Monday, March 29, 1999 12 Nisan 5759 Updated Mon., Mar. 29 03:16
Serbia, Iraq forge secret military pact
By DOUGLAS DAVIS
LONDON (March 29) - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein have concluded a secret military pact that will enhance their abilities to withstand allied bombing raids, according to reports in London yesterday.
"We are aware of the reports that there is a connection between the Iraqi and the Serbian regimes," a British official said at the weekend. "We believe that they are accurate and based on good information. Obviously this is a cause for concern and demonstrates the sort of company that Milosevic is now keeping."
A spokesman for British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Blair "is aware of these reports," adding: "Nothing would surprise us about Saddam or Milosevic."
According to a report in the Sunday Telegraph, Milosevic and Saddam have authorized their officials to work closely to fulfill their joint goal of shooting down aircraft flying bombing missions over Serbia and Iraq.
The alliance was initiated with a visit to Baghdad by a Serbian military delegation earlier this month, shortly before NATO commanders last week launched Operation Allied Force. The visit, which marked the first steps in formalizing the Serbian-Iraqi alliance, was intended to explore ways in which the two countries could cooperate to their common advantage.
The Serb delegation was headed by Serbian Deputy Defense Minister Lt.-Gen. Jovan Djukovic and followed a visit by Ivan Ivanovich, a Serb chemical and biological weapons expert, who arrived in Baghdad on March 9 to spend several days visiting Iraqi military facilities.
In addition to conventional military sites, the delegation also visited an Iraqi pharmaceutical plant at Samarra, 170 kilometers from Baghdad, which UN weapons inspectors say is a chemical weapons production site.
Middle East intelligence officials say both visits were authorized by Milosevic. The visits were also confirmed by the Foreign Office in London, where officials regard the growing cooperation between the two with alarm.
"It appears they have identified a common aim - to shoot down allied aircraft," a senior diplomat was quoted as saying. "Saddam and Milosevic see themselves as international outcasts who must support each other if they are to survive."
In return for Serb assistance in rebuilding Iraq's air defenses and making its jet fighters airworthy, Saddam has reportedly agreed to provide Milosevic with oil and cash to sustain the Serbs' battered economy and its war effort.
Since Iraq was subjected to a massive air bombardment by US and British aircraft during and after Operation Desert Fox last December, Saddam has been desperate to shoot down allied bombers and capture their pilots.
The Iraqi air-defense system is currently based on obsolete SA-2 and SA-3 Soviet missile systems, which are no match for the sophisticated air power deployed by US and British fighters patrolling the no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.
The Iraqis want Serbia to provide them with the advanced SA-7 anti-aircraft missile system, which was originally built to a Soviet design but has been upgraded by the Serbs and could seriously threaten allied warplanes. It is understood that Serb technicians are already assisting the Iraqis to prepare air-defense traps for allied warplanes.
The Iraqis are also reported to be seeking Serb assistance to modernize their aging squadrons of MiG-21 and MiG-29 fighters. Serb technicians regularly serviced Iraqi MiGs before the current conflict, and there have been reports that, despite the current bombardment, Serbian military specialists are being assigned to work with the Iraqi air force.
It is also believed that Moscow, which has condemned the NATO assault, will be more forthcoming - and more open - about its assistance to Iraq.
Yugoslavia's "Iraq-gate" complicates NATO dialogue
BELGRADE (AFP) Oct 30, 2002
Revelations of Yugoslavia's illegal military cooperation with Iraq will complicate Belgrade's plans to join a partnership scheme with NATO, analysts said. But experts on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation gathered for a seminar here this week said the scandal probably would not have long-term consequences for Yugoslavia's eventual entry into the alliance.
"Such hiccups have occured with most of the countries that are joining NATO and many of them that are in NATO," said Ira Straus, a Washington-based analyst from the independent Committee on Eastern Europe and Russia.
"It's a bump. It could delay the dialogue, slow it down a little bit, but I don't expect it to be a major obstacle."
The scandal broke last week when Washington went public with allegations that a state-run trading company, Jugoimport, had acted as a middleman in the supply of spare parts for Iraqi fighter jets.
The State Department said a state-owned Bosnian firm, Orao, was manufacturing the parts and selling them through Jugoimport to Saddam Hussein's regime in breach of UN sanctions.
Belgrade reacted swiftly to put out the fire.
Last week the chief of Jugoimport and a deputy defence minister were sacked, Jugoimport's office in Baghdad was closed and a special committee was established to investigate both the company and the defence ministry.
Heads also rolled in the Serb-run entity of Bosnia, where three officials were fired and, after further prodding from Washington, the defense minister and army chief-of-staff resigned on Monday.
Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica tried to play down Jugoimport's role in the illegal trade, which he characterised as a "hazardous and irresponsible business move" undertaken without the government's approval or knowledge.
Meanwhile the scandal thickened over the weekend when the Washington Post reported that the United States believed Yugoslav companies were also helping Iraq to build cruise missiles.
Baghdad already has ballistic missiles but they are considered relatively inaccurate.
There has been no official confirmation from US or Yugoslav officials of the missile allegations, which have also appeared in the local press.
Straus said Yugoslavia's relations with the Western powers and NATO was complicated by fresh memories of the Atlantic alliance's bombing campaign against the Yugoslav army three years ago.
"This gave them the moral licence to make those sales. It creates a cynicism which enables money to drive things," he told AFP on the sidelines of a conference called "Advancing into the Euro-Atlantic Partnership."
He said that while the government had undergone a re-orientation toward the West, the military would take longer to reconcile itself to a strategic partnership with its former enemies.
"Such cynicism exists in the West as well, but more so in countries which are reversing their orientation and the military doesn't quite know yet what it's all about."
Other speakers at the conference, including senior Yugoslav military and government officials, made only passing mention of the scandal, preferring to dwell on broader issues of NATO's expansion to the east.
Predrag Simic, an advisor to Kostunica, alluded to the Washington Post article and said Yugoslavia's military-related industries needed to be updated with "modern European concepts."
NATO leaders are to meet next month in the Czech capital, where they are expected to approve the accession of seven new members -- Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Meanwhile Yugoslavia is in line to join the so-called Partnership for Peace (PFP) programme, which includes defence planning and military exercises between member states and NATO.
Twenty-seven countries are currently PFP members.