Radar deals with Baghdad

Jane's ^ | December 6 2002

[knighthawk]

An Anglo-American team of experts was invited to visit Ukraine on 13-20 October by President Leonid Kuchma to investigate allegations first made on 23 September by the US administration concerning Ukraine's complicity in busting UN sanctions on Iraq by allegedly supplying the Kolchuga military radar system in mid 2000.

JID had already received a copy of the report before it was publicly released after NATO's Prague summit and took the opportunity to investigate further.

NATO, the US and the UK deliberately timed the investigation in a phased manner to give the Ukrainian authorities an opportunity to come clean prior to the NATO summit. Instead, Ukraine has continued to deny the sale of the radars and is accusing the West of conspiring to overthrow Kuchma to replace him with a pro-Western president.

Five key issues continue to cast doubt on Ukraine's sincerity over the Iraqi arms scandal. First, the US and NATO no longer believe that the Ukrainian authorities are able or willing provide the truth on these questions. The US has declared there to be a "crisis of trust" with the Ukrainian government. The authorities in Kiev have only belatedly - and very reluctantly - admitted that Kuchma did authorise the Iraq deal with Valeriy Malev, head of the Ukrainian arms exports agency.

Second, the Ukrainian authorities are continuing to deny the authenticity of the tapes made illicitly in Kuchma's office in 1999-2000 by Mykola Melnychenko, a former Security Service (SBU) officer responsible for counter-surveillance and personal security, who is now in the USA.

Third, the Anglo-US investigators were refused access to two key players: Leonid Derkach, head of the SBU from 1997-2001, and Yuriy Orshanskiy, Iraq's honorary consul in Ukraine until September. Coincidentally, both were abroad during the visit of the British-US team. Investigators could not meet Malev since he had died in a highly suspicious car accident in April just as the Iraqi arms scandal broke.

Fourth, the Ukrainian authorities claim that the transfer of the Kolchuga radars could not have taken place because the SBU had supposedly halted the order, even though Kuchma himself had authorised the deal with Iraq. Setting aside the highly unlikely possibility of the SBU going against Kuchma's wishes, both the Anglo-US report and the US ambassador have poured scorn on Ukraine's arms export control system.

Finally, the US claims it has intelligence to suggest that the transfer of the Kolchuga radars to Iraq "may have occurred". The team found serious gaps in documentation that showed the export control system in place had been routinely violated. Investigators also report that the team often met Ukrainian officials who "refused point blank to answer specific questions".

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[knighthawk]

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