"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."  
 
 
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