Disinformation 101: Hua Mei (not Huawei) and Iraq

Long-lingering innuendo suggesting that Huawei supplied fiber optic equipment supporting Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Defense Communications Network appears misleading, whether or not intentionally.

Over the last eight months, an August 18, 2010 letter from eight Republican Senators to Obama Administration Cabinet officials (link to the letter),referencing the purported sale by Huawei of advanced fiber optics equipment used to support Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Air Defense Communications Network, has driven countless media reports on the same topic. The August 18 letter contained the following hearsay “The Iraq Survey Group reported that Huawei sold communications technology to Saddam Hussein' s regime in possible violation of UN. Sanctions…Some reports indicate that this communications technology included fiber optic equipment used in Saddam Hussein' s air defense network, which routinely fired on US. military aircraft.” (Two subsequent Congressional letters have made similar, if less detailed, references)

The August 18 Senators’ letter did not footnote the “Iraq Survey Group” report, but it did footnote a March 19, 2001 Asian Wall Street Journal article (link to mirror) reporting “U.S. intelligence sources confirm…that Huawei Technologies, one of China's leading makers of communication networks, has helped Iraq outfit its air defenses with fiber optic equipment.”

According to multiple online references, the Iraqi (purportedly NATO code-named "Tiger Song") fiber-optic air defense system may in fact have incorporated American-made technology that evaded export controls administered by the then-Clinton Administration Commerce Department. Specifically, a U.S.-China joint venture called "Hua Mei" is said to have facilitated the sale of advanced, secure AT&T (pre-Lucent) fiber-optic communication systems for "civilian use" inside China.

The U.S. side of the joint venture is reported to have included two American companies: SCM and Brooks Telecommunications International Inc.

The Chinese side of the Hua Mei venture was reportedly run by a newly-formed firm, "Galaxy New Technology," run by a PLA Lt General who was married to the then-head of the PLA military research bureau (COSTIND – the Commission on Science and Industry for National Defense).

It is rumored that the PLA’s Electronics Bureau subsequently modified the American fiber-optics communication system, changing it into a secure air-defense/missile command system, and then exporting the newly modified system to Iraq.

Suggestions that certain Department of Defense entities (specifically the Defense Technology Security Association – DTSA) may have objected to the technology transfer to Hua Mei were addressed in a DoD letter responding to then-Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on National Security Floyd Spence, who was one of those expressing the concerns (link to DoD correspondence with Chairman Floyd as reportedly obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request – page down from the initial link). In short, the DoD response to Representative Floyd communicated that there was no DTSA or other objection or, for that matter, any DoD review of the transaction due to coincidental 1994 amendments to U.S. Export Control rules which allowed for a new classification (GLX) for exports to civilian entities, beyond DoD’s purview. The DoD letter to Chairman Floyd specifically denied any knowledge of COSTIND or other PLA involvement in Hua Mei.

Further, again at the request of Chairman Spence, the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) undertook a 1996 review “to determine (1) the civil and military applications of the exported telecommunications equipment, its availability, and the importance of these applications to China's military and (2) the process and rationale for liberalizing the export of telecommunications equipment, such as the ATM and SDH equipment shipped to Hua Mei.”

Among other things, the GAO’s resulting report (link to the full GAO Report) commented that while “U.S. company and government officials stated that Hua Mei was a civil end user,” the GAO found that, in fact, “Hua Mei, while a commercial enterprise, has as its principal Chinese partner, a company controlled by the Chinese military... Several members of the Hua Mei board of directors are military officers or have direct ties to the Chinese military. Such a high degree of involvement in Hua Mei could indicate a strong military interest in this company.” The GAO also noted that “The equipment was exported to Hua Mei without Commerce review, even though the company was partially controlled by several high-level members of the Chinese military.” In other words, commodity classification GLX should not have been applied had the facts been properly communicated.

Yet further, in 1997, Congressman Henry Hyde wrote Attorney General Reno a letter outlining his concerns about Galaxy New Technology (link to the Hyde letter). According to Congressman Hyde's letter to Reno, "In 1994, sophisticated telecommunications technology was transferred to a U.S.-Chinese joint venture called HUA MEI, in which the Chinese partner is an entity controlled by the Chinese military. This particular transfer included fiber-optic communications equipment which is used for high-speed, secure communications over long distances. Also included in the package was advanced encryption software."

Also in 1997, the Director of the Commerce Department’s Office of Strategic Trade and Foreign Policy Controls, responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request communicating that the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) had identified seven documents related to Hua Mei in its files (link to letter – scroll down). Commerce released three of the documents, withheld one, and referred to the State and Defense Departments to review and determine whether to disclose the other three documents, which Commerce reported to have originated from those Agencies.

The Hua Mei story went more or less dark after that.

The Huawei misinformation began to emerge a few short years later, such as in the Asian Wall Street Journal article referenced above, as well as other remarkably similar and contemporaneous media accounts, like the March 17, 2001 Washington Post article (link) reporting “Pentagon officials have accused the company [Huawei] of laying optical communications cables between Iraqi antiaircraft batteries, radar stations and command centers, which they say could significantly aid Baghdad’s efforts to shoot down U.S. warplanes patrolling the ‘no fly’ zones over northern and southern Iraq.”

And thus, notwithstanding the contradictory facts openly available on the public record, a myth was born, and has been perpetuated since...