Reply To Teribus
On the 29th May Teribus questioned my statement that the British taxpayer had to pay for a billion pounds worth of weapons bought by Saddam after he defaulted with the payments.
The weapons were bought by Saddam during the Gulf War and his bill was guaranteed by the Thatcher govt. Saddam defaulted with the payments and the taxpayer had to pay up.
The source for the story is an article in the {London ] Guardian of 28th Feb 2003 by David Leigh and Rob Evans entitled "HOW £1 BN WAS LOST WHEN THATCHER PROPPED UP SADDAM"
Among the weaponry supplied by Britain were
Chieftain tank hulls
Racal Jaguar v military radios
Marconi Artillery Meteorlogical systems [amets ]..crucial for artillery fire
A fighter pilot training complex
Cymbeline mortar Location radar
.................
The article ends
"Even if Britain now obtains reparations for Pres Saddam's one billion loan defaults after a succesful US -UK invasion it will go nowhere near to the cost of the war to Britain. This has been estimated at 3-5 billion depending on how much occupying and administering Britain has to do".
Ifor