European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 24, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Mascazine iraqi troops answering the Call to arms wave soviet made assault rifles during an exercise near Baghdad. Iraqis military might los Angeles times during the decade before iraqis Early morning Conquest of Kuwait the Royal family in that tiny persian Gulf emirate sent hundreds of millions of dollars in military Aid to iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Among its gifts 50 chieftain-5 main Battle tanks that were reportedly part of the iraqi assault Force that invaded and took Kuwait within a matter of hours on aug. 2. During those same 10 years France which is now part of the multinational Force that May soon do Battle in the desert sold Baghdad no less than $5 billion in sophisticated military hardware. Included were 180 Mirage f-1c and state of the Art Mirage eq5 Jet fighters scores of attack helicopters 200 modern armoured personnel carriers High tech avionics kits to update outmoded soviet fighter bombers and thousands of antitank and anti ship missiles a All of which would certainly be used against French troops in the event of War. During that same decade technicians from West Germany a another supporter of the Allied Effort against Saddam a helped the iraqi Leader develop advanced chemical weapons factories including one in the iraqi town of Samarra where Saddam is known to be holding at least eight German hostages As human Shields against attack. Those Are among the Many ironies in the Story of How within a decade Iraq quietly managed to build the fourth largest a and according to several Western military experts the third most sophisticated a armed Force on the Globe. It is an $80 billion Story of one of the fastest and most calculated military buildups in modern history and it helps to explain Why . Defense officials now say they need at least a month More to assemble an air and ground Force of sufficient strength to take on Saddam a sophisticated Battle tested military machine on his Home desert turf. Just a few dozen Miles from the Forward bases of . And Allied forces in Northern saudi Arabia Are the front lines of an enemy that in addition to its much publicized million member regular army also possesses Between 4,000 and 4,200 main Battle tanks an additional 5,000 armoured personnel vehicles 9,000 artillery pieces and rocket launchers hundreds More guided missiles Many with ranges of More than 400 Miles and an air Force that includes nearly 1,000 modern warplanes that one Western military expert in Baghdad described As Quot an airborne fighting Force exceeded in sophistication Only by the . And the soviet  Quot from the standpoint of equipment Quot the expert added Quot they Are As Good As any Western army. They have a mixture of soviet and Western technology a soviet for simple weapons systems and French and other european hardware for the More sophisticated systems. Quot and when you look at How the iraqis went about building up that Force you can Only Marvel at their ingenuity and commitment. It reads like a textbook of How to create a lethal fighting Force that can Challenge anyone in their Region virtually  so great and sophisticated is the firepower of the iraqis and the growing multinational Alliance poised near their Border that Herbert Wulf an expert at Sweden a Stockholm International peace research Institute recently commented Quot if there a a War its certainly going to be a High tech War. There will be a lot of casualties on both  the Institute which closely monitors All arms imports and exports worldwide prepared a fact Sheet within Days of iraqis invasion that attempts to illustrate both the trend and the scale of iraqis arms imports during the decade leading up to the continuing Gulf crisis. That combined with detailed briefings from Western defense analysts in Baghdad and elsewhere reinforced the grim picture of what is Likely to result should the current military and political stalemate in the Gulf collapse into All out War. Quot no matter How much equipment and How Many men the West and its allies put up against them the iraqis certainly Are not going to be Pushover Quot said one european strategic analyst in Baghdad. Quot Given the size of the iraqi air Force and the configuration of its air bases for example it would take at least a week to 10 Days of almost constant fighting before the multinational Force could achieve air superiority. What that Means is a lot of aircraft and a lot of lives lost a on both  and on the ground Iraq now possesses the modern worlds most Quot no matter How much equipment and How Many men the West and its allies put up against them the iraqis certainly Are not going to be  a a european strategic analyst successful desert proven armoured brigades a tank and artillery divisions that won consistent victories Over the larger .-equipped iranian army during the bloody eight year persian Gulf War. Quot when it comes to desert combat you re really talking about tank and artillery warfare Quot the european expert added. Quot no doubt that on paper the . And British Armor is far Superior to Iraq a which is almost entirely soviet but no one knows just How it will perform in an actual War situation. And that s where Iraq already has proven  indeed Western journalists taken to the iraqi War front throughout the eight year conflict consistently saw desert Fields pocked with blown out iranian tanks and artillery batteries. It was that same War however that led f Many analysts to question the ability of the True face behind iraqis military Force a the morale of its fighting men just two Quot years after they gratefully embraced a peace for the first time in nearly a decade j Quot morale was Good during the last years it of the War Quot Tho european analyst said of iraqis ground forces. Quot but after sitting around in Camps and not doing much work for quite a Long time in Remote desert locations morale got really bad. Many soldiers spent More than a year living in desert tents because the army had to build Barracks for them to live in. Quot also every family had at least one or two prisoners of War in Iran. Now after Saddam has Given away the territory they i gained in the Shatt Al Arab waterway Many Are asking what All these eight years of fighting were for anyway. Quot and lastly there a a lot of Competition Between the regular army and the Republican  it was the persian Gulf War that served As the International Magnet for iraqis massive military buildup. By skilfully casting his nation As the front line of defense against the largely shiite islamic fundamentalism of Iran a Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Saddam Hussein was showered with billions of dollars in military j Aid from the West and from virtually every i Oil Rich sunni moslem dominated Gulf nation a the very same nations that Are now opposing him. Quot during the decade of the 1980s, Iraq had the highest military expenditure in the Middle East Quot declared the Stockholm Institute s fact Sheet. Quot it Rose in the Early 1980s, reaching a Peak in 1984 of $33.3 billion. The military Burden or share in the total Economy was around 30 percent in that year. After that military expenditure steadily fell. However even in 1989, Iraq s military expenditure was around $15  in All the Institute estimates that Iraq May have spent As much As $80 billion on weapons procurement during the decade a higher than that of France Britain or West Germany during the same time. And the items it purchased from at least 24 nations now read like a shopping list of High tech destruction a advanced helicopters of every imaginable variety from Chile Canada the United states West Germany Italy Spain France and the soviet Union armoured cars from Brazil Battle tanks from China and Poland howitzers from Egypt and Jordan armoured personnel carriers from Libya and Switzerland and As Many As 10,000 guided missiles from virtually every nation that manufactures them. Monday september 24, 1990 the stars and stripes a a a Page 13