Arms provisions in supplemental drawing fire

As Bush administration officials shop their emergency wartime supplemental around Capitol Hill this week, top officials are touting the $87 billion request as one that will ease the transition of power in Iraq and enable the U.S-led coalition's exit strategy.

This transition will rely in large part on funds to train and equip Iraqi soldiers, police officers and new paramilitaries. But congressional opposition to the idea of arming a country already awash with illegal weapons-and bolstering the country's military with advanced weapons systems at a time when Iraq claims no sovereign authority-could jeopardize the effort.

The president's fiscal 2004 emergency spending package includes approximately $5 billion to finance arms and military weapons systems for Iraq's army, police and new civilian defense corps. It also calls for a permanent end to existing prohibitions on advanced weapons systems exports to facilitate such transfers.

But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee are likely to oppose a permanent lifting of the weapons ban without specific congressional notification requirements on all transfers and further details on how the money would be spent.

"Is it really the best idea to send more munitions and weapons to a country that is flush with arms?" one Senate aide asked. "At the very least, we will want a greater level of transparency to see what's going there."

Currently, sales of weapons and other exports to Iraq are prohibited under the 1990 Iraq Sanctions Act, which called for an immediate end to all commercial and financial transactions with the "rogue" country because of its nuclear, biological, chemical and missile build-up, its support of terrorism and its human rights violations.

Previous legislation that implemented the president's fiscal 2003 emergency supplemental request for Operation Iraqi Freedom in March waived some of these prohibitions and allowed for some conventional military exports to interim army and police forces in Iraq. The legislation also enabled the transfer of nonlethal military equipment controlled by the U.S. Munitions List with a five-day congressional notification period.

But to arm the new paramilitary force, which will fall under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry rather than the military or the police, the fiscal 2003 legislation must be amended to allow military exports to other government and nongovernmental entities.

Few argue against the need to help Iraq defend itself. But aides caution that the net effect of the administration's proposed legislation would mean giving Iraq the same defense-trade relations status enjoyed by most U.S. allies-setting a dangerous precedent in what is considered an unstable region.

Under the administration's proposal, the United States would be free to export advanced weapons systems, including long-range, precision-guided munitions, fuel air explosives, cruise missiles, low-observability aircraft, other radar evading aircraft, advanced military aircraft, military satellites and electromagnetic weapons, to the Iraqi army and law enforcement agencies.

"The problem with this proposal is that there is no sovereign authority in Iraq to normalize trade relations with, and even if there was, how can we be sure that it is not going to become hostile to us or our allies," one House committee aide said. "If the administration is going to have U.S. troops there until the Iraqis are able to govern themselves, why do we need to start shipping major arms over?"

There is also a concern over the enduring nature of the proposed legislation.

"It might be better to address this issue in a larger authorization bill," a second House aide said.