ABSTRACT
In September 1981, Iraq invaded Iran and started what was to become the seven-year Iran-Iraq War. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and started what was to become the seven-month war for Kuwait. Iraq initiated an indigenous missile program for all the usual reasons, plus a few peculiar to its own situation. In the early 1980s, Iraq was engaged with Iran in what was seen by both sides as a death-struggle. The Iraqi air force had proved to be remarkably ineffective in most of its bombing missions against Iranian targets, despite possessing a large and well-balanced arsenal of French and Soviet aircraft. Iraq was never a participant in the international missile or missile technology marketplace as a supplier, only as a consumer. There is no information in open literature to indicate that Iraq served as a transshipper of missile technology, even in the Condor II/Badr 2000 project with Argentina and Egypt.
