OF ALL the inappropriate and spurious transactions made by the west in developing countries over the past four decades, the £14 million investment in a chlorine factory at Fallujah, Iraq, in 1985 stands out as particularly ill-advised.
Built by Uhde Ltd, a British subsidiary of a German company, the project was underwritten by the UK government’s export credit agency (ECA), which funds or insures British companies doing business in high-risk areas. In 2003, the US and UK governments cited the existence of this factory as a major reason to go to war against Saddam Hussein. It was, they said, key…
