International Aid To Combatants In The Iran–Iraq War

During the Iran–Iraq War, both Iran and Iraq received large quantities of weapons. The Iraqi army was reinforced during the years 1980-1988 by secret shipments of American-made weapons, with Washington playing an influential role in the course of the Iran-Iraq War.

Iran

Military support

Support for the new Iranian government was divided. Following the Iranian Revolution, as many as 14,000 military commanders and officers were imprisoned, executed, purged or discharged under charges of being loyal to the deposed Shah and treason for a failed coup to topple the Islamic Republic. Numerous oppositions groups revelled against the clerical rule in Iran, such as the People's Mujahedin of Iran, as well as other leftists groups. There were also state-sponsored executions throughout Iran, and many trained engineers either fled the country or were forced to serve in their hometown, which had no use for their expertise. This had massively weakened Iran's army, leaving it incapable of protecting Iran's borders. Around this time, Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, decided was the perfect opportunity to launch an all-out invasion against Iran. Iran, in response, created a new military branch called the IRGC, which was initially tasked with fighting and shutting off numerous separatist groups formed and armed around Iran. Following the Iraqi invasion, the IRGC then expanded its field of operations to fighting Saddam's forces. The army, which was equipped with Western weaponry, was not prepared to defend Iran and so much of Iran's Western ammunition and heavy equipment were left unusable as the army was recovering. So the IRGC, tasked its first member, Mohsen Rafighdoost, with purchasing arms from the Eastern Bloc. Rafighdoost contacted and established positive ties with many countries including Syria (under Hafez al-Assad), Libya (under Gaddafi), North Korea (under Kim Il Sung), Bulgaria (under Todor Zhivkov), Poland, Yugoslavia, East Germany, China (under Deng Xiaoping) and eventually the Western Bloc (after Switzerland who indirectly sold Iran western ammunition, Argentina also reached out to Iran proposing arms sales and agreed to also train Iranians in TOW production) to purchase arms for the IRGC. Iran's recovering army, however, had its own logistics support who reached out to Western Bloc countries including the United States and, indirectly, Israel to purchase ammunition and spare parts for their Western-made military equipment. Syria, Libya (who supplied Iran with approximately US$900 million dollars worth of free arms and 30 Scud-B missiles and North Korea (who later supplied Iran with between 200 and 300 Soviet-built Scud-B and Scud-C missiles and transferred missile production technology to Iran) were the first suppliers of arms to Iran. Eastern Bloc followed suit under financial pressures as the Soviet Union no longer had strict policies on sanctioning Iran. Rafighdoost maintains that the equipment Iran received from the United States following the Iran-Contra affair, were non-functional and broken, and were only made usable after repairs. He was also contacted by a third-party with ties to Switzerland who agreed to provide Iran with Western-made ammunition. Rafighdoost also claims that he was approached by an Israeli arms dealer in his hotel room while he was in Switzerland, and he rejected him.

Iran was also backed by the Kurdish parties of KDP, and PUK, also the Islamist Kurdish Mujahideen in North Iraq, all organizations in fact rebelling against Iraqi Ba'athist government with Iranian support.

Logistic support

Iran's foreign supporters gradually came to include Syria, and Libya. The United States also provided covert support for Iran through Israel, although it is debated as to whether U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered the sale of weapons to Iran. Most of this support included TOW missiles.

Iraq

Logistic support

Iraq's army was primarily equipped with weaponry it had previously purchased from the Soviet Union and its satellites in the preceding decade. During the war, it also purchased billions of dollars' worth of advanced equipment from France, China, Egypt, Germany and other sources. Timmerman, Kenneth R. ''The Death Lobby: How the West Armed Iraq''. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991. Iraq's three main suppliers of weaponry during the war were the Soviet Union followed by China and then France.

The United States sold Iraq over $200 million in helicopters, which were used by the Iraqi military in the war. These were the only direct U.S.-Iraqi military sales. At the same time, the U.S. provided substantial covert support for Saddam Hussein. The CIA directed non-U.S. origin hardware to Saddam Hussein's armed forces "to ensure that Iraq had sufficient military weapons, ammunition and vehicles to avoid losing the Iran-Iraq war." Also, "dual use" technology was transferred from the U.S. to Iraq.

West Germany and United Kingdom also provided dual use technology that allowed Iraq to expand its missile program and radar defences.

According to an uncensored copy of Iraq's 11,000-page declaration to the U.N., leaked to ''Die Tageszeitung'' and reported by ''The Independent'', the know-how and material for developing unconventional weapons were obtained from 150 foreign companies, from countries such as West Germany, the U.S., France, UK and China.Paterson, Tony
Leaked Report Says German and US Firms Supplied Arms to Saddam
''The Independent''. December 18, 2002.

Iraq's main financial backers were the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, most notably Saudi Arabia ($30.9 billion), Kuwait ($8.2 billion) and the United Arab Emirates ($8 billion).

The Iraqgate scandal revealed that branch of Italy's largest bank, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, in Atlanta, US, relying largely on U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, funneled $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989.

Countries which supported either combatant

See also

* Iraq–Russia relations
* Iraq–United States relations
* Portugal and the Iran–Iraq War
* Israel in the Iran–Iraq War
* North Korean support for Iran during the Iran–Iraq War
* Italian support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war
* French support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War
* United States support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq War
* Soviet Union during the Iran-Iraq War
* Singapore support for Iraq during the Iran–Iraq war

References

External links

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
(Select "Iran" or "Iraq" as recipients from 1980 to 1988)

{{DEFAULTSORT:International aid to combatants in the Iran-Iraq War
Iran–Iraq War
Iraq and weapons of mass destruction
Military history of Iran
Military history of Iraq
Foreign relations during the Iran–Iraq War