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 In an interview with
FRONTLINE/World co-producer William Kistner in March 2001,
Sarkis Soghanalian, one of the world's most accomplished arms
salesmen, gave his unapologetic and seasoned views on the
international arms trade and U.S. policy. A veteran of many Cold War
arms deals, Soghanalian has seen wars, rebel movements and
ideological conflicts become U.S. priorities and then fade into
history. He speaks frankly about his role in helping the United
States pursue its interests. He is confident that every deal has
been undertaken with the approval of the U.S. government.
STARTING OUT IN THE
LEBANESE CIVIL WAR
What
brought you into this business?
I'm
from Lebanon, and my family came to Lebanon from what is now called
Turkey in 1939 or 1940, but at the time it was Syria. And the
education was not at a very high level. But we had to find work. I
went to work with the French army. I skipped school in 1944 and
worked with a tank division. So I grew up with it, adapted to it
from childhood and kept going.
It's
been in your blood since you were young.
Being
an Armenian, you are raised fighting to survive. Since we survived
the Turkish massacres, a genocide like that of the Jews and others,
we were the first generation with such a background. So you can say
it was in my blood and in my dreams. As a young man you like nothing
more than weapons. Women were secondary, as at that age we didn't
know anything about that.
Tell
me how things have changed since the Cold War. First of all, explain
how you got involved with weapons in Lebanon at the time of the
crisis there and take me through how things have changed since then.
In
1973, when I got the first batch of the weapons, we were all
pro-Western and pro-American. I was appointed to obtain all the
American weapons we could. The Lebanese army was equipped only with
American weapons, but they eventually ended up with a
[nongovernment] militia. Before that, I had been getting most of the
weapons from the Eastern Bloc [Communist/pro Soviet Union],
Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary and those countries.
How
difficult was it to get weapons from the Eastern Bloc?
No
problem. They have a political channel you first go through. At the
time, the Russians [Soviet Union] had a lot of say because they were
the father of the whole Eastern Bloc, and the Russians didn't want
to get involved in it. They didn't want to have their hands caught
in the cookie jar. So they recommended that I go through Bulgaria.
And I started there but then went through other countries.
 Describe the kinds of guns you were
getting at that time.
Oh,
well, there was no limit to the type of the weapons that I could
get, but what we could use was most important. It was mainly
infantry weapons, rifles and machine guns and things like that and a
large quantity of ammunition. Then we came to company weapons like
mortars and heavy machine guns and things like that. We could get
whatever we wanted. Because the relationship was built and the trust
was there. They [Eastern Bloc countries] knew me and my background,
that I was working closely with the U.S. government, and therefore
they didn't have any fear. And they wanted to keep the relationship
open at that time because they benefited. The dollars were coming as
cash from Lebanese banks and they wanted the foreign currency. It
was a big opportunity for them also. ... They were not there on the
market to help me or you or anybody. They were there to help
themselves to get their hands on cash. For them, there were only two
markets open to them: one was the Lebanese illegal arm trade. The
second one was the Libyan channel, which Libya used to help other
nations, terrorists, individuals and so on.
THE UNITED STATES WAS AWARE OF
EVERYTHING
You
went from selling arms transferred from Eastern Bloc [Communist]
countries to Lebanon, and then to Iraq and other Middle Eastern
countries?
Well,
before I went to Iraq there were other places I was asked to assess,
like Mauritania, the Polisario forces that they were fighting there.
Nicaragua, Ecuador, Argentina. And then finally Iraq. We used to
help the countries whose way of thinking was pro-Western. At that
time it [Iraq] was pro-American, of course. Europeans didn't have an
interest in them, so we had to keep those nations alive for their
struggle.
How
closely did you work with the American government on this?
I don't
like to explore of the possibilities of what department of this or
that, but very, very close, very close.
So
when you were arranging sales of weapons to Argentina during the
Falklands War [the United States opposed Argentina and supported
Britain during Falklands War], how did the Americans react to that?
The
Americans knew what I was doing, every minute, every hour. If I
drank a glass of water, they were aware of it and what kind of water
it was. I don't try to prevent the Americans from knowing what I am
doing. You go to a country. You have your way of contact, you have
your meetings, you explain why you are there. You consider yourself
one of them, and they are one of you. This is how we operated. And
when the answer is negative, of course, you go somewhere else for a
different cause. ...
YOU LISTEN WITH YOUR MOUTH AND
YOU TALK WITH YOUR EARS
How
do you know, if you're selling to someone one day, it might not be
all different a week later?
If
you're a professional, you get a feeling for the side you are
helping; you develop your feelings and then they can tell you how
far you can go. An arms deal is a long-term thing; it's not like
last night and tomorrow morning. There are months and months when
you've got to be patient. You have to get into that emotion and see
how you can maneuver it.
How
does it work? Can you take me through the mechanics? How do you
establish a deal that you can have confidence in when you're dealing
with so many different actors and interests?
It's a
difficult task. You have to spend some time educating the person in
your ways. I'm not a government and I do not go there and say I
represent such-and-such government. I represent myself, like a
mercenary. If you die, you die; you know there are no two ways about
it. But you have to be very careful that you do not abuse the
customer's trust in you. If you do, your deal is gone and you are
not welcome and the whole thing is gone. Because you are not one of
them. You are just coming in. They have to trust your reputation.
Because in the arms business, there's only two ways of doing
business: either through a middleman or government-to-government.
The reason they choose us is because they think it's safer and
because they don't have to go through all the bureaucratic
paperwork. All we do is, we comply with the rules, we comply with
the system of arms sales through a proper channel. If you comply
with the system, you go ahead. I never go to a country if I'm not
accepted by its government. I don't want to be chased around from
one hotel to the other. If I am invited, I will go and see what
their problem is. When you come back, you brief the governments
concerned.
Have
you ever been personally threatened or felt that your family was at
risk?
Well,
it's not a family business. I have a son, and he has never been
involved. He doesn't even want to know about it. And I don't even
talk to him about my business because you have to safeguard your
family and keep them away from the danger. ...
When
you say it could be very dangerous what do you mean?
Leaking
out the information and things like that, because this business runs
on individuals and individuals alone. Not by several employees.
Amateurs like to talk a lot. They like to talk to the opponent to
impress him and say a little bit more than [they should].
So
the business is built on trust?
Mainly
on trust, yes, and secrecy. ...You listen with your mouth and you
talk with your ears. But then you don't blame anyone who said
something wrong.
Have
you ever sold weapons where the U.S. government hasn't known about
it?
No, no,
no, I haven't.
Why
not?
When
you owe your loyalty to somebody, you are like a team. You have to
let your teammate know about what's going on. Lately, I made a
shipment to Peru and I didn't see where it ended up. They said it
ended up in Colombia and this and that. When we deliver weapons, we
require many documents, especially the first time I'm doing business
with a country. And, of course, the U.S. government is advised even
before we sign a contract with the client. ...
Why
do you consider them your teammates?
...
Most of my trade has been with the U.S. blessing. Without it, you
could not succeed. You would be all alone in the field. But now it's
a new administration with new people. The old teammates are not
there. They get old, they retire and things like that, but we still
have some friends. Not as many as before, but documents are there
and they speak for you.
PERU DEAL GONE BAD
You
mentioned the Peruvian deal, when 10,000 AK-47s you sold to the
Peruvian government ended up with FARC leftist guerillas in
Colombia. I'm curious what you think went wrong. You checked it out.
What happened?
We
checked it out. I went there. In the business, this kind of thing
always goes through the intelligence channel. I met the chief of the
intelligence and I was convinced that it was a genuine and plain
deal. But after you deliver the goods, you don't have any control.
Technically, they should not make a further shipment without letting
you know. That's ethical. But it turned out that Fujimori's
government was not the way that it should be. It turned out to be
corrupt and doing business for its own interest. ...
I was
told it got into the wrong hands. I don't know whose hands they
were, Colombians or Ecuadorians or drug dealers, we don't know. They
didn't give me a chance to go and investigate and find out what went
wrong. All we know was that there was a coup and Montesinos [the
Peruvian intelligence chief] was under arrest. He fled the country.
And another one went to Japan, and there are all the rumors that you
see in the newspapers. ...
They
[the Peruvians] bought 50,000 AK-47s, and they have another huge
list that I negotiated with Montesinos. He was considered the
strongest man in the country, and unfortunately they couldn't last.
They couldn't operate. We told them, no more air shipments, bring a
ship to pick it up. It wasn't much more difficult to transport by
ship because it was more than 40 or 50 tons.
Where did the guns come from?
The
guns came from East Germany to Jordan, became surplus and were sold
as surplus at a surplus price. You see, they look at us like we were
selling contraband weapons. If you sell contraband weapons, the
target is the black market. The black market price is exaggerated,
inflated. But when you see equipment sold below its value from
government to government, you know there's no contraband involved in
it. That's the way we look at it. That's what we did with Peru.
...
So
how much did those rifles cost?
The
price was $55 a rifle, and then with packing and handling it was
another $10. Plus transportation was $10. It was a Mickey Mouse
thing: $75 a rifle. You don't go from Jordan all the way to Peru to
sell a contraband $75 rifle. ...
What
happened?
I asked
for certain documents which they brought to me, which said that the
goods were unloaded at the airport and were received by the Peruvian
military and the paperwork says it was to their satisfaction. And
then we made the second delivery. I don't see where we made a
mistake. ...
An
end-user certificate is separate, and the end-user certificate was
there. We checked with their military. Their military said, yes,
it's our shipment, and beside that, the United States intervened,
and they made a double-check on it. Because Jordan and [the] United
States have a really close relationship. It's not worth it to
jeopardize that relationship for a lousy 10,000 rifles. ...
So
you think the United States was fooled?
I don't
know. I don't want to sit here and defend an employee that has not
done his job properly. We got the okay. We went ahead.
ARMING SADDAM
HUSSEIN
You
explained a little bit about how you arrange arms deals legally. How
difficult is it to do an illegal arms deal?
Each
transaction has its own benefit. Sometimes you want to do something
even if it's not legal, and you must consider: where are the costs
and what are the benefits? Is this transaction worth it? ... When
there was an embargo on Iraq, we kept supplying weapons to Iraq. In
order to save U.S. face, we didn't do any operations from the United
States. We thought we'd do it through Europe, and there was a
special purpose since this involvement was not subject to
discussion. We satisfied Saddam's interest because it was in our
interest. But when Kuwait happened, we all pulled back. If I keep
helping you, and you take advantage of my help, and the purpose is
something not in my interest, I will change my colors right away.
This is what happened in 1991, when the United States got involved
against Saddam. Two months earlier, everything was a sweet and nice
relationship. ... Yesterday's friend became today's enemy. ...
My job
was to support the Iraqi forces so that they could fight against our
[United States' and Sarkis'] common enemy, which at the time was
[the Iranian Ayatollah] Khomeini.
He had
hostages. He was financing terrorist movements all over the world,
Hezbollah and all those guys. So we had to fight them. But it didn't
mean we would keep helping Saddam if he did something against our
interest or Western interests. That's what happened. Too bad for
him.
Was
it surprising?
It
surprised me in that we [the United States] had a very, very strong
and loyal friend like King Hussein of Jordan. This problem [Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait] could have been solved by him amicably. But we
[the United States] ignored this friend. We went in through the back
door, and look at the situation there today. We are unwelcome, we
lost a country which we put through a lot of suffering, and he won.
Where are we today? The same guy [Saddam Hussein] is still there.
And we don't know how to handle it. We don't know what they have,
what they don't have. This man is going to stay there until the last
day of his life, and we're not going to win him over politically.
It's a mess. I get concerned only when there's a threat against
American life.
When
somebody like Saddam turns against you after you have supplied him
with weapons, how does that make you feel?
It
makes me feel bad. We didn't give him those weapons to fight U.S.
forces. The weapons were given to him to fight the common enemy at
that time. Which he did. There was no need to have direct
confrontation with him and endanger American troops. We can and
should get rid of him and bring a new government to power. So many
people died in vain. Saddam is no different from before. You see we
are educated people. America is not China. America is not Africa,
where we go and bust into peoples' homes and kill them. We know the
value of life and civilization. It's not our cup of tea to go there.
I'm not talking only about Saddam. We got there, we should have
gotten rid of him, but we did not. What have we accomplished?
BETRAYED BY THE U.S.
GOVERNMENT?
 You were convicted in 1991 for
conspiracy on a weapons deal to Iraq. And now this recent conviction
for wire fraud. Do you feel betrayed by the U.S. government?
Let me
give you an example of the first charge they brought. I was charged
on conspiracy with Hughes helicopter executives. ... Fine, so I'm
conspiring with them. And yet, when the two others went in front of
another judge, they got acquitted. So what am I conspiring to do if
they went home free? I was convicted. Of course, that stays on your
record saying you're a felon. I was convicted for six and a half
years. But I did not serve six and a half years. When they needed
me, the U.S. government that is, they immediately came and got me
out. When I came over here last time to visit my family for
Christmas, they said I had a $3 million [fraud] in this and that.
That wasn't the case. The case was [the] Peruvian deal. They didn't
come and tell me, "you shipped weapons to Peru and this and that."
And the $3 million charge was dropped. Why was it dropped? Because I
was helping the secret service. ... I'm chasing people doing wrong
on behalf of the U.S. government. And chasing them around and with
the knowledge of the U.S. government. But what am I doing wrong?
The
U.S. government relies on your knowledge.
Correct.
For
what?
Based
on the experience they have with me, that I can produce the
intelligence information they need, which is in their own interest
and not to my interest.
So
why would they charge you?
They
try to get you when your back is turned. Somebody doesn't like the
color of your eyes. ... I went to court, I plead guilty to wire
fraud. I plead guilty to wire fraud with the involvement of a person
that I really don't know. I wouldn't know him if I saw him on the
street. So they say you have to testify against him. I didn't know
the guy. ...
Do
you still consider the U.S. government your friend?
Yes,
the government is my friend, but there are some individuals in that
government who are not my friend.
IRAN-CONTRA
Explain your role in the Iran-Contra affair.
I was
asked officially to go and help them [Iran] and do the same thing
that we were doing for Iraq. I refused. I said I can't. Iran is like
riding two horses in a horse race. You can't do that. Either you are
with this person or country, or you are with the other country. They
wanted me to supply weapons to Iran in order to get money for them
to buy weapons to fight the Sandinistas [in Nicaragua]. It could be
done but I didn't do it. I don't do this kind of stuff.
Who
asked you?
There
is no need to mention names. But I was asked.
By a
government?
By
government officials, not by the president. ...
THE DANGER OF CONTRABAND
DEALS
In
your opinion, why do dealers engage in contraband weapons?
Well it
is [a somewhat] profitable business. But selling contraband weapons
in Africa is not a large-volume, long-term business. It's a one-shot
deal. If you have built yourself a good reputation, you don't want
to get involved in this kind of business. I'd rather do my job and
keep my reputation rather than go and mess myself up because I can
make money. It's nice to have money but it's not everything, believe
me. Once you have it, you don't know what to do with it and you
create problem for yourself.
So
why do they do it?
It's
their first time and they're weak people. All the weapons that went
into Lebanon during the civil war, everything was sold out from
Lebanon and into Yugoslavia as contraband. ...
Do you
know how many arms manufacturers or dealers have been killed during
this last 20 years? Very valuable people. Why? Sometimes they are
eager to make extra money. And because it's a profession in which
you can't make everybody happy. You only make one side happy, like
walking on a double-edged knife. One person can easily come and hurt
you.
The
United Nations has imposed sanctions in some areas of Africa, West
Africa, Sierra Leone. It seems that they are regularly violated, and
there are still a lot of arms coming in and out.
Sure.
Can
you stop guns from coming in?
If you
want to, there is a possibility, yes.
How?
Enforce
the control of weapons shipments. If you catch a nation making
illegal shipment, all you have to do is go to the United Nations and
impose sanctions on them for so much money, and they will stop doing
it. They won't do it because every weapon has a stamp. You can track
it down. ... For example, Iranians are buying from China. If you
impose sanction on them, then Chinese will obey it. You will see
that China will be the most dangerous supplier of weapons to the
free world.
More
so than Russia or the Eastern Bloc?
Russia
doesn't have very modern weapons, other than surplus old-fashioned
weapons. But the Chinese have good technology now because they steal
it from everywhere. And they will be the biggest danger to countries
like the United States and its allies. They have very, very modern
weapons. ...
So
who are the operators now supplying weapons to Africa?
... The
operators are ex-military officers and agents. They don't take it by
ship, and they don't take it by trucks because there's no roads.
They parachute it. And there are now many, many transporters
available in the Eastern Bloc countries, mainly in Ukraine. ...
If you
want to stop that, all you have to do is apply the same rules and
regulations that you have on all other European aircraft, pollution
systems, crews, navigational equipment and all that. Automatically,
you would be grounding all these aircraft everywhere. They wouldn't
be able to fly. Because they do not comply with IATA [International
Air Transport Association] regulations. If they complied with IATA
regulations, Russian aircraft would cost five times today's value.
... No one is concerned about it. ... They could do it within two
hours. All you would have to do is call the insurance company ...
and they would pull the insurance away immediately. No one would
give you the rights to fly under European air traffic control. When
you want to fly somewhere, you call Euro control and they give you a
route, timing, altitude, a radio frequency. When you don't have that
you're blind. You're finished. They can do that very easily. ...
DONT TRUST AN AK-47
And
what about AK-47s? There are something like 70 million.
They
are all over the world, and they are the most popular weapon. It's
just like if learning to fly, you buy a Cessna first. It's the same
with Russian equipment. Once they start to know how to fly they will
change it. ... It's a toy rifle, you know, but unfortunately it's
most combat-proven rifle. ... It's cheap and the ammunition is
cheap.
So
how do you compete with the AK-47 market?
You
don't. As they say, don't fight them, join them. ... I'd rather give
that weapon to them as a gift and make legal sales, so it puts me in
a position in which if they want to buy something bigger, I can make
my profit and compensate for the previous delivery. [The AK-47] is
not a weapon with which you can dream to become a millionaire. ...
It's a cheap weapon. ... Go to Lebanon and you can you buy it
everywhere. Go to Yemen, the world's biggest stock is in Yemen ...
maybe 10 to 12 million rifles.
What's going to happen to those guns [AK-47s in Yemen]?
Someone
will get their hands on them and start a war. Populations are
growing, and the demand is increasing. ... Imagine, the AK-47 today
is in Saudi Arabia, where it's not supposed to be because it's not a
pro-Russian country. And every house has at least two AK-47s. Kuwait
the same way, also Qatar. They're going everywhere. Today, a rifle
is a common item among Arabs; they all like to own one. When a son
is born, the father goes and buys a rifle for when he becomes a man.
It's a symbolic thing.
CONTROLLING THE END USER OF
SMALL ARMS
How
you can be sure that the guns will stay where they are supposed to?
Some
people don't care. Some people do care, people like me, they don't
make the sale, and I have stopped many sales. Like in Peru, for
example, I stopped it, and in Lebanon we stopped it. In many places.
But for the ones that are still friendly, we have a way of knowing.
We rely a lot on the U.S. Embassy advisors, because they have good
information and they know darn well if the weapon is going to stay
in the country or not. That is important in our business, to at
least be sure that the weapons are going to stay there. But you find
that a weapon here and one weapon there is stolen. Even in America,
they kill people in colleges, in high school. How can you control
them?
Do
you see any trends in controlling the small-arms trade?
I don't
see anything new unless the government makes some changes in the
system of controls. There's a million ways you can stop it. If you
activate the weapon electronically, you can only fire the weapon
assigned to you; it does not fire without your fingerprint, your
thumb on that weapon.
But
can the United States stop the international trade in weapons?
If they
can't stop it at home, what influence could they have to stop
weapons in Europe? ... Weapons moving outside the United States,
arms trafficking, is not as damaging as it is here domestically.
There is more damage here than in Europe. I never heard that kids
have stolen pistols and made a massacre in a schoolyard in France...
THE MERCHANT OF DEATH?
You
have been called "the merchant of death." How do you respond to
that?
They
can say whatever they want. They call the president of any country
names. What happens? He resigns. He stays in power, he stays in. I'm
not a complex person. I know deep in my heart I'm not doing anything
wrong. Alfred Nobel was called "the merchant of death" when he first
made gunpowder, and then they named it the Nobel Prize. You can't
educate everyone. So that name doesn't bother me a bit.
What's your biggest accomplishment?
I
helped a lot of countries keep their independence. ... I never lost
a war. I helped Lebanon. They at least kept their republic. I
squeezed Khomeini and helped my country's cause. There are other
countries whose names I don't want to mention. I helped my country
Armenia when they needed me. That's all I can say. ...
RETURN
TO INDEX
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Links relevant to this article:
A Colombia Arms Deal and the Perils of
Blowback
This
Washington Post opinion and commentary piece details
the dangers of "blowback," the unforeseen results of the U.S.
government's cooperation with people such as Soghanalian. It
describes Soghanalian's work with the United States in the
past, and how he also armed leftist rebels in Colombia -- the
same rebels the Bush administration has budgeted $700 million
to defeat. (Washington Post, March 3, 2002)
Sarkis Soghanalian, Arms Dealer to Iraq
The transcript of a 1991 60 Minutes program on
Soghanalian was entered into the Congressional Record
with this preface: "The revelations and allegations made by
Mr. Soghanalian are, and must be, extremely disturbing to
every American. They are disturbing to Mr. Soghanalian. He
gives a first-hand description of official and unofficial
American involvement in the enormous buildup of arms to Saddam
Hussein."
Arms Dealer Implicates Peru Spy Chief in Smuggling
Ring
The Los Angeles Times profiles
Soghanalian and describes his account of a deal gone bad, in
which he shipped 10,000 AK-47s to Peru. Those guns ended up
with FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) guerillas
in Colombia. Soghanalian says he was duped by the Peruvian spy
chief Vladimiro Montesinos. (Los Angeles Times,
November 1, 2000)
Arms Sold to Peru End Up in Colombia
The New York Times supports Soghanalian's claims
that the sale was approved by the CIA. It attributes the
approval to lack of follow-up and to close relations between
the CIA and Montesinos. (The New York Times, November
6, 2000)
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