Blair in Secret Saudi Mission

[buzzsaw_23]

Blair in secret Saudi mission

Expulsions link to £40bn arms deal

David Leigh and Ewen MacAskill
Tuesday September 27, 2005
The Guardian


Tony Blair and John Reid, the defence secretary, have been holding secret talks with Saudi Arabia in pursuit of a huge arms deal worth up to £40bn, according to diplomatic sources.

Mr Blair went to Riyadh on July 2, en route to Singapore, where Britain was bidding for the 2012 Olympics. Three weeks later, Mr Reid made a two-day visit, when he sought to persuade Prince Sultan, the crown prince, to re-equip his air force with the Typhoon, the European fighter plane of which the British arms company BAE has the lion's share of manufacturing.

Defence, diplomatic and legal sources say negotiations are stalling because the Saudis are demanding three favours. These are that Britain should expel two anti-Saudi dissidents, Saad al-Faqih and Mohammed al-Masari; that British Airways should resume flights to Riyadh, currently cancelled through terrorism fears; and that a corruption investigation implicating the Saudi ruling family and BAE should be dropped. Crown prince Sultan's son-in-law, Prince Turki bin Nasr, is at the centre of a "slush fund" investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

<snip>

The Typhoon, currently entering service with the RAF, has a price of more than £45m a plane. Saudi Arabia previously bought a fleet of its predecessor Tornados from Britain in the Al Yamamah arms deal. Mike Turner, the chief executive of BAE, Britain's biggest arms company, was quoted in Flight International magazine on June 21, just before Mr Blair's Riyadh trip, saying: "The objective is to get the Typhoon into Saudi Arabia. We've had £43bn from Al Yamamah over the last 20 years and there could be another £40bn."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,1579155,00.html

[TrueAmerican]

1. I never would of thought that Blair would become the Prime Minister

Mrs Garrett must be proud.

[daleo]

2. Blair seems to sink lower into a cesspool of corruption every day.

Anything for a buck (or a pound, I guess).

[I_am_Spartacus]

3. Any money taken from US defence contractors is going to be

a big loss for the US, especially from this customer, who I assume has been an almost exclusive customer of the US so far.

[Skink]

4. No wonder Carlysle wants him

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

10. UK's been selling arms to Saudi Arabia for decades

oftentimes taking advantage of the fact that the US congress refuses to allow certain sales to go through. Here's a pretty comprehensive (albeit slightly outdated) history if you're interested (produced by CAAT - the campaign against the arms trade):

"Saudi Arabia’s dependence on oil is mirrored by the UK’s dependence on Saudi Arabia as its main customer for military products. Neil Cooper describes the UK’s "overwhelming reliance" on Saudi contracts in the early nineties, a reliance which has resulted in a dangerous "condition of dependency" that has repeatedly undermined the independence of our government (Cooper 1997, p149). UK government policy has frequently been dictated by the need to retain the Saudi market, often eroding public accountability and the integrity of government institutions.

The benefits to the UK are far less clear than the ‘Thousands of Jobs Saved’ headlines would have it seem: expert economic analysis has shown that both the billion-pound Al Yamamah deals and huge government investment have paid few real dividends. The fact that the bulk of payment was made in oil under a barter scheme meant that the Saudis were often behind with payments due to variations in oil prices; as Treasury official Robin Fellgatt commented, "an arms sale on credit if someone does not pay up is of no economic benefit, quite the reverse" (Koorey 1995, p51). Economic benefits which are, at best, unclear provide little justification for unethical export policies.

The real profit has most likely been into the pockets of those who orchestrated the deals. The pervasive scandal and rumour surrounding Al Yamamah suggest that the motivation behind supplying the kingdom may have come from those few individuals who directly benefited from ‘commission’ payments. The Dooley court case in the US in 1991, the 1994 Granada TV ‘World In Action’ programme, the allegations concerning Mark Thatcher in 1994, the 1996 Westland memo on the Saudi dissident Mohammed al Mas’ari, the Rolls Royce court case in 1997 and the Jonathan Aitken affair, all support suggestions that, contrary to UK and Saudi law, "commissions are an essential part of the system" (Times, 12.10.94).

Ever since the signing of Al Yamamah I there have been repeated media allegations and many demands by politicians and the public for transparency. However, the government has only launched one investigation into the corruption associated with the deals, an internal inquiry with a narrow remit, the findings of which were suppressed. As Dr Kim Howells, MP for Pontypridd and member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said, the non-publication of the National Audit Office (NAO) report was "most unsatisfactory. If we can’t see the report, and it goes right to the heart of the problem, what does the PAC exist for?" (Observer, 10.5.92). Martin O’Neill, the then Labour Defence Spokesman, pledged at the time that a Labour government would re-open the inquiry, however, the present government has maintained its predecessor’s refusal to release the NAO report (Independent, 12.3.93)."
http://www.caat.org.uk/information/publications/countries/saudi-arabia-intro.php


(nb - the Al Yamamah deal was described by the Financial Times as "the biggest sale of anything to anyone by anyone."

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. No, the UK and BAE have been bribing the Saudis to buy British weapons

since Mrs. Thatcher's time, at least - her son made millions through it. As the Guardian article says, BAE already made £43 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the past 20 years. Note this, from today's article:

There is concern within the Foreign Office at the apparent partiality of No 10 to BAE's commercial interests. Jonathan Powell, Mr Blair's chief of staff, and his brother Charles, Lady Thatcher's former adviser and now a BAE consultant, are believed to be in favour of the deal.

Of course they're in favour - Charles must be up to his neck in it. A consultant to the firm that bribed the Saudis and paid his former boss's son money to get Thatcher's influence on the deals - and here's a chance to get Blair to interfere in the investigation into the bribing! I'm sure Jonathan wants his brother to keep his lucrative position (and of course, he might have been involved in Thatcher's original bribery efforts himself). So he will put pressure on Blair to get the investigation cancelled, a few more people will get bribed again, and BAE will get to sell expensive fighters designed to fight the Soviet Union to the Saudis - who don't seem to care what they waste their money on, as long as they get their bribes. I suppose they have to buy some more to get Prince Turki off the hook - no doubt he wants to be able to visit London without fear of arrest.

Here's an article on the earlier bribes that they're demanding Blair cover up:

Files have been seized by Ministry of Defence police alleging corruption on a massive scale by Britain's biggest arms firm, BAE Systems. Payments totalling more than £60m to prominent Saudis are listed, a far greater amount than has been previously alleged.

MoD fraud squad detectives investigating allegations of bribery of a civil servant have seized 386 boxes of "slush fund" accounts.

Most explosively, the documents detail £17m in benefits and cash allegedly paid by BAE, which is chaired by Sir Dick Evans, to the key Saudi politician in charge of British arms purchases, Prince Turki bin Nasser. He is recorded under the codename "PB", alleged to mean "principal beneficiary".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/armstrade/story/0,10674,1209014,00.html

[Roland99]

5. Well, sure thing there, Prince.

We'll ignore your sex-slave, human-trafficking industry. We'll ignore the fact that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers came from your country. We'll ignore the fact that the majority of the foreign fighters in Iraq are Saudis. We'll ignore all that and gladly send you tens of billions of weapons, fighters, etc. Oh, and we'll ignore the corruption within your nepotistic regime.

[wordout]

6. of course the negotiations are stalled

the two governments are discussing the Alliance of Civilizations not arms sales!

:grouphug:

[sabra]

8. kick

:kick:

[GayCanuck]

9. This may be off topic, but

my partner and I were in Monte Carlo last year and there was a large contingent of Saudis in the casino, minus the Islamic dress; Italian suits; guzzling champagne and martinis and draped with what appeared to be high end Russian hookers all over them.