COMMERCE COVER-UP OF HIGH-TECH SALES TO IRAQ?

(Washington, D.C.): According to an
independent review of Commerce Department
export licensing operations, senior
Commerce officials falsified reports to
Congress regarding U.S. high-technology
sales to Iraq between 1985-1990. As a
consequence, Congressman Doug Barnard
(D-Ga), chairman of the Government
Operations Subcommittee on Commerce today
requested that Attorney General Richard
Thornburgh conduct a full investigation
into possible criminal wrongdoing by
senior Commerce officials.

After holding hearings on U.S.
licensed sales to Iraq in September 1990,
the House Government Operations Committee
sought from the Commerce Department’s
Bureau of Export Administration, managed
by then-Under Secretary of Commerce
Dennis Kloske, a list of all U.S.
dual-use exports licensed for sale to
Iraq between 1985 and 1990. On 16 October
1990, members of the Government
Operations Committee wrote to Secretary
Mosbacher that they “and the people
we represent wish to learn all we can
from the recent past, especially in
supplying a country such as Iraq with
technologies and materials which might be
used for chemical, nuclear and biological
weapons.” Failing to obtain
Commerce’s full cooperation, the
Committee voted to subpoena such data
from the Commerce Department. Such a list
was eventually provided to that Committee
in October 1990; a “sanitized”
list was released to the public on 7
March 1991 containing information on the
goods and technology proposed for export,
the value of the sale and intended
end-users.

According to a Commerce Department
Iraq Licensing “Fact” Sheet,
the Commerce Department approved 494
license applications between 1 October
1986 and 2 August 1990; 171 applications
were returned without action, and 31
license applications were rejected. In a
4 June 1990 memorandum provided to
Secretary of Commerce Robert Mosbacher,
however, Commerce Department Inspector
General Frank De George contends that the
Bureau of Export Administration
altered information on this computer
print-out on at least 68 separate export
licenses. In fact, the Commerce
Department reportedly actually went so
far as to revise the stated
recommendations for export approval or
denial from other agencies. Even more
astounding, Commerce falsified the stated
end-use contained on at least five
export license applications.

“The Commerce Department appears
to have tried to cover-up information
that showed that it had done an abysmal
job of scrutinizing export license
applications to Iraq. If a cover-up was
indeed undertaken by the Commerce
Department involving doctoring of the
computer print-outs of U.S. high-tech
sales to Iraq requested by Congress, this
should be evidence enough that our export
control system cannot function when you
put the fox in charge of the chicken
coop,” said Jennifer J. White,
Senior Associate at the Center.

If indeed it is determined that the
Commerce Department deliberately misled
the Congress in its investigation of U.S.
technology sales to Iraq, the Congress
should act immediately to revamp the
current export licensing system. The
responsibility for restricting U.S.
exports should not rest with the Cabinet
officer whose primary responsibility is
to promote U.S. exports. At the very
least, the Congress should require that
export licenses, once granted, should be
made available for public scrutiny in
order to provide some checks and balances
in the current export control process.