-Caveat Lector-
>From Boston Globe
> US arms, training aided Milosevic
>
> Nearly $1b in weapons shipped
>
> By David Abel, Globe Correspondent, 07/04/99
>
> <W>ASHINGTON - Following a pattern of supplying future foes
> with high-tech weapons, the United States furnished Yugoslavia
> with nearly $1 billion in arms during the past five decades,
> according to the Pentagon's Security Cooperation Agency.
>
> After Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1987, the United States
> continued the flow of weapons, including fighter aircraft, tanks,
> and artillery. In all, $96 million in arms and training was
> provided for the Milosevic government before 1991, when war in
> the Balkans brought the program to a halt.
>
> The United States, which dominates the world's arms trade, sold
> or gave away more than $21 billion in weapons to 168 nations in
> 1997, the last year statistics were available, according to
> Demilitarization for Democracy, a group in Washington that
> advocates arms control.
>
> ''President Clinton justifies today's record arms exports to
> dictators as a way to gain influence and encourage reform,'' said
> Caleb Rossiter, director of Demilitarization for Democracy,
> saying that at least 52 recipients of US arms are nondemocratic
> nations. ''But the billion-dollar military investment in
> Yugoslavia's dictators was justified in the same way. Kosovar
> civilians suffered from this policy and US forces were placed at
> risk.''
>
> US officials have long claimed the lucrative arms sales have a
> purpose beyond profit.
>
> During the Cold War, the prime justification was that by
> providing arms to countries such as Somalia or Iraq, both of
> which later used US weapons against American soldiers, the United
> States ensured their clients would be under US influence instead
> of that of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, officials argued that
> recipients of arms from America were more likely to promote US
> interests and contribute to regional stability.
>
> But since the fall of the Soviet Union, a significantly new
> justification for continued arms sales has emerged: maintaining
> the US military's industrial base in a decade of declining
> defense budgets.
>
> ''This is not a black-or-white issue,'' said Wade Boese, a senior
> research analyst at the Arms Control Association, a Washington
> think tank. ''Money is definitely a factor, and arms sales
> provide the United States with influence on the way militaries
> develop. But the key point is that weapons outlast the regimes
> they're intended to support.''
>
> Examples abound of US arms sales to friendly governments turned
> unfriendly. In Iran, the United States had helped prop up an
> autocratic ally during the 1960s and 1970s with the latest F-14
> fighters, Hawk missile batteries and modern destroyers. But when
> the shah's corrupt regime was toppled by Muslim fundamentalists
> led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the new regime usurped the
> modern weapons, instantly becoming a powerful enemy of the United
> States.
>
> Similar examples can be found in many countries, including
> Panama, Haiti, Liberia and Afghanistan. And in some cases,
> weapons supplied to countries still close to the United States
> have been used for purposes the US government later condemned. In
> Turkey, arms provided by the United States have been used to
> repress the country's Kurdish minority.
>
> The United States first began supplying Yugoslavia with arms in
> 1950, after the nation's leader, Josip Broz Tito, refused to join
> the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. US military exports to Yugoslavia
> that decade included 15 F-84G Lockheed Thunderstreak fighters, 60
> M-47 tanks and hundreds of artillery pieces and antiaircraft
> guns, valued then at more than $723 million.
>
> Military sales fell off in the next two decades but picked up
> again after Tito's death in 1980. In the 1960s and 1970s, the
> United States sold Yugoslavia a mine countermeasure ship and
> millions of dollars worth of sophisticated electronic equipment.
> In the 1980s, the US government and US companies sold the Balkan
> nation $193 million in air-to-surface missiles and air defense
> radar systems, some of which may have been fired at NATO planes
> during the 11-week air campaign that ended in June.
>
> ''It doesn't help to just slap on an embargo after you provide
> all these arms,'' said Anna Rich, a researcher at Washington's
> Federation of American Scientists' Arms Sales Monitoring Project.
>
> The best way to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again
> is by Congress passing a general code of conduct.''
>
> A bill was introduced on the floor of the House last month that
> would prohibit arms sales to nondemocratic governments that fail
> to protect human rights, engage in armed aggression and do not
> fully participate in the UN Register of Conventional Arms.
>
> As the bill has so far been drafted, there would be two
> exceptions: The president could request Congress to exempt a
> country if it is in the national security interest to provide
> military support to that nation or if there is an emergency and a
> vital interest of the United States is threatened.
>
> Many longtime weapons specialists, such as retired Admiral Eugene
> Carroll, said a code of conduct is long overdue. He said US
> weapons have been turned against US diers too many times, he
> said. He also indicated US arms may have been used in war crimes
> such as those committed by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.
> ''The solution is to quit leading the world in the arms trade,''
> said Carroll, now deputy director of the Center for Defense
> Information, a Washington think tank. ''The fewer arms in the
> world, the better for the United States. There is just less
> potential for violence.''
>
> This story ran on page A10 of the Boston Globe on 07/04/99. ©
> Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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