters who listened included Anastasio Somoza, Sadam Hussein and Moammar Ghadafi.
“I helped a lot of countries keep their independence,” Soghanalian said during an interview for a PBS documentary. His murky arms deals have since been weaved into suspense books.
Soghanalian filled orders for jungle dictators, international spies and the U.S. military, and was featured twice on CBS’ “60 Minutes.” He also inspired the main character in the 2005 film “Lord of War.”
In the ’70s and ’80s, he flushed countries like Nicaragua, Argentina and Iraq with weapons. A missile he sold to Argentina, for example, sank a Royal Navy ship during the Falklands War.
In the early ’90s, a Miami federal judge sentenced Soghanalian to six years in prison. He tried to sell Iraq more than one hundred “civilian” Hueys (Hughes helicopters) from his Virginia Gardens-based business, Pan Aviation, located near the airport perimeter road, two blocks from his home.
In the 1990 PBS-produced “The Arming of Iraq,” Soghanalian claimed he had the U.S. government’s blessing to load Hussein with weapons at the peak of the Iran-Iraq war. His sentence was reduced after he traded information about a Lebanese counterfeit ring.
Weapons sales were brisk, as records show he owed hundreds of millions of dollars in back taxes to the IRS. When he wasn’t being chased by the tax man — or ducking contracts on his life by terrorists for arming Christian militias in Lebanon — he stood before judges to plead his case.
But Soghanalian, when convicted, never seemed to stay behind bars too long. He had a “get-out-of-jail-free card” courtesy of his best customer, the U.S. government. After all, his clients included the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon and the White House.
The reasons for his early releases from jail remain shrouded in secrecy.
Born in Syria to an Armenian family, Soghanalian once qualified through marriage to become a U.S. citizen, though he chose not to do so. He was especially proud of his Armenian heritage.
“Sarkis was a legend in the Armenian community,” said Geragos, also of Armenian descent, who is often a featured guest on cable news. “He was one of the most giving and philanthropic men I have ever known.”
When he could, Soghanalian used his power and connections to help his countrymen. In 1988, for example, he sent surplus aircraft to Russia after an earthquake killed and displaced thousands of Armenians. For these actions, he received kudos from President George H.W. Bush and Mother Teresa.
He “strengthened the ties that unite mankind,” Bush said in a statement after the aid.
Last March, Soghanalian re-established a special tie when he pulled a marriage license to re-wed his former wife, Shirley Adams. Adams declined comment.
“We never had any problems with (Soghanalian),” said Spencer Deno, the mayor of Virginia Gardens, who recalled a wheelchair ramp being installed in front of the home two years ago without a permit. “A nonprofit organization built it.”
Property taxes on the modest home purchased in 1999 for $57,000 haven’t been paid for almost 10 years, records show.
“Can we meet at another location to talk about this?” asked Soghanalian’s son, Garo Soghanalian, when the Gazette visited him at the Virginia Gardens home last week and asked about his father’s past. He agreed to be interviewed at Starbucks the following day, but never showed up.
One neighbor, who saw the family “every day,” took a long drag from a cigarette, then flicked it in the street after hearing about Soghanalian’s past. He declined to give his name but described Soghanalian as “friendly.”
Each day, he said, his wife pushed him around the block in his wheelchair while his Yorkshire Terrier barked and stood guard on his lap.
As cargo planes took off across the street from Miami International Airport, he recalled, Soghanalian paused and glanced up, as if he wondered where they were headed.
Photo of Sarkis Soghanalian courtesy of Miami-Dade Corrections.
Watch Discovery Channel "Merchant of Death" video below.
#19
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:32 PM
Sarkis Soghanalian, born February 6 1929, died October 5 2011
Sarkis Soghanalian, who has died aged 82, was a flamboyant international arms dealer known as “the merchant of death”, selling weapons to Argentina during the Falklands war and to Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War – all while apparently also working as an American spy.A veteran of the global underworld of guns, spies and gangsters, he brokered about $1.6 billion worth of weapons to Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s. He ran arms to Christian forces during the Lebanese civil war, and sold munitions to President Somoza of Nicaragua.
But his dubious ventures seemed shielded from the full effects of justice. In 1981 he admitted fraud in the sale of .50-calibre machine guns to Mauritania. Although facing a possible lengthy jail sentence, he was merely placed on probation, the judge saying the case “involved international affairs conducted by the State Department”.
Then, in 1993, he was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for trying to sell 100 attack helicopters to Iraq. Even though America had recently concluded fighting a war against the dictator, Soghanalian’s sentence was halved when he exposed a ring of Lebanese forgers turning out top-grade counterfeit $100 bills. The trade-off was typical. Whenever deals went wrong and he found himself behind bars, he accelerated his release by offering intelligence in exchange for his freedom.
The 21-stone playboy plotted his thriller-like exploits from a house in Miami, one of several homes he maintained around the world. His income tax bill from various arms deals came to more than a billion dollars, and he was reportedly the inspiration for the main character in Lord of War (2005), a Nicholas Cage film about an international weapons dealer.
Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian was born into an Armenian family on February 6 1929 in Iskenderun, then part of Syria but now in Turkey. When his father died, the family moved to Beirut, where Sarkis left school, joined the army, and eventually moved into the business that would occupy the rest of his life.
The exact nature of the web that he was to spin over the next few decades is unlikely ever to be completely revealed. What is not in doubt, however, is its extent. He had top-level contacts with politicians, dictators and ruling royal houses around the globe.
His relationship with the CIA eventually came unstuck after a deal to supply weapons to Peru went sour. According to Soghanalian, he was wined and dined by Vladimiro Montesinos, the powerful head of the country’s intelligence service, on a visit to the Peruvian capital, Lima, in 1988. The Peruvian intelligence chief thanked him for brokering Peru’s purchase from Jordan of 50,000 AK-47 assault rifles and asked for another $70 million worth of military hardware, enough to equip a sizeable force. Payment would be in cash, with an advance of $22 million.
In the end, however, some weapons ended up in the wrong hands and Montesinos accused Soghanalian of belonging to a smuggling ring that had airdropped 10,000 AK-47s to Colombian guerrillas.
Soghanalian protested that the guns had all been correctly delivered, and blamed the missing arms on Peruvian corruption.
For the CIA, which saw Montesinos as an ally in the fight against South American drug cartels, Soghanalian’s story was an embarrassment, and their working relationship was ended.
The end of the Cold War cut off many of Soghanalian’s business contacts, and by the time he died, according his son, “he was broke”. “There’s been enough said about ‘merchant of death’ and all that,” said Garo Soghanalian. “But all the way back to the ’60s and ’70s, his goal was to help the United States. There was a deep-seated root of patriotism that often gets overlooked.”
Sarkis Soghanalian married Shirley Adams, a teacher at a school in Beirut, in 1958; they divorced in the 1970s, and he is survived by their son and daughter.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Read more: http://www.gangsonny...1#ixzz2WcMOdK1P
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Posted 18 June 2013 - 06:33 PM
Sarkis Soghanalian obituary
World's largest private arms dealer for more than two decades
Sarkis Soghanalian leaving a Florida court in 1991. Photograph: BILL COOKE/AP
For a man who lived his life in the shadowy, secret world of arms deals and spooks, Sarkis Soghanalian, who has died aged 82, never stopped talking. About his deals, his connections. To government agents, prosecutors and journalists. In private, on television. Often to keep out or get out of jail. Most of what he said, while well informed, was self-serving; much of it was difficult to prove and some was hard to believe.
Over two decades, Soghanalian was the world's largest private arms dealer – involved in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Angola, the Iran-Iraq war. A short, rotund figure, Soghanalian revelled in being described as "the merchant of death".
"That name does not bother me a bit," he explained.
He was also a long-time asset of the CIA, FBI and other US government agencies. He was a "cut-out" with "plausible deniability" on covert arms deals where the US did not want its fingerprints to be found. He supplied arms to Anastasio Somoza, fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and to Saddam Hussein, for deployment against Iran. He was an informant providing valuable intelligence. "You listen with your mouth and you talk with your ears," he explained. His Washington contacts were a get-out-of-jail card when deals went bad – to pull strings with judges and prosecutors.
Soghanalian was a Lebanese citizen – he was born in Iskenderun, Turkey, but his Armenian family later moved to Beirut. He emigrated to the US in 1958 and ran a garage before returning to Lebanon. He became the agent for Colt, makers of the M16 rifle.
During Lebanon's civil war, Soghanalian supplied the Christian militias and began his association with the CIA. He worked with Félix Rodríguez, the Cuban exile agent involved in tracking down Che Guevara in Bolivia, and Edwin Wilson, the renegade agent turned arms trafficker who supplied Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. "It takes a special type of character to make a successful arms dealer," Soghanalian said. "You need to enjoy taking risks. Trust and reputation mean everything. But if you want to stay alive, you have to keep your angels happy. You cannot afford to have governments on the other side of the fence. You must know who's going to be happy and unhappy."
With too many unhappy people in Beirut, Soghanalian relocated to Miami. He portrayed himself as a devout anti-communist. "I never sold arms to anybody on the left," he claimed in 2000 – after it emerged that he had armed the Farc rebels in Colombia. To help himself, and Somoza, Soghanalian defrauded the British arms dealer John Ralph in 1977 over $1.15m (about £640,000) paid to supply Mauritania in west Africa – fighting the Polisario insurgents – with machine guns. The guns went instead to Nicaragua. The rest of the money repaid Soghanalian's debts.
"He's not some sleazy, fly-by-night gun runner. He certainly is known to high officials of our government," Soghanalian's lawyer had declared in 1978 – the year he attended a White House dinner. Just how well connected Soghanalian was would become clear.
Ralph filed a criminal complaint but no action was taken until 1981 when Soghanalian was indicted for fraud. A year later, a highly unusual plea bargain saw him sentenced to five years' probation. The judge explained that the case "involved international affairs conducted by the state department".
Soghanalian supplied Exocet missiles to Argentina, which were later used in the Falklands conflict to sink HMS Sheffield. "The Americans knew what I was doing, every minute, every hour," he claimed on US TV in 2001.
His biggest deals, more than $1.5bn, were with Saddam, during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran from 1980. The US supposedly banned the selling of arms to both sides. Soghanalian claimed he was encouraged by the Reagan administration, but dropped when expendable. He was indicted in 1987 for conspiring to supply helicopters to Iraq. Described by the prosecutor as "a con-man, a master manipulator", Soghanalian was convicted in 1991 but, once again, help was at hand. In 1993, his six-and-a-half-year sentence was slashed to two, and he was released – in return for information on a counterfeit US currency scam in Lebanon. "When they needed me, the US government that is, they immediately came and got me out," he explained in 2001. "I can produce the intelligence information they need."
Banned from US arms deals and owing the US taxman $30m, Soghanalian moved to France, then Jordan. In 1999 he was arrested on arrival in Miami over a $3m cheque fraud. But again, the arms dealer had information to trade. He was released on bail after 10 months.
Soghanalian always claimed never to act against US interests – despite dealing with Libya – but earlier, in 1999, had supplied 10,000 AK47s to the Farc in a deal set up by the Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, a CIA ally. The agency believed the guns were going to Peru. The US was funding Colombia's war against the Farc. Montesinos went to jail in Peru. Because of his "substantial assistance to law enforcement", a 2001 plea bargain saw Soghanalian sentenced to the time served for the cheque fraud, plus three years' supervised release.
By 2008 Soghanalian, in poor health, was living in a low-rent Miami neighbourhood but still being visited by FBI officials, still looking to do deals, still talking. When he died, the man who once had several private jets was "broke", according to his son, Garo, who survives him, along with a daughter, Melo.
• Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian, arms dealer, born 6 February 1929; died 5 October 2011
World's largest private arms dealer for more than two decades
Sarkis Soghanalian leaving a Florida court in 1991. Photograph: BILL COOKE/AP
For a man who lived his life in the shadowy, secret world of arms deals and spooks, Sarkis Soghanalian, who has died aged 82, never stopped talking. About his deals, his connections. To government agents, prosecutors and journalists. In private, on television. Often to keep out or get out of jail. Most of what he said, while well informed, was self-serving; much of it was difficult to prove and some was hard to believe.
Over two decades, Soghanalian was the world's largest private arms dealer – involved in Lebanon, Nicaragua, Angola, the Iran-Iraq war. A short, rotund figure, Soghanalian revelled in being described as "the merchant of death".
"That name does not bother me a bit," he explained.
He was also a long-time asset of the CIA, FBI and other US government agencies. He was a "cut-out" with "plausible deniability" on covert arms deals where the US did not want its fingerprints to be found. He supplied arms to Anastasio Somoza, fighting the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and to Saddam Hussein, for deployment against Iran. He was an informant providing valuable intelligence. "You listen with your mouth and you talk with your ears," he explained. His Washington contacts were a get-out-of-jail card when deals went bad – to pull strings with judges and prosecutors.
Soghanalian was a Lebanese citizen – he was born in Iskenderun, Turkey, but his Armenian family later moved to Beirut. He emigrated to the US in 1958 and ran a garage before returning to Lebanon. He became the agent for Colt, makers of the M16 rifle.
During Lebanon's civil war, Soghanalian supplied the Christian militias and began his association with the CIA. He worked with Félix Rodríguez, the Cuban exile agent involved in tracking down Che Guevara in Bolivia, and Edwin Wilson, the renegade agent turned arms trafficker who supplied Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. "It takes a special type of character to make a successful arms dealer," Soghanalian said. "You need to enjoy taking risks. Trust and reputation mean everything. But if you want to stay alive, you have to keep your angels happy. You cannot afford to have governments on the other side of the fence. You must know who's going to be happy and unhappy."
With too many unhappy people in Beirut, Soghanalian relocated to Miami. He portrayed himself as a devout anti-communist. "I never sold arms to anybody on the left," he claimed in 2000 – after it emerged that he had armed the Farc rebels in Colombia. To help himself, and Somoza, Soghanalian defrauded the British arms dealer John Ralph in 1977 over $1.15m (about £640,000) paid to supply Mauritania in west Africa – fighting the Polisario insurgents – with machine guns. The guns went instead to Nicaragua. The rest of the money repaid Soghanalian's debts.
"He's not some sleazy, fly-by-night gun runner. He certainly is known to high officials of our government," Soghanalian's lawyer had declared in 1978 – the year he attended a White House dinner. Just how well connected Soghanalian was would become clear.
Ralph filed a criminal complaint but no action was taken until 1981 when Soghanalian was indicted for fraud. A year later, a highly unusual plea bargain saw him sentenced to five years' probation. The judge explained that the case "involved international affairs conducted by the state department".
Soghanalian supplied Exocet missiles to Argentina, which were later used in the Falklands conflict to sink HMS Sheffield. "The Americans knew what I was doing, every minute, every hour," he claimed on US TV in 2001.
His biggest deals, more than $1.5bn, were with Saddam, during Iraq's eight-year war with Iran from 1980. The US supposedly banned the selling of arms to both sides. Soghanalian claimed he was encouraged by the Reagan administration, but dropped when expendable. He was indicted in 1987 for conspiring to supply helicopters to Iraq. Described by the prosecutor as "a con-man, a master manipulator", Soghanalian was convicted in 1991 but, once again, help was at hand. In 1993, his six-and-a-half-year sentence was slashed to two, and he was released – in return for information on a counterfeit US currency scam in Lebanon. "When they needed me, the US government that is, they immediately came and got me out," he explained in 2001. "I can produce the intelligence information they need."
Banned from US arms deals and owing the US taxman $30m, Soghanalian moved to France, then Jordan. In 1999 he was arrested on arrival in Miami over a $3m cheque fraud. But again, the arms dealer had information to trade. He was released on bail after 10 months.
Soghanalian always claimed never to act against US interests – despite dealing with Libya – but earlier, in 1999, had supplied 10,000 AK47s to the Farc in a deal set up by the Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, a CIA ally. The agency believed the guns were going to Peru. The US was funding Colombia's war against the Farc. Montesinos went to jail in Peru. Because of his "substantial assistance to law enforcement", a 2001 plea bargain saw Soghanalian sentenced to the time served for the cheque fraud, plus three years' supervised release.
By 2008 Soghanalian, in poor health, was living in a low-rent Miami neighbourhood but still being visited by FBI officials, still looking to do deals, still talking. When he died, the man who once had several private jets was "broke", according to his son, Garo, who survives him, along with a daughter, Melo.
• Sarkis Garabet Soghanalian, arms dealer, born 6 February 1929; died 5 October 2011
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