BY CATHARINA TIRSÉN
GOTHENBURG, Sweden--The U.S.- and UK-led war on Iraq has led to a
debate among ruling Social Democratic party circles and other political
and peace organizations here on weapons exports by Swedish companies to
the United States and Britain.

"We take for granted that export of Swedish weapons to the U.S. will be
stopped after the statement of the foreign minister," said Maria
Ermanno, president of the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society March
13, after Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh criticized Washington’s
military buildup against Baghdad.

Swedish companies export substantial quantities of weapons to the
United States, amounting to 460 million Swedish kroner in 2002 (U.S.$55
million), according to government figures.

On March 18, Swedish prime minister Göran Persson distanced his
government from Washington’s decision to launch the assault on Iraq.
"We think decisions like that should be taken in the United Nations,"
he said. "Now the U.S. is breaking international law and we think that
is a serious thing." The Swedish government wanted weapons
"inspections," led by former Swedish foreign minister Hans Blix, to
continue.

Swedish law prohibits the export of weapons to countries involved in a
war, or to countries embroiled in an international conflict that may
lead to war.

So far, not a single member of the Social Democratic government here
has favored cutting weapons exports to the United States.

"If we apply our rules strictly, we break all collaboration with the
U.S.," said Leif Pagrotsky, minister of industry, at a meeting of the
Social Democratic Party in Uddevalla. "But then we will have to turn
the JAS Gripen into a glider." He was referring to the most modern
Swedish military aircraft produced by SAAB in Linköping. The U.S.-based
General Electric is providing the engine for the plane. Breaking
working relations on weapons production and exports with the United
Kingdom would be even more difficult, the minister said. "This is a
collaboration among countries who don’t feel comfortable with the lead
the U.S. is having."

"The position of the Swedish government on this question is
unacceptable," said Mikael Damberg, Social Democratic Youth president.
"There are no reasons from a defense or security point of view."

"It is possible that halting exports may lead to Swedish
weapons-producing companies and their stockholders losing money in the
short run," said Lars Ångström, member of parliament for the
Environmental Party. "But in the long run it will strengthen the
democracy in our country."

"This is a hard question," Minister of Foreign Affairs Anna Lindh
stated, answering a question on this issue by high-school students
during a visit here April 7. "But we live in a very unstable world now
and we need to export in order to be able to import weapons."

At its March 26 meeting, the parliament’s Exports Control Committee
took this issue up. Eight of the ten members of the committee were
against stopping the exports. The body with decisive power over weapons
exports, the Inspection of Strategic Products, has not brought the
issue to the cabinet for a vote, as is customary on such matters. The
Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society has complained to the chancellor
of justice that this procedure has violated the law on export of
weapons.

After Washington toppled the Saddam Hussein regime April 9, Prime
Minister Persson congratulated the Iraqi people for the "victory."

"It is wonderful," he said. "No one would want this war to go on a day
longer."

Since the launching of UN weapons "inspections" in Iraq,
representatives of the Swedish ruling class have played a prominent
role. They first assigned social democrat Rolf Ekeus, and later former
foreign minister and member of the liberal Peoples’ Party Hans Blix, to
lead the "inspection" teams. Maintaining this regime was part of
protecting Stockholm’s growing trade and investments in Iraq during the
last 12 years of the country’s devastation by UN-authorized sanctions
and bombardments by U.S. and British fighter jets in the so-called "no
fly zones."

On April 7, a few days before the Moscow meeting of the heads of state
of Russia, Germany, and France, French foreign minister Dominique de
Villepin had requested a meeting with his Swedish colleague Lindh.
Flying to the small city airport Säve in Gothenburg, the ministers met
for about an hour to discuss the reconstruction of Iraq after the war.

Swedish exports to Iraq had grown in recent years to Swedish Kroner 550
million annually (U.S. $66 million), mainly from companies like ABB,
Ericsson, Scania, and Volvo. Now the owners of these capitalist
monopolies are worried about what will happen to their business in Iraq
as Washington consolidates a protectorate there. "With Washington
pushing the United Nations to the sidelines, Swedish imperialism has
lost its main tool," said the Communist League in Sweden in a March 22
statement. "To working people and youth in Sweden it doesn’t
matter--the war is imperialist regardless of under whose name it is
being carried out. It is the position of the Communist League that
working people need to denounce the Swedish rulers’ profiteering and
plunder of Iraq over the last 12 years behind the mask of UN
‘inspections,’ as much as the imperialist assault and occupation of
Iraq."