User:Hcberkowitz/Sandbox-Austrian support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war

Austria is a minor producer of military equipment. Overall, around 2,000 people were employed in arms production in 2002, generating revenues of EUR 187 m. (USD 175 m.), according to estimates published by the national chamber of commerce (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, 2003). Data provided by the Austrian industry association in the late 1990s indicates that employment in arms production has been halved during the past decade.13 The Austrian arms industry was heavily dependent on arms exports throughout the 1980s and 1990s because of the limited requirements of the domestic armed forces. A major arms export scandal in the second half of the 1980s, involving a state-owned arms producing company (Noricum) selling arms illegally to both sides in the Iran–Iraq war, led to a major shake-up of the arms industry and initiated the withdrawal of the state from direct ownership.