JINSA Report #597 They Sold Them WHAT? For WHAT?

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August 23, 2006

JINSA Report #597

They Sold Them WHAT? For WHAT?

Israeli forces report finding night vision equipment manufactured in the
UK in the possession of Hezbollah forces in Lebanon. News accounts
indicate that the equipment was sold by the UK to Iran and was intended
to "bolster Iranian efforts to combat heroin smuggling across the Afghan
border as part of the UN Drug Control Program."

OK. We could say a lot of things about British participation in a UN
Drug Control Program that relies on Iran. But we won't, being reminded
of the brilliant American decision in the 1980s to take Syrian General
Ghazi Kanaan, then-commander of Syrian forces in Lebanon and thus Drug
Lord of the Bekaa Valley, on a tour of our own DEA. There is something
about drug policy that makes idiots out of otherwise normal people.

It should be no surprise that items with military application sold to
Iran wound up with Hezbollah. It was a Chinese C-802 missile sold to
Iran that hit Israel's Sa'ar 5 missile boat, and Israel faced French and
Russian anti-tank missiles sold to Syria.

But it is surprising that the British government would have, under any
circumstances, allowed the sale. According to The Guardian, "When the
night vision equipment was authorised for export, Patrick O'Brien, then
a junior minister in the Foreign Office...said there 'was no risk of
these goods being diverted for use by the Iranian military.'" The
Guardian added, "The Foreign Office was unable today to say what
safeguards had been in place to ensure that."

Our questions: What other equipment did the British government sell to
Iran and where will we find it? Are there night vision goggles in the
hands of Iranian-backed Shiites in Iraq, threatening UK forces as well
as American forces? Do the British goggles have American components?
Does the U.S. have any recourse?

During the first Gulf War there was a major incident in which Iraqi
forces used night vision equipment that was purchased from the Dutch
company Delft Instruments N.V. The company purchased infrared sensors
and thermal imaging scanners from U.S. defense contractors and
re-exported them illegally to Iraq. The Iraqis used this equipment
successfully during their night attack across the border into the Saudi
town of Kafji. U.S. intelligence had been unaware that Iraq possessed
night vision equipment for its Soviet-built tanks, until it cost the
lives of Allied soldiers. As a result, Delft Instruments N.V. was barred
from business in the U.S.

JINSA has long believed that Western countries have an obligation to
manage and direct licensing for military equipment sold abroad with an
eye toward the risks of meeting one's own or allied technology in the
hands of an enemy. It was a French Exocet Missile that sank the British
ship HMS Sheffield in the Falklands War, and crippled the USS Stark in
the Persian Gulf.

The British are our friends and our best allies in the Middle East, but
the Bush Administration should consider carefully any impulse to
overlook this. The stakes are high for Israel, but the implications for
the rest of us are frightening as well.

To view this JINSA Report online click on the link below.
http://www.jinsa.org/JINSAReports/3520

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