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U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Companies Aiding Iran with Arms

April 02, 2004
The New York Times
Judith Miller

http://www.iht.com/articles/513132.html

The Bush administration is imposing sanctions on 13 foreign companies and individuals in seven countries that it says have sold equipment or expertise that Iran could use in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, according to administration and congressional officials.

The sanctions would prohibit the companies and individuals from exporting goods to the United States, or receiving contracts or assistance from the United States, and will prevent U.S. companies from trading with them for two years. Officials said the sanctions were being imposed under the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, which prevents sales of goods and technology that Iran could use to acquire long-range missiles and unconventional weapons.

The House and Senate foreign relations committees on Thursday received copies of a classified 30-page report that describes such trade and names the entities being penalized, congressional officials confirmed.

The 13 entities cited include five Chinese companies as well companies in Russia, Macedonia, Belarus, Taiwan, North Korea and the United Arab Emirates. At least five had already had sanctions imposed at least once by the administration.

One official called the list the largest and most varied group of entities to be hit by such sanctions, saying that it demonstrated the Bush administration's determination to use economic pressure on companies and individuals who sell goods and skills that Iran and other states hostile to the United States can use to acquire long-range missiles or unconventional weapons.

"This is about branding companies and people who make such sales as proliferators," said an official who has seen the list and followed the administration's use of sanctions.

Nonproliferation experts who have seen the new report said U.S. officials had repeatedly complained to China and Russia about their companies' involvement in such transfers. No company, officials said, has ever challenged the sanctions in court.

Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, a nonprofit group that monitors the spread of unconventional weapons, said that while some sanctions were useful, the United States needed tougher rules and mechanisms.

"Many of these companies are repeaters and many don't even do much business with the U.S., nor we with them," he said. "Iran is trying to get the bomb under the shield of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Officials said that the list of companies and individuals included the China North Industries Corp., or Norinco; Zibo Chemical Equipment Plant; China Precision Machinery Import/Export; the Beijing Institute of Opto-Electronic Technology; and Oriental Scientific Instruments, all in China. They said the list also included Baranov Engine and Professor V. Vorobey in Russia; Mikrosam and its president, Blagoja Samakoski, in Macedonia; Changgwang Finyong Corp. in North Korea; Belvneshprom Service in Belarus; Elmstone Trading in the United Arab Emirates; and Goodly Industrial in Taiwan.

The companies could not immediately be reached for comment.

The number of companies receiving sanctions has grown under President George W. Bush. In testimony on Tuesday before the House International Relations Committee in Washington, Under Secretary of State John Bolton said that the administration had imposed sanctions to punish suspected efforts to acquire illicit weapons 22 times in 2002 and 32 times in 2003, compared with the Clinton administration's average of eight times a year.

"This administration is very serious about using sanctions as a nonproliferation tool," Bolton said.

Bolton also shed new light on the administration's view of what President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan knew about Khan's illicit nuclear sales network before his confession and about the status of Pakistan and American efforts to stop such sales.

Questioned by committee Democrats about whether there was evidence that Musharraf was complicit in nuclear sales by Khan's network to Iran, Libya and North Korea, Bolton said that while Musharraf might have been aware of such sales, he might have been politically unable to stop them because Khan was "an icon in Pakistan - the father of the nuclear weapons program."

Bolton said he believed that Musharraf might finally have been emboldened by the revelations last year of Iran's illicit nuclear activities and Libya's decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction.
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