Quote:
... it is important to remember that Saddam Hussein's main supplier was the Soviet Union. He was sent its best equipment - Mig 29s, T 72 tanks, artillery, gunboats and Scud missiles.
Quote:
France, however, was also a major supplier. When he was prime minister in 1974, Jacques Chirac went to Baghdad to see Saddam Hussein, then the power in Iraq, though not yet the president.
The following year, Saddam Hussein went to France and Prime Minister Chirac showed him round a nuclear plant.
They negotiated the sale to Iraq of two French nuclear reactors. One of them was destroyed in an air raid by the Israelis in 1981 amid fears that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapon.
France also agreed to provide Iraq with 133 Mirage F1 jet fighters over a 10-year period. It is reckoned that during the 1980s, 40% of France's arms exports went to Iraq.