U.S. protests against Russian arms sales to Iraq

Reuters | Sunday, March 23, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

U.S. protests against Russian arms sales to Iraq

WASHINGTON, March 23 (Reuters) - The United States said on Sunday it had protested to Moscow about reports that Russian firms have sold Iraq antitank missiles, night vision goggles and jamming gear.

A State Department spokeswoman said Moscow's response had not been satisfactory.

U.S. and British forces are fighting Iraq in an effort to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to find and destroy Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has denied it has such weapons.

The Washington Post reported on Sunday that the United States recently delivered a protest to the Russian government for refusing to stop Russian arms dealers from providing illegal weapons and assistance to the Iraqi military.

The newspaper cited Bush administration sources as saying one Russian company was helping the Iraqi military to deploy electronic jamming equipment against U.S. planes and bombs and two others have sold antitank missiles and thousands of night-vision goggles in violation of U.N. sanctions.

The sources told the newspaper Moscow had ignored U.S. concerns about the potential threat to U.S. forces.

"We regard this as a very serious matter," State Department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg said. "We thus have raised this issue with the Russian government a number of times, including at senior levels and particularly over the past two weeks. The response so far has not been satisfactory.

"We hope that the responsible Russian agencies will take our concerns seriously," she said. "We are very concerned about reports that Russian firms are selling militarily sensitive equipment to Iraq. Such equipment in the hands of the Iraqi military may pose a direct threat to U.S. and coalition armed forces."

Greenberg declined to say if the Washington Post report was accurate, saying she could not discuss intelligence matters.

[JohnHuang2]

Sunday, March 23, 2003

Quote of the Day by Erasmus

[tomahawk]

Russia is NO friend of the United States.

NOT an ally.

An adversary.

Putin is KGB. He is dangerous.

Build more nukes now.

[First_Salute]

No.

[vigilante2]

and how are they going to transport the equipment into Baghdad?

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Enemy Of The State]

Maybe we need to sell some weapons to Chechnya?

[lawdude]

"Guys GPS jammer and night google are not weapons. Comon!"

Sudden attack of dumb? What other use do they have?

What is a google? A search enjin?

[Yardstick]

And let's not forget one minor detail:

...reports that Russian firms have sold Iraq antitank missiles, night vision goggles and jamming gear.

[Paraclete]

the russians, french, and germans want to see us get bloodied.

[marajade]

"and how are they going to transport the equipment into Baghdad?"

There are allegations that they've been getting them there in with boxes of aid from the UN... can you beat that?

[piasa]

Add the Chinese to that mix. They're all hoping we'll be mired down.

With a little luck some of their "advisors" in Iraq will find a permanent home pushing up daisies there.

[piasa]

The UN was used as an arms conduit to Palestinian terrorists too, as I recall.

[marajade]

Unbelievable ain't it?

[TLBSHOW]

BLAME IGNORANT SELLOUT AMERICAN LEADERS OF THE PAST FOR THIS!

[CFC__VRWC]

I'm thinking that a few expulsions of diplomats from the Russian, French, German and Chinese embassies in Washington are in order here. It's high time we stopped taking sh!t from these enemies without dishing some out in return.