For those who unswervingly believe in the evils of the United States and our complicity in arming Saddam Hussein (will the real Michael Moore please stand up, please stand up?), here is a helpful chart detailing arms deliveries to Iraq from 1973-2002. US deliveries did not begun until 1983. Totals are expressed in millions of 1990 dollars. Since the chart is PDF’d down to too freaking small to read (not really, it’s just annoyingly small), here is a truncated chart. The chart below displays data from 1979 on (1979 is when Saddam Hussein took power in Iraq). US weapons exports began in 1983.
| Country | Total | % Share |
| USSR | 17503 | 50.78% |
| France | 5221 | 15.15% |
| China | 5192 | 15.06% |
| Czechoslovakia | 1540 | 4.47% |
| Poland | 1626 | 4.72% |
| Brazil | 724 | 2.10% |
| Egypt | 568 | 1.65% |
| Romania | 524 | 1.52% |
| Denmark | 226 | 0.66% |
| Libya | 200 | 0.58% |
| USA | 200 | 0.58% |
Huh. Okay. We’re evil, I’ll grant you that. We are complicit in arming Hussein. I’ll grant you that. But can you really say we’re the most evil, Hitlerish nation in the world? Not based on these facts, you can’t. But then, when did facts get in the way of Bush = Hitler sloganeering?
Any idea what percentage of the dollar value between 1973 & 1983 is that needs to be removed from the table to make it more accurate towards your statement?
Numbers are wonderful things but if you are going to compare dollar values like this they need to be an accurate reflection of the picture – there’s a ten year period in there where the U.S. was uninvolved. A source for the chart would be handy as well.
Go up one level in the domain to get the source of the chart. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute maintains data about weapons/arms sales/transfers across the globe. Economic data during this time is also available on the website (dollar amounts, dollar values, etc. Even accounting for the decade’s difference in values and the US’ uninvolvment from ‘73-’79 (which would skew the data against the “US armed Hussein” argument), it’s still telling data.