Made In the USA, Part III: US Company Listings A-M

LEYBOLD VACUUM SYSTEMS

(A German company with U.S. subsidiary based in Export, Pennsylvania)

1988 to 1989 — Sold electron-beam welder, valued at $880,000, used to assemble centrifuges for enriching uranium and for the repair of military jet engines and rocket cases, to the Nassr State Enterprise for Mechanical Industries. Welder was shipped via German parent company, Leybold. Also sold a machine valued at $530,000 to operate the welder. Later installed machinery that doubled the size of the original.

LINCOLN ELECTRIC CO.

(Cleveland, Ohio)

Date uncertain — Supplied welding machines via company called Matrix Churchill, which were used to build Iraqi missile factories, according to U.N. inspectors. Received letter of credit for $840,000 from BNL (an Italian bank) to sell machines and supplies to Al Fao State Establishment, a military industrial facility. The equipment was used for Iraq’s nuclear and Condor II ballistic missile weapons programs. According to the 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing report on U.S. exports to Iraq prior to its invasion of Kuwait, Lincoln also supplied two welding machines worth $513,994 (also financed by BNL) to Iraq’s State Machinery Trading Company for use in Iraq’s nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile weapons programs.

LITTON INDUSTRIES

(Formerly based in Beverly Hills, California. Purchased in 2001 by Northrop Grumman, which is based in Los Angeles, California.)

1984 to 1989 — Helped bankroll German firms Gildemeister Projecta AG and Gipro, the main contractor for Saad 16, Iraq’s primary missile research-and-development site. Litton maintained a 14.3 percent share in Gildemeister throughout the life of its contract with Saad 16.

LUMMUS CREST, INC.

(Bloomfield, New Jersey — now part of ABB Global, Inc., a Swiss conglomerate with U.S. headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut.)

1985 to 1989 — Provided more than $250,000 worth of radio-spectrum analyzers. Also provided computers for inventory, quality control, lab analysis and engineering calculations to Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization (MIMI). The equipment was used for Iraq’s multibillion-dollar petrochemical complex at Basra to make thiodiglycol, a chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas. Lummus also received letters of credit for $53,827,776 from BNL (an Italian bank) to sell machinery and supplies to the Technical Corps for Special Projects, an Iraqi front company, according to documentation provided for a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing.

MBB HELICOPTER CORP.

(Formerly located in West Chester, Pennsylvania)

1989 — Provided more than $957,000 worth of compasses, gyroscopes and accelerometers to the Iraqi Air Force. According to records from Pennsylvania’s Department of State, this company was registered as a "foreign business corporation." MBB Helicopter Corporation began operations in 1979. Its last Pennsylvania filing was dated 1988. Company may have ceased operations.

MACK TRUCKS, INC.

(Allentown, Pennsylvania — Mack Trucks, Inc., is now a subsidiary of AB Volvo, based in Sweden.)

Date uncertain — According to a 1992 Senate hearing report, Mack Trucks supplied $6,038,488 worth of truck parts, tractors, wreckers, trucks with cranes and dumpers to Iraq for use in building its nuclear and Condor II ballistic-missile programs. Deals financed by BNL (an Italian bank).

MAHO AG

(A German company that has become part of the Gildemeister Group, which is based in Bielefeld, Germany. Has various U.S. plants.)

Date uncertain — Manufactured three milling machines found by U.N. inspectors, in first round of inspections, to have been used in Iraqi nuclear-weapons program.

MATRIX CHURCHILL CORP.

(Formerly located in Cleveland, Ohio — company defunct)

1988 to 1990 — Constructed in Iraq a glass-fiber production plant, which made missile rocket-motor casings. Plant built at Nassr State Establishment, was known as Project 3128. And with the company XYZ Options, Matrix Churchill constructed at Al Atheer, Iraq’s nuclear weapons design-and-research center, a $14 million plant used to produce high-precision tungsten carbide tools for Iraq’s nuclear program. The plant, financed by Italian banking giant Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL), was completed in 1990, but later destroyed under first U.N. inspection program. Matrix Churchill, along with other U.S. and European firms, was part of a complicated Iraqi arms-procurement network, controlled by the Iraqi entity TECO or Techcorp, officially called the Technical Corps for Special Projects. TECO was a sub-unit of Iraq’s Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization. TECO also ran Al-Arabi Trading Co., a front for Iraq’s biological-weapons program. Matrix Churchill also received a letter of credit for $81 million from BNL to supply machinery and other supplies to TECO and a letter of credit for $2,345,300 to sell precious metals to Nassr State Enterprises for Mechanical Industries, which procured equipment for Iraq’s missile program.

McNEIL AKRON, INC.

(Now McNeil and NRM Corp., based in Akron, Ohio)

Date uncertain — According to a 1992 Senate Banking Committee hearing on U.S. export policy toward Iraq before the Kuwait invasion, McNeil Akron, Inc. supplied $1,203,770 worth of tire-manufacturing machines to the Iraqi State Enterprise for Heavy Engineering Equipment, a nuclear-weapons program/centrifuge manufacturing procurement front. Deal financed with a loan from BNL (an Italian bank). A company representative said he didn’t have specific information regarding McNeil Akron’s dealings with Iraq, but he believed McNeil Akron probably did do business there before the first Gulf War.