Deadly Business: Legal Deals and Outlaw Weapons : The Arming of Iran and Iraq, 1975 to the Present - Softcover

Krosney, Herbert

9781568580067: Deadly Business: Legal Deals and Outlaw Weapons : The Arming of Iran and Iraq, 1975 to the Present

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1568580061 ISBN 13: 9781568580067

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Pr, 1993

A real-life spy story of how outlaw nations are arming themselves with the deadliest high-tech weaponry the West has to offer. Krosney investigates the struggle for dominance between the two major Gulf countries--a contest that has frightening implications for the rest of the world. Photos.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

A chilling report on how Western vendors have, over the past two decades, helped two of the Middle East's more unstable regimes acquire state-of-the-art arsenals. Drawing mainly on his own contacts with interested intelligence services, as well as with key players in the lucrative arms trade, documentary-film producer Krosney explains how oil-rich Iran and Iraq have managed to procure not only advanced weaponry (including missiles) but also the means to build nuclear ordnance. By his authoritative account, an alarming volume of such business is done not by outlaw dealers but by otherwise legitimate enterprises in Germany, Switzerland, the US, and elsewhere-- businesses that are willing to evade or ignore embargoes imposed by their own governments. Because of application ambiguities (e.g., the alloys in modern commercial magnets may be employed in either audio speakers or centrifuge programs, while agricultural chemicals are easily converted into poison gases), venal suppliers can plausibly deny any illegal intent in their export efforts. With jobs as well as profits at stake, moreover, Washington and other First World capitals don't always clamp down as hard as they might on either contraband traffic or potentially dangerous transfers of dual-use technologies. If the industrial powers don't move quickly and forcefully to restrict the proliferation of military material to backward but belligerent nations, Krosney concludes, the world could, among other unfortunate consequences, lose the peace dividend that was supposed to have been declared in the wake of the cold war. A timely alert for anyone lulled into a false sense of security by the USSR's collapse. -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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