Made in the USA, Part III: US Company Listings N-Z

TEKTRONIX

(Beaverton, Oregon)

1985 to 1990 — Alleged sales to Iraq included: more than $140,000 worth of oscilloscopes, electronic testing equipment, computers and peripherals to various buyers, including the Military Technical College, University of Baghdad, Iraqi National Oil Co. and the National Center for Engineering; more than $12,000 worth of oscilloscopes used to maintain Iraqi Air Force computers; at least $50,000 worth of electronic measuring equipment to SOTI, the procurement arm for rocket production, Scud-missile enhancement and space-rocket development; $80,000 worth of radio-spectrum analyzers sold to the Iraqi Scientific Research Council. The Scientific Research Council, headed by General Amer Rashid al-Obeidi, was an Iraqi procurement front, whose goal was to acquire sensitive technology, computers and scientific equipment it could channel into Iraq’s military-research effort. The Scientific Research Council sponsored a variety of projects, including biological-weapons research, according to a former U.N. weapons inspector. Tektronix also sold a digital oscilloscope, which has nuclear applications, to the German firm Gildemeister, for resale to Saad 16, an Iraqi weapons-manufacturing facility.

In a series of contacts with the Weekly, the company acknowledged some, but not all of the exports listed in other documentation. The company’s reckoning came up with 16 export licenses for exports whose value totaled less than $250,000. The company also insisted that it scrupulously complied with U.S. export policies and laws, and took the extra precaution of screening exports with U.S. government agencies. Tektronix’s own export policy requires screening all transactions of materials that could have both civilian and military application, said spokesman Doug Babb. "Where the company has no capability to evaluate the end-user directly, as is the case for Iraq, the company must rely on U.S. governmental licensing authorities, which have access to extensive intelligence capabilities." Another company official added that "To our knowledge, no Tektronix products have entered Iraq since the imposition of sanctions a decade ago."

TELEDYNE WAH CHANG

(Company now called Wah Chang and is based in Albany, Oregon. It’s part of Allegheny Technologies, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.)

1986 — Exported more than 130 tons of zirconium, which could be used as an incendiary additive in cluster bombs, to the bomb-making plant in Chile of arms dealer Carlos Cardoen, who allegedly sold illegal weaponry to Iraq. U.S. agents, who were investigating illegal zirconium sales to Iraq, raided the company in March 1992. Wah Chang’s former parent company, Teledyne Industries, Inc., pleaded guilty in 1995 to federal charges of criminal conspiracy, making false statements and violations of the Export Administration Act and the Arms Export Control Act. Teledyne paid $13 million in fines for Wah Chang’s illegal zirconium exports. Teledyne employee Edward Johnson was sentenced to 41 months in prison in connection with these illegal exports. Wah Chang means "great development" in Chinese.

THERMO JARRELL ASH CORP.

(Formerly based in Franklin, Massachusetts, now part of Thermo Electron Corporation, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts)

1989 — Sold more than $350,000 worth of spectrometers to measure particles in geological and clinical sample of liquids and solids to the Iraqi Scientific Research Council, a front for the Iraqi military.

TI COATING

(Utica, Michigan)

1989 — Supplied more than $373,000 worth of cutting-tool coating and chemical-vapor deposition blueprints as well as training manuals to apply coating supplies used to cover and protect tool-cutting equipment. Materials went to the Badr Establishment of Mechanical Engineering, responsible for producing aerial bombs, and centrifuges used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

The transaction was completely legal, said William Zichichi, the company president and CEO. His company, in fact, received export-license approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce, he said. TI sold the supplies and manuals to XYZ Options, Inc., another Iraqi supplier. XYZ then delivered TI Coating’s materials to the Badr Establishment of Mechanical Engineering. XYZ, Zichichi said, went bankrupt before TI Coating was paid. TI Coating ultimately received a small settlement as part of XYZ’s bankruptcy proceedings, he added.

TRADING AND INVESTMENT CORP.

(Charlotte, North Carolina)

Dates unknown — Supplied two shipments of float valves and bearings worth $352,560 to the Al Hilal Industrial Company, named as a "sometime procurement front" for Iraq’s weapons programs, according to records from a 1992 Senate Banking Committee. The transactions were financed through letters of credit from BNL (an Italian bank).

This export company, owned by Fanar Alghrary, an Iraqi-American, is still active. Alghrary confirmed to the Weekly that his company did sell the two shipments to Al Hilal. But Alghrary disputes the congressional allegation that Al Hilal operated as an Iraqi military-procurement front. "I know about that, and I told [government] investigators that it was B.S.," said Alghrary. "They [Al Hilal] make cooling equipment for buildings. I know them and that’s all I know them doing." Alghrary also stated that 90 percent of his sales to Iraq were to Iraq’s State Company for Drugs and Medical Appliances Marketing. The U.S. government, he added, approved the sales.

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UNION CARBIDE

(Based in Danbury, Connecticut. It merged in 2001 with Dow Chemical Company, headquartered in Midland, Michigan.)

Dates unknown — U.N. weapons inspectors in the 1990s identified Union Carbide shipments to Iraq of the chemical Xylene, which was used in Iraq’s chemical-weapons program. A spokesperson for Dow Chemical said he had no information regarding Union Carbide’s exports.