"Smart weapons" perform "surgical" strikes - though at times there may be unfortunate "collateral damage". Journalists are "embedded" and when allies kill each other by mistake it is "friendly" fire.

Asked why the invasion of Iraq is not going quite as expected, British and American commanders mumble about "a dynamic situation" and note that Iranian support for President Saddam Hussein will be viewed as "unhelpful".

Not to be outdone in obfuscation, our own Kader Asmal, head of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), declared last week that in reviewing the situation in Iraq his committee had "taken full cognisance of its authority and responsibility for regulatory control over the trade in armaments within the bounds of government policy".

He added: "The NCACC is satisfied that we are applying our policy consistently with the cabinet policy decision of August 1995 and the provisions of the National Conventional Arms Control Act."

In other words, Denel will be allowed to go on selling arms to the British in spite of the war in Iraq.

Denel, as we reported a week ago in Business Report on Sunday, has contracts to supply the British army with components for ammunition, propellants for artillery shells and hand-held laser rangefinders.

Some of these are apparently classified as "nonlethal", whatever that means. An aircraft carrier is also "nonlethal" unless you ram it into a fishing village.

The British - and for that matter the Americans - are considered respectable enough to qualify to buy not only "nonlethal" equipment such as signal flares, mine detectors and tear gas, but also "nonsensitive equipment" such as radar and meteorological material; "sensitive, significant equipment" such as assault weapons, machine guns and small arms and ammunition; and even "sensitive, major significant equipment" such as tanks, combat aircraft, heavy artillery, warships and other "implements of war that could cause heavy personnel casualties"

But according to the terms of reference of the committee - set up in 1995 to clean up the new South Africa's arms manufacture and export and finally given legal status through the National Conventional Arms Control Act earlier this month - we are not supposed to sell weapons which are likely to "contribute to the escalation of regional conflicts, endanger peace by introducing destabilising military capabilities into a region or otherwise contribute to regional instability".

Xolani Skosana of the Institute for Security Studies said in an October 2002 paper that South Africa had done more than many other countries to impose political control on arms sales.

There have been questionable sales in the past, to countries such as Colombia, India, Israel, Pakistan and Rwanda. The passage of the National Conventional Arms Control Act has been fraught with battles between parliament and the department of defence about disclosure.

But South Africa has tried to limit the spread of weapons in line with Nelson Mandela's 1994 statement that "in our approach to the sale of arms we are resolved to act responsibly".

He said: "Arms are for the purpose of defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a country, not to undermine any considerations of humanity, not to suppress the legitimate aspirations of any community."

A firm stand on the sale of weapons, lethal or not, to the belligerents in Iraq would have given new meaning to these words.

With acknowledgements to Alide Dasnois and the Business Report.