U.S. Assailed Courses Relevant to Missile Technology
By Nicholas Wood
Special to The Washington Post
Sunday, December 22, 2002; Page A26
BELGRADE -- Sitting in a Belgrade University cafeteria sipping an espresso,
Zlatko Petrovic hardly seems a threat to U.S. security. Slightly portly, dressed
in jeans and baggy T-shirt and sporting a bushy mustache, the 50-year-old
professor of aerodynamics seems friendly and mild-mannered. But the expertise of men like him, U.S. officials contend, has been helping
Iraq update old weapons and develop new ones. Over the past three years Petrovic and several other members of the
mechanical engineering faculty at Belgrade University have made repeated trips
to Baghdad, paid for by the Iraqi government. There they have taught
post-graduate students and researchers a range of subjects, including, in
Petrovic's case, fluid dynamics, a field essential in the development of
ballistic missiles. The teaching is part of a range of ways in which Yugoslavia has been
cooperating with Iraq's defense industry, earning the country a tough warning in
October from U.S. diplomats to cease such contacts or face sanctions. The
Yugoslav government, which has been approached repeatedly by the United States
during the past year about the situation, has acknowledged the problem and put
an end to the trade. In an interview, Petrovic said that he and several colleagues first traveled
to Iraq in May 2000. He and two other Serbian teachers were housed in one of
Baghdad's top hotels and driven daily to a building where they taught groups of
up to 16 people. He visited Iraq three times, most recently in May, he said,
staying for a month each time. Petrovic and his colleagues have not been
informed of the legality of their contact with Iraq by government officials, but
they presumed that they are no longer allowed to travel there. He acknowledged that his lessons could have had military value but said that
he was merely being hired as a teacher, and had no direct role in any weapons
program. "I am sure that education is not under the Security Council resolution" that
regulates arm sales to Iraq, he said. "I don't think I have anything to hide."
He played down the significance of his lectures, saying, "You can find these
lectures on the Internet." The role of scientists in possible Iraqi programs to develop banned weapons
has come under increasing scrutiny as U.N. weapons inspectors tour Iraq, looking
for signs that the country has or is trying to develop prohibited weapons. U.S.
officials maintain that visits such as Petrovic's highlight the ease with which
Iraq has been able to obtain foreign military expertise. U.S. diplomats have already cited the involvement of the mechanical
engineering faculty in the proliferation of missile technology. A protest sent
to the Yugoslav government by the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade on Oct. 17 listed
that relationship and also said that two Yugoslav companies, Brunner and
Infinity, both run by colleagues of Petrovic's, had helped Libya and possibly
Iraq in the development of a medium-range cruise missile. Djordje Blagojevic, an
Infinity associate, declined to comment. His colleagues said he is cooperating
with the inquiry. Petrovic said he worked with Brunner in Serbia in 1996-1997 to help develop
an unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone. Yugoslavia and Iraq have a long economic and military relationship. In the
1990s, it was a natural fit -- both countries were at odds with the United
States and were under U.N. arms embargoes. Petrovic said he was first approached in early 2000 about work in Iraq by a
fellow member of his faculty, whom he declined to name. He was offered $3,000
for a one-month teaching assignment, he said, an amount that would have taken
him six years to earn in Yugoslavia, which at the time was suffering from
inflation and Western sanctions. It was the money, he said, that persuaded him to say yes, not any sympathy
for the Iraqi government. "What we get for teaching is less than half [of what]
you need to live a normal life. The money [we were paid] could not solve all
your problems; it lets you live normally." In May 2000, he flew from Belgrade to Amman, Jordan, and was taken by taxi to
Baghdad. He said that this was a public transit point for entering Iraq,
monitored by foreign intelligence agencies, and the fact that he went by this
route indicated that he was not trying to hide anything. Each day, he and two colleagues were picked up at their hotel and driven to a
school. He was asked to teach advanced theories in a short period of time, he said,
but the facilities and computers were inadequate. Some of the students were very
capable and could keep up, he said, but after three or four days, most had
fallen behind because of the difficulty of the theory. Two of them, he said, seemed entirely clueless about the subject matter. That
led him to conclude they were members of the secret police, sent to monitor the
class. Contact with his students was restricted outside the classroom. "I could not
speak with them freely," he said. "It was simpler for me not to know too
much." He said it is now general knowledge in his field that Iraq is developing two
missiles with a range of about 60 miles, one type using a solid propellant and
the other a liquid propellant. By his understanding, this work was allowed under
the U.N. weapons sanctions because of the missiles' short range. He said the project was never mentioned to him during his visits to
Baghdad. Petrovic said he doubts Iraq can carry out a sophisticated weapons program by
itself. "They don't have the basics to keep things functioning," he said,
referring to facilities in Baghdad. "Even what they have does not work. They
would need years and years of outside help to do anything."
