An early U.S. motive in expanding high-tech trade with Baghdad was to help bolster Iraq economically against Iran during the brutal war between the two countries. Even after the Iran-Iraq war, administration officials continued to promote U.S.-Iraqi trade in a failed effort to gain influence in Baghdad and moderate Iraq's behavior in the region.

Only a few of the U.S. exports to Iraq involved munitions. Virtually all the rest involved so-called "dual-use" equipment, ostensibly meant for civilian application but also capable of being used in a military program. U.S. law proscribed such exports to countries listed as supporting terrorism, a label Washington applied to Iraq before 1982 and reinstated one month after Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

INFO-GRAPHIC,,Richard Furno; INFO-GRAPHIC CAPTION: U.S. BLESSED RISKY EXPORTS A secret State Department document, released yesterday by Rep. Henry B.Gonzalez (D-Tex.) concluded in early fall 1990 that the United States approved exports to "probably proliferation-related" users-makers of chemical, missile, nuclear and germ weapons-inside Iraq. The cases included: "At least 17 licenses . . . for the export of bacteria or fungus cultures either to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission or the University of Baghdad." Several licenses given to "a known procurement agent for Iraqi missile programs," for export of computers and electronic instruments to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission. A license for the export of a computer to the Iraqi Ministry of Minerals, "known to be associated with the Iraqi CW {chemical weapons} program". Licenses for export of equipment to control chemical processes and computer-assisted design and manufacturing. A license to export "navigation/direction-finding/radar/mobile communications equipment" to a missile-related facility. A license for the export of possible missile telemetry, or electronic communications, equipment. CAPTION: SENDING EQUIPMENT TO IRAQ (Data from chart was unavailable.)