Saddam-era firm now making music instead of bombs FEATURE 10/19/2010

Saddam-era firm now making music instead of bombs

FEATURE

10/19/2010
BAGHDAD — Before the 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq’s Al-Shaheed State Company used to make a blast, literally. Now it helps to produce music.

“We used to make mortar shell casings, but our engineers changed the production line, so we now make brass for trumpets and vases, and copper cables,” said Amine Hawas, a company technician.

Al-Shaheed’s fate has been mirrored by a string of other companies created during the regime of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and since transformed under an order of the post-invasion government of US diplomat Paul Bremer to turn military industries into civilian ones.

Created in 1982, the reformed company displayed its wares at a four-day fair of state-owned industries in Baghdad this week.

Other companies at the exhibition have gone from making guns, bombs and military binoculars to water sprinklers, microscopes and bomb-disposal robots..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20101019com3.html