August 5, 1986: Covert Arms Sales to Iraq Nearly Revealed

Vice-President George H. W. Bush returns from his trip to the Middle East, where he has passed along a message to Iraq to step up its air war against Iran (see July 23, 1986). The covert machinations nearly become public knowledge when US embassy officials in Saudi Arabia, learning of the Saudi transfer of US arms to Iraq earlier in the year (see February 1986), question the Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar. Bandar, fully aware of the arms transfer, tells the officials that the transfer was “accidental” and the amount of arms transferred was negligible. The State Department is also curious about the transfer, warns that the arms transfer violates the Arms Export Control Act, and says it must inform Congress of the transfer. Such a notification would endanger the entire process, and possibly short-circuit another arms deal in the works, a $3.5 billion transfer of five AWACS planes to Saudi Arabia, of which Congress has already been informed. But after the White House notifies the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Richard Lugar (R-IN), and mollifies Lugar by telling him the arms sales to Iraq were “inadvertent,” “unauthorized,” and involved only a “small quantity of unsophisticated weapons,” Lugar agrees to keep silent about the matter. Another senator later approaches Lugar about rumors that Saudi Arabia is sending US arms to Iraq, and recalls that “Dick Lugar told me there was nothing to it, and so I took his word.” [New Yorker, 11/2/1992]