What is "arms-to-iraq"

The Arms-to-Iraq affair concerned the uncovering of the government-endorsed sale of arms by British companies to Iraq, then under the rule of Saddam Hussein. The scandal contributed to the growing dissatisfaction with the Conservative government of John Major and may have contributed to the electoral landslide for Tony Blair's Labour Party at the 1997 general election. The whole affair also highlighted the weakness of the constitutional convention of individual ministerial accountability, leading to its codification as the Ministerial Code by the Blair Government.

Following the first Gulf War of 1991 there was interest in the extent to which British companies had been supplying Saddam Hussein's administration with the materials to prosecute the war. Four directors of the British machine tools manufacturer, Matrix Churchill, were put on trial for supplying equipment and knowledge to Iraq, but in 1992 the trial collapsed, when it was revealed that the company had been advised by the government on how to sell arms to Iraq. Several of the directors were eventually paid compensation.