Russia tied to Iraq's missing arms

[Vlad "SATtva" Miller]

> >on the arms-dispersal program from two European intelligence
> services that
> >have
> >detailed knowledge of the Russian-Iraqi weapons collaboration.
>
> Russians collaborating with Iraqis?  I thought the Iraqis
> were supposed to be on the side of Moslem Terrorists,
> like the Chechens.  I guess propaganda has no more reason to be
> self-consistent than Middle Eastern political behaviour, though.

Iraq under Saddam had always been a sort of temporal country in the Muslim
world. Since late '70s (just since CIA's protege Saddam ran out of control)
Soviet Union collaborated with Iraq in the arms sphere, but as with most
governments of the region, used this "partnership" and the region itself as
a playground, not unlike the US.

After the collapse of the USSR, Russian weapons collaboration with Iraq
gained pure business nature. (Yet it still was an attempt to annoy the US.
Probably exactly this aspect was the main driver of all this business thing;
after all, Iraq hadn't been the most significant weapons buyer even on the
Middle East.) And now Saddam is gone, but not the Iraqi's ~4 bln dollars
debt on weapon supplies which the new administration is refusing to return
(that is wholly logical from the US side - they have nothing in common with
this debt :-).

Saddam was a tyrant, but he was the only one who could control the borders
and not allow all this Al Quaeda scum to flood Iraq. That was predicted when
it was evident that the "liberation" operation is imminent, that is what we
see right now. So, did Russia collaborated with Iraq? Yes, it did. But not
with Al Quaeda terrorists.