UNITED NATIONS: Iraq’s 12,000-page declaration of its weapons programmes contains lists of American companies that provided materials that helped Baghdad develop chemical and biological weapons in the 1980s, according to a senior Iraqi official.

The public release of such a list could prove embarrassing for the United States and highlight the extent to which the Reagan and first Bush administrations supported Iraq in its eight-year war with neighbouring Iran in the 1980s. US military and financial assistance to Iraq continued until Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August, 1990.

The Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not name the companies or discuss how much detail the Iraqi declaration provides about them. The official said the American firms are named along with other foreign companies that provided arms and ingredients for making chemical and biological weapons to Iraq.

Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, said on Tuesday that he does not intend to release the names of foreign companies that provided material to Iraq. He said such firms could be valuable to UN inspectors as sources of information about Iraq’s weapons programme, and they would be unlikely to cooperate if they were publicly identified.

A Bush administration official declined to comment on the presence of American companies in the Iraqi declaration, or the potential embarrassment if this information was made public.

A 1994 report by the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee concluded that “the United States provided the government of Iraq with dual-use’ licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programmes.”

This assistance, according to the report, included “chemical warfare-agent precursors; chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings; chemical warfare filling equipment; biological warfare-related materials; missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment.”

Under a deal quietly worked out over the weekend, the United States received the sole copy of the dossier and supporting material that was intended for the council. Washington then made duplicates for the four other permanent council members: Britain, France, Russia and China.

The decision to give the declaration to Washington overrode what the council had decided last week, when members agreed to leave the report with UN inspectors until it was screened for material that might aid other countries in producing nuclear weapons.

Blix said the other 10 rotating council members will receive edited copies of the dossier by Monday, with any information that could help countries develop weapons of mass destruction excised by UN inspectors.

It is unclear whether the rotating council members will receive the list of Iraqi arms suppliers.

Arms experts say it is likely that companies from all five permanent council members sold materials to Iraq that were used to develop its chemical, biological and nuclear programmes.

“All the permanent five members are probably on the Iraqi supplier list. They all have advanced chemical and biological industries,” said Susan Wright, a research scientist at the University of Michigan and co-author of the book, “Biological Warfare and Disarmament.”

At the heart of US and other foreign companies’ trade with Iraq in the 1980s were so-called “dual-use” materials, which have both civilian and military applications. Under the new Security Council resolution, Iraq had to account for all its “dual-use” programmes and materials.

The 1994 Senate report found that the United States had licensed dozens of companies to export various key materials that helped Iraq produce mustard gas, VX nerve agent, anthrax and other biological and chemical weapons.

Shipments to Iraq continued even after the United States learned that Saddam had used chemical weapons against Iranian troops and against Kurdish villagers in northern Iraq in 1988, according to Congressional investigators.

The US-Iraqi relationship flourished from February 1986, when then-Vice President George Bush met with Iraq’s ambassador to Washington, Nizar Hamdoon, and assured him that Baghdad would be permitted to receive more sophisticated US technology, until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Over that four-year period, the Reagan and Bush administrations approved licenses for the export of more than $600 million worth of advanced American technology to Iraq, according to congressional reports.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, documents obtained by the then-chairman of the House Banking Committee, Rep. Henry Gonzalez, D-Texas, indicated that Bush and Secretary of State James Baker personally pressured cabinet secretaries and agency heads into reversing decisions that would have denied Saddam any US technology with military applications.

“The United States had a very different posture toward Iraq in the 1980s, when it was politically and militarily advantageous to use Iraq as an ally against Iran,” Wright said. “Our attitude toward Iraq has been opportunist, rather than principled.”—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service-Washington Post (c) Newsday.