30 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
30 lines
2.5 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
aliases:
|
|
- SerVaas Incorporated
|
|
- Servaas Inc.
|
|
- SerVaas
|
|
category: "Private Organization"
|
|
tags:
|
|
- Organization
|
|
- SerVaas
|
|
- Iraq
|
|
- BNLScandal
|
|
- SafaAlHabobi
|
|
- ArmsToIraq
|
|
- Indianapolis
|
|
- HenryGonzalez
|
|
summary: "Indianapolis company that sold Iraq a 40 million dollar brass recycling plant financed by BNL Atlanta, which its owner told Congress was for commercial products and Iraqi documents assigned to cartridge cases and artillery fuses."
|
|
location: "Indianapolis, Indiana"
|
|
created: 2026-09-21
|
|
updated: 2026-09-21
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
SerVaas Incorporated is an [[Indianapolis]] manufacturing company owned by [[Beurt SerVaas]]. In September 1988 it signed a contract with an [[Iraq|Iraqi]] state enterprise, [[Al Shaheed]], for a plant to recover brass from spent shell casings. The contract, worth 40 million dollars, was financed by the [[Atlanta]] branch of the [[Banca Nazionale del Lavoro]], and a further agreement of June 14, 1989, was made with the procurement network of [[Safa al-Habobi]].[^1]
|
|
|
|
SerVaas told the [[House Banking Committee]] on April 9, 1991: "It was explained to us that Iraq was looking to a long-term project of utilizing this substantial amount of scrap for the purpose of supplementing its oil revenues through the sale of commercial products in the peacetime economy." The committee's chairman, [[Henry B. Gonzalez]], read into the record on September 25, 1992, an internal memorandum of July 31, 1988, and documents of [[Matrix Churchill]], showing that the 70/30 brass was to double Iraq's output of the discs from which cartridge cases are drawn and to supply parts for artillery fuses, with commercial sales a residue. SerVaas told the [[Indianapolis Star]] on August 8, 1992: "Probably the only thing they are doing is melting the brass down."[^1]
|
|
|
|
All the equipment had been shipped when Iraq invaded [[Kuwait]] in August 1990, though the plant was not yet running. Gonzalez said SerVaas afterward renegotiated with al-Habobi and [[Saalim Naman]] and sold the contract through a foreign holding company, Izane, so as to escape the president's order freezing Iraqi assets. President [[George H.W. Bush]]'s report to Congress of September 1991 under the [[Iraq Sanctions Act of 1990|Iraq Sanctions Act]] stated that "[[United States]] suppliers did not contribute directly to Iraq's conventional or nonconventional weapons capability."[^1]
|
|
|
|
### Footnotes
|
|
|
|
[^1]: Gonzalez, Henry B. "Brass Factory in Iraq," *Congressional Record,* House, September 25, 1992, p. H9502; Gonzalez, floor statement of August 10, 1992.
|