Kuwait, Saudis Supplied Iraq With U.S. Arms

WASHINGTON — The Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian monarchies shipped U.S. missiles and bombs to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war without American approval, according to a classified report prepared by congressional investigators.

Kuwait, which was invaded by Iraq two years ago, provided the Iraqis with an undisclosed number of TOW anti-tank missiles and the Saudis sent Baghdad as many as 1,500 bombs, according to intelligence reports cited in the report by the General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress.

Other U.S. arms may have been transferred to Iraq by Persian Gulf states during the eight-year war, which ended in August, 1988, but the GAO investigation was stymied by the refusal of the Bush Administration to press for information from U.S. allies in the region, according to a copy of the GAO report obtained Friday by The Times.

The GAO report confirms an earlier story in The Times about the Saudi transfer and suggests that Saudi authorities may have misled U.S. officials about the number of bombs provided to Iraq. It also raises questions about the accuracy of the required notification the Ronald Reagan Administration later provided to Congress on the Saudi transfer.

The report sheds more light on the covert efforts of U.S. allies to help Iraq during this pivotal period, when fears were mounting that Iran was on the brink of victory. The Reagan Administration, though secretly tilting toward the Hussein regime to bolster its military position, was having great difficulty keeping track of what other nations were doing, even with U.S.-supplied weaponry.

The Bush Administration has admitted there were some abuses but has characterized them as relatively minor and inadvertent. However, critics have suggested U.S. officials were deliberately looking the other way while illegal shipments occurred to avoid having to notify Congress and then justify the transfers.

Although the State Department protested the Kuwaiti shipment, the Reagan Administration made no effort to recover either the sophisticated anti-tank missiles or the bombs provided by the Saudis.

The GAO report provides new details and insights on the unauthorized arms shipments but does not answer the fundamental question about how they occurred.

By directly questioning the veracity of a key American ally, the report could complicate the plans announced Friday by President Bush to sell sophisticated new F-15 jet fighters to the Saudis.

The GAO investigation was requested by Rep. Lee H. Hamilton (D-Ind.), chairman of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee, after reports that Mideast countries may have served as transfer points for U.S. arms bound for Iraq during its war with Iran. The report was completed last March but has remained classified “secret” at the insistence of the Bush Administration.

A State Department spokesman had no comment on the GAO report. The department said earlier that the Saudi transfer of the arms was inadvertent and that Congress was properly notified. Attempts to reach Saudi and Kuwaiti officials were unsuccessful.

The Times reported in February that the Reagan Administration carried out covert policies to arm Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war by allowing Mideast allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to transfer U.S. arms to Iraq with prior approval.

The tilt continued after the war ended as the Bush Administration provided economic aid and licensed the sale of sensitive technology to Baghdad.

The involvement of U.S. officials in allowing the arms transfers would be a potential violation of the federal Arms Export Control Act, which forbids countries that receive U.S. arms from transferring them to other nations without the written permission of the United States. The law also requires that Congress be notified of any such transfers, whether or not they are by authorized the U.S. government.

The GAO report confirmed that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had transferred U.S. arms to Iraq, but investigators did not find evidence that U.S. officials authorized the transfers. An investigator said the role of U.S. officials had not been a focus of the probe.

The report indicated that the Reagan Administration might have misled Congress about the magnitude of Saudi arms transfers to Iraq.

The Times reported in April that the Saudis had transferred an undisclosed number of U.S. one-ton MK-84 bombs to the Iraqis along with a shipment of British jet fighters in 1986.

“In 1986, (the State Department) received reports that Saudi Arabia had transferred U.S. munitions to Iraq,” said the GAO report. “In response to (the State Department’s) inquiry, the Saudi government said that 300 MK-84 2,000-pound bombs were inadvertently mixed in with a shipment of non-U.S.-origin munitions sent to Iraq in February, 1986.”

Congress, however, was not notified that the Saudis had transferred any bombs, Lawmakers were only told that the shipment involved “a small quantity of unsophisticated arms,” the report said.

The GAO also concluded that the actual shipment was apparently much larger than the Saudi government admitted. “An intelligence report . . . indicates that 1,500 rather than 300 MK-84 bombs were transferred,” the GAO said. “Furthermore, the intelligence indicates that an unknown quantity of (smaller) MK-82 bombs was also transferred.”

Investigators were unable to determine how many TOW missiles were provided to Iraq by Kuwait. But the report said that after receiving reports of the transfer in 1984, the State Department delivered a protest to the Kuwaiti government.

The GAO attempted to investigate evidence that 4,000 fuses for mortar bombs manufactured by Eastman Kodak Co. in Rochester, N.Y., were transferred to Iraq by the United Arab Emirates in the fall of 1989. But the GAO said the U.S. Embassy in that country refused to allow investigators to travel there to investigate the allegations because of “political sensitivities.”

The GAO report also found that a number of other nations transferred U.S. arms to Iraq without authorization from Washington. South Korea provided spare parts for 105-millimeter howitzers, Greece “probably transferred 400,000 rounds of U.S.-origin ammunition to Iraq in 1986” and Italy in 1985 sold “conversion kits to Iraq for Hughes helicopters that Iraq had purchased from the U.S. with assurance of non-military use.”

But the GAO also found that proposals by Jordan, Egypt, Oman and Greece to send U.S. weapons to Iraq were turned down by the State Department.

A separate classified State Department cable supports the possibility that additional U.S. arms were shipped to Iraq. According to the cable, an official with a Brazilian arms manufacturer told State Department officials in July, 1985, that his employees had unloaded sophisticated U.S. military equipment, including TOW missiles, at an airport in Iraq.

Waas is a special correspondent, and Frantz is a Times staff writer.