ABSTRACT
The development of Iraq's arms industry provides a disturbing example of the hidden industrial potential of a determined regional power. Iraq's military industry, as a result, repeatedly surprised Western military analysts in the late 1980s by producing or modifying weapons of considerable sophistication, particularly weapons of mass destruction. Iraq's chemical weapons industry, acquired with remarkable ease and little expense from a bevy of willing Western suppliers, provided the means to save the Ba'ath regime in the 1980s. Iraq's security policy focuses on many of the same types of threats as Israel and India – it must cope with hostile neighbors and regional adversaries, internal unrest and secessionist movements, and extra-regional threats. Iraq's strategic interest in the Gulf region increased with the expansion of oil production in the 1960s and the dramatic rise in oil prices after 1973. Iraq's turn-key munitions plants and rudimentary arms production efforts in this period received relatively low priority and little positive press.
