One Day at a Time
By Jeffrey Goldberg
The Jerusalem Post, May 15, 1992
“The State Department last week admitted it had knowledge of instances of transfers of US-built equipment from Saudi Arabia to Iraq, Syria and Bangladesh over the past decade …
“Responding to allegations published in The Los Angeles Times, department spokesman Richard Boucher said that in 1986, the US received ‘reports’ from an unnamed source that the Saudis had given American weapons to the Iraqis …
“The Saudi explanation, he said, was that the transfers were ‘inadvertent,’ and both times the Saudis told the US that ‘they would try to ensure that it did not happen again.’ “
The Jerusalem Post
April 21, 1992
They filed into the room one by one, some abashed, heads hanging low. Some headed to the coffee machine and filled their styrofoam cups, a few grabbing the last of the stale cookies on a paper plate near the milk and sugar. Gradually, everybody found seats—spindly metal folding chairs, arranged in a loose circle.
The group leader came in last, striding confidently to the chair the rest had left for her.
“Hi, group,” the group leader said.
“Hi, Margaret,” the group replied. The group leader’s name was Margaret.
“Well, let’s see, I notice that we have some new faces here tonight. Group, let’s greet the new faces, shall we?”
“Hi, new faces,” the group said, a little too laconically for Margaret’s taste.
“Hi, new faces,” Margaret bubbled. A couple of new faces mumbled “hi” in return; a couple of other faces hid behind their keffiyehs.
“Okay, group, who’s going to start tonight? Hans, how about you? Why don’t you tell the new faces who you are?”
Hans, a bulky, formal German with cropped, blond hair, stood up slowly.
“My name is a Hans, and I’m an inadvertent arms-transferrer.”
“Hi, Hans,” the group replied.
Hans looked around the room uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you tell the group your story?” asked Margaret.
Hans shuffled his feet and began to talk. “Well, I guess it started, or at least I started to notice it, in the mid-1980s, when Iraq and Iran were going at each other pretty hard.”
Margaret, who had heard the story before, nodded sympathetically.
“I was president of a large German petrochemical and knackwurst company in Munich,” Hans continued. “Life was good to me; I had a wife and a little boy, a Mercedes, a villa in the Black Forest. It was a period of great growth for the company. Everything was going great. But then …” Hans paused as a tear welled up in the corner of his Germanic eye.
“Then, it started. I would be sitting in my office as Helga, my secretary, took notes. We would be going over sales orders, you know, 300 tons of DDT to Peru, a tanker full of manure to Kuwait, that sort of thing. And then I would do it—‘Helga,’ I would say, ‘Helga, tell the boys in shipping to send Iraq a small supply of mustard gas.’ “
“Well, Helga would look at me sort of funny, but I was the boss and orders were orders. So we started sending the Iraqis mustard gas.”
Margaret rose and walked toward Hans.
“So, is this when you realized you had a problem?”
“Oh no, not then. I wouldn’t admit to myself that I had a problem. ‘I’m in control of my arms-transfers,’ I would tell myself. ‘I can stop any time I want to.’ But it just got worse. I started shipping more and more mustard gas. Then I started throwing in some nerve agents. Eventually, I was rounding up nuclear triggers for them without even knowing it. I inadvertently transferred a lot of weapons this way.”
“When did you realize you had a problem?” Margaret asked.
“Well, it started to get really bad around the house. I would spend all my time inadvertently transferring arms. It eventually reached the point that my wife took my son and left. They just moved out. I guess they couldn’t take my destructive behavior anymore.”
“So you finally reached the point where you said to yourself, ‘I have a problem. I need to get help,’ ” Margaret said.
“Yes, it was when my family left me that I decided to get help. Also, I was arrested.”
“But you knew you had a problem before that, didn’t you?”
“Yes. That’s why I started coming to Inadvertent Arms-Transferrers Anonymous.”
“Group, listen to Hans. There’s a lesson in what he’s telling us. The first step in overcoming your addiction to inadvertent arms-transferring is to say, ‘I have a problem.’ ” Can we all say that together? ‘I have a problem. I have a problem … ’ “
The group picked up her chant. “I have a problem, I have a problem.”
“You are not failures. Don’t let this hurt your self-esteem. Inadvertent arms-transferring is a disease. That’s why we have a 12-step program to deal with it,” Margaret explained to a group of newcomers sitting quietly near Hans. “We take each day one day at a time. Everyone repeat after me, ‘I will not inadvertently transfer arms today.’ Come on, everybody.”
“I will not inadvertently transfer arms today …” the group repeated.
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life.”
“Today is the first day of the rest of my life,” the group said.
“Arms-free by ‘93,” Margaret said.
“Arms-free by ‘93,” the group replied.
“GOOD, GOOD, good,” Margaret said. “Now, one of the new people should go. How about you?” she said, pointing to a robust-looking man in an Italian suit.
“Who, me?” the man replied.
“Yes, you. Why don’t you start by standing up and telling everyone your name?”
“Well, yes, ummm … hi, my name is His Excellency the Prince of Hejaz, Falconer to the Kings, Prince Blundar of the Royal House of Sa’ud,” the man said.
“Hi, His Excellency the Prince of Hejaz, Falconer to the Kings, Prince Blundar of the Royal House of Sa’ud,” the group replied.
“Oh, you can just call me His Excellency. That would be fine.”
Margaret walked up to His Excellency and said, “Usually, after we say our names, we tell the group that we are inadvertent arms-transferrers.”
“Well, you see, group leader, I actually don’t have a problem. I wouldn’t even be here but my uncle forced me to come.”
“Now, now, His Excellency, the first step in our program is to admit that His Excellency has a problem.”
“No, really, I don’t. I mean, okay, we did send some weapons to Iraq and Bangladesh and Syria, but I wasn’t involved, really. I was playing tennis with President Bush the whole time. Really.”
“His Excellency, no excuses. You’re among friends. We’re all inadvertent arms-transferrers here.”
“No, I insist, I’ve never inadvertently transferred anything. I swear. You must believe me.”
Margaret began pacing around the room. “Okay, His Excellency, whatever you want to tell us is fine. Group, let’s take a five-minute break. Hans, could you talk to His Excellency and try to make him feel more at home?”
As the other group members wandered off into the hallway, Hans walked over to His Excellency.
“You know, I was once like you,” Hans said. “I didn’t admit what I was doing—I guess I couldn’t admit it. But I’m telling you, I feel so much better now that I’m dealing with my disease.”
“Well, good for you, but I don’t have a problem.”
“His Excellency, everyone knows you have a problem. It’s okay.”
“I’m telling you, I don’t have a problem.”
“Fine. You’re in denial now, but you’ll come around. It’s been nice talking to you.”
“One thing before you go, Hans,” His Excellency said. “What was that you were saying about nuclear triggers?”