Of Arms, Bribes, and Banned books: a Dove That Keeps Flying……………..
“The Saudi contract called al-Yamamah – which means "the dove" – was Britain's largest-ever arms agreement, and the source of intense scrutiny and controversy ever since it was signed in the mid-1980s…….. It transpired that Tony Blair had written a "secret and personal" letter to Goldsmith demanding that he stop the investigation. He hoped for a new arms deal from the Saudis........ Today – after years of denying claims of corruption and bribes – the company finally admitted that the deal was mired in wrongdoing. The US department of justice today filed a telling indictment to which BAE has agreed to plead guilty……….. To Britain's shame, these admissions have been forced out of BAE, not by the UK's own prosecutors, but those of another country. But that was not the end of the matter. In 2007, the Guardian revealed that the claims the SFO had been investigating included one that BAE had secretly paid more than £1bn to Prince Bandar through a US bank, as well as making him the free gift of an airliner. The US justice department decided to launch its own investigation. At its heart were claims that BAE had been paying £30m every quarter for at least a decade to the colourful prince. The US prosecutors could take jurisdiction as the payments had been channelled through a US bank in Washington where Bandar was the Saudi ambassador for 20 years. The British government refused to hand over documents about the Bandar payments to help the American prosecutors, payments allegedly made with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials. Ministers had claimed for 20 years that there were no secret commission payments, and BAE officially promised the US government the same in a 2000 official letter which later proved to be its undoing……………..” The Guardian (U K)
Officially this sordid and shameful case is closed. It was a shameful case for the BAE, for the groveling British government, and for a royal prince who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar (an expensive cookie it was, worth US$2 billion of the Saudi people’s money). There will books about this story, but unfortunately none of them may be in Arabic, and they certainly will be banned from the lands of all Arab oligarchs. And the story is being repeated, and will be repeated in other countries of our region, in other arms deals.
Cheers
mhg
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