IRAQ: To Arm or Not to Arm

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The British decided last week to take a chance on Iraq's Premier Karim Kassem.

They recognize that Iraq has been sliding steadily toward Communism. They recall that Kassem's revolution began not only with the murder of the King but with the burning of Baghdad's British embassy. But they also realize that, so far, Kassem's government has honored its contracts with the British-run Iraq Petroleum Co., in order to keep Iraq's $230 million-a-year oil royalties.

When Kassem's army asked Britain to supply a big order of heavy weapons (centurion tanks, Canberra jets) of the sort that Iraq regularly got from Britain before the revolution, the British government mulled things over, decided to give British munitions firms the go-ahead. Anyway, most arms will not be delivered until early next year.

"If we say no," said one British official, "the Iraqis can get the arms directly from Communist sources, and we have gained nothing.'' Added another official: "If it is going to be a case of British soldiers or British allies being killed with British arms, then that will come about anyway, because the Iraqi army is now almost entirely equipped with British arms."

In Baghdad, the Ministry of Health decided to requisition the American Seventh-day Adventist hospital because it had been "a source of danger, suspicion and distrust." It will be confiscated and restaffed with Soviet doctors arriving late this month from Moscow.