Sarkis Soghanalian

Soghanalian was introduced to the world of arms trade in the beginning of the 1970s. He sold his first consignment of firearms in 1973 (mainly consisting of American weaponry). However, he was soon able to procure weaponry from a number of Eastern bloc countries including Bulgaria, Hungary and Poland.[3] The arms consisted largely of small arms and infantry weapons. After the Lebanese Civil War, he branched out his arms operations to other countries, supplying the Christian Phalange militia in Lebanon, various factions in Ecuador, Mauritania and Nicaragua, and Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire, to Argentina during the Falklands War, and to Saddam Hussein. He was even able procure an American C-130 Hercules transport plane to Libya's Muammar al-Gaddafi.[3]

According to an interview he gave years later, the United States was fully aware of Soghanalian's operations when he began obtaining weapons for Iraq. He quipped "The Americans knew what I was doing, every minute, every hour. If I drank a glass of water, they were aware of it and what kind of water it was."[3] He had struck up and maintained a largely cordial relationship with the United States ever since the Lebanon crisis of 1958.[7] American intelligence officials had described him as a cooperative and reliable source in Lebanon, making him an ideal candidate to conduct the arms deal with Iraq.[8] With the beginning of the Iran–Iraq War in 1980, he began to sell weapons to Iraq with the blessing of the United States. Since there was an arms embargo placed against Iraq, the weapons were funneled through various countries. His most significant deal came when he procured French 155mm self-propelled howitzers (valued at an estimated $1.4 billion).[9]

Iraqi leaders had initially approached the Reagan administration to purchase American 175mm artillery, but had been turned down. They were, however, encouraged by American officials to procure the weapons through private arms dealers.[9] The Iraqi officials appealed to Soghanalian, then based in Miami, Florida, who in turn approached several European governments. He found French leader François Mitterrand inclined to conducting the transaction so long as the deal was kept secret, since Iran was holding French hostages at the time, and France did not wish to antagonize it. The U.S. encouraged Mitterrand to approve the sale, nicknamed the "Vulcan," as it passed through a complex set of transactions.[10]

Soghanalian defended the sales when they were later revealed on the eve of the Gulf War, in January 1991. He stated that, "We didn't give him those weapons to fight U.S. forces. The weapons were given to him to fight the common enemy [Iran] at that time. Which he did. There was no need to have direct confrontation with him and endanger American troops."[3] His other transactions to Iraq also included artillery from South Africa, which he routed through Austria as a "middle man," to bypass United Nations sanctions.[11] Soghanalian helped sell to the Iraqi army military uniforms worth $280,000,000 from Romania.[3]

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Soghanalian stated that top-level American officials were aware from the beginning of his deals in Iraq. These included former U.S. President Richard Nixon, former Vice-President Spiro Agnew, Nixon chief of staff Colonel Jack Brennan and attorney general John N. Mitchell. Encouraged by other senior officials, Nixon had written a letter on his behalf to expedite the sale of uniforms to Iraq. Soghanalian remarked that "They were not only in the uniform business. They would sell their mothers if they could, just to make the money."[11] He predicted that the ensuing war between Coalition troops and Iraq would turn into a lengthy and costly conflict, much like the Iran–Iraq War.