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Banned
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Did Bush Commit Treason by Attacking Iraq Instead of Saudi Arabia?
Court documents show that the UK government backed down from investigating bribes paid by defence contractor BAE after Saudi prince and longtime former Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, made threats related to the possibility of additional terrorist bombings in the UK, similar to those experienced in the London tube on 7/7/06....
It seems to me that, if former British PM Tony Blair took the threats so seriously as to taking the highly unusual step of stopping the bribe investigation of Bandar, that both the US and the UK governments should have, from late 2006 on, regarded Saudi Arabia as a terrorist state. Wasn't it president Bush who declared, after 9/11 that all countries are either "with us, or against us?"
What other country, aside from Saudi Arabia, could be the purported country of origin of 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers, and experience, in reaction, no negative adjustments in US policy towards that country? The news of Bandar's bribe taking has been in the public forum fo 20 months, and Mr. Bush has to have known of Bandar's Dec., 2006 threats to the UK government, immediately after they were received, and yet, there is no visible alteration to US Saudi relations.
Could US oil dependency, alone, create such a dynamic, or is Mr. Bush unreasonably compliant to Saudi interests and concerns, to the detriment of US national security? Why are the Saudis permitted to threaten to be less cooperative in the "war on terror", especially considering that half of all captured "foreign fighters" in Iraq are Saudi, and Bandar as much as said that Saudi Arabia might not pass along it's knowledge of plans of future terrorist attacks in the UK?
Quote:
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2008/02/15/3273651.htm
[February 15, 2008]
High Court judge says elements of decision to drop BAE-Saui corruption probe perturbing
(Associated Press WorldStream Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) LONDON_A High Court judge has questioned several aspects of the decision by Britain's anti-fraud agency to drop a corruption inquiry into an arms deal between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems PLC after threats by Saudi officials to withdraw cooperation on critical security issues....
...In the letter to Goldsmith, Blair said he was concerned about the "critical difficulty" in negotiations about the Typhoon fighters, as well as "a real and immediate risk of a collapse in UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation" that would have "seriously negative consequences for the U.K. public interest in terms of both national security and our highest priority foreign policy objectives in the Middle East."
Like many of the documents that have been made public in the case, Blair's letter is heavily censored.
Shortly after, Robert Wardle, the director of the Serious Fraud Office, which is run independent of government, reversed his earlier stance and officially halted the investigation....
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Quote:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle3371788.ece
February 15, 2008
Bribes inquiry was warned of ‘another 7/7’, court told
Christine Buckley, Industrial Correspondent, and Fiona Hamilton
Fraud investigators were told they faced the possibility of “another 7/7” and the likely loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with inquiries into Saudi Arabia’s arms deals, it was revealed yesterday.
High Court documents showed that the Saudis threatened to cut off intelligence, potentially making it easier for terrorists to attack London, if the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) did not drop its investigation into alleged corruption in deals with BAE systems.
After threats by the Saudis over co-operation in national security issues, the former Prime Minister Tony Blair subjected the SFO to “irresistible pressure” to stop its inquiries, it was claimed.
Lord Justice Moses, hearing a legal challenge to the scrapping of the inquiry, said the Government appeared to have “rolled over” in December 2006.
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The judge, presiding over the legal action by anti-corruption campaigners to have the decision overturned, questioned why an attempt was not made to get the threat to withdraw co-operation with the UK lifted by the Saudis.
He said: “No one said, ‘You can’t talk to us like that’.”
The SFO had been investigating allegations of corruption against BAE for more than two years. It was alleged that Britain’s biggest defence company had paid huge sums of money in bribes to certain members of the Saudi Royal Family in connection with the £43 billion al-Yamamah arms deal in the 1990s, which included the sale of 72 Tornado aircraft.
BAE has always denied any wrongdoing and has emphasised that the al-Yamamah contract was a government-to-government deal.
When Robert Wardle, the SFO director, announced that the corruption investigation was being dropped, Mr Blair said that if it had continued it would have damaged Britain’s national security interests.
At the time BAE and the Government were negotiating a key order for Typhoon fighters with the Saudis, a deal that was sealed last year.
Yesterday Dinah Rose, QC, acting for pressure groups, said that Mr Blair went too far when he applied “irresistible pressure” to end the SFO’s investigation.
She claimed the former Prime Minister “stepped over the boundaries of what was permissible” and wrongly interfered in a legal matter following the Saudi threats.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threat to hold back information.
Ms Rose said that the prince met Foreign Office officials in London on December 5, 2006. The Prime Minister intervened a few days later.
In the SFO’s internal memos, investigators recorded they had been told of the likely loss of British lives if they continued in their work.
Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said that one possible view was that it was “just as if a gun had been held to the director’s head”.
Philip Sales, QC, appearing for the SFO, said that the SFO director had had “no choice” but to stop the BAE investigation as the threat from the Saudis “could not be obviated sensibly by other means”.
The judicial review, being brought by the Campaign Against Arms Trade and Corner House Research, which campaigns on corruption and social justice issues, is expected to last two days.
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4635383.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 7 June 2007, 09:48 GMT 10:48 UK
Profile: Prince Bandar
For three decades, Prince Bandar bin Sultan was the face of Saudi Arabia in its most powerful and closest ally, the United States.
After his resignation in 2005, the prince was appointed head of the newly created National Security Council, responsible for tackling Islamist militants in the kingdom.
But the son of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and brother-law-of Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz remains a key figure in Saudi Arabia's international affairs.
A man of extraordinary drive and energy with a lavish and colourful lifestyle the former fighter pilot was once described as an "Arab Gatsby".
He has enjoyed unparalleled access to centres of power in the US and played an important behind-the-scenes role in diplomacy and international deals.
This has continued since his sudden departure from the Washington embassy, for "personal reasons" according to a statement, just weeks before the death of King Fahd and the elevation of his father to heir apparent.
Prince Bandar has been particularly close to the Bush dynasty and their allies such as Vice President Dick Cheney, who served as defence secretary under President George HW Bush.
<h2>The current president is even said to have earned the nickname Bandar Bush, as an honorary member of the family.</h2>
'Charming and effective'
Prince Bandar's stratospheric connections in Washington were laid out in Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward's account on the build-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Plan of Attack.
He played a very central role in the relationship between Washington and Riyadh
Richard Fairbanks
Former US ambassador-at-large
Mr Woodward claims that in January 2003, Prince Bandar was shown essential details of the war plan against Saddam Hussein, even before then Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Amid prospects of a steep rise in oil prices, Prince Bandar is said to have casually mentioned that the Saudis hoped to increase oil production so as to hold petroleum prices down.
He requested and received a subsequent meeting with the president himself, Mr Woodward says.
Richard Fairbanks, US ambassador-at-large under President Reagan and former chief US negotiator for the Middle East peace process, has known Prince Bandar professionally and socially for many years.
"He is very smart, charming and a very effective diplomat," he told the BBC....
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6728773.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 7 June 2007, 18:09 GMT 19:09 UK
Saudi prince 'received arms cash'
A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.
The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.
Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.
"I was the one who won the contract," he said. "I don't know anything about him (the prince) at all. I would have remembered that name."
All that BAE has ever rejected is any suggestion that the commission payments were illegal
Robert Peston
BBC Business Editor
Read Robert Peston's blog
When asked about the secret payments, Sir Lygo said that it was not going on when the deal was signed.
"I would have known if it was going on at the time. I was not aware of it, so as far as I am concerned it was not occuring.
"Yes, we paid agents. Nothing illegal about that. It was absolutely in accordance with the law at the time... there was nothing untoward about the deal whatsoever."
Private plane
The investigation found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.
The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.
David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government.
He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family."
Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years".
"Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added.
Investigation stopped
According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services".
They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD.
It remains unclear whether the payments were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.
The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.
The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by attorney general Lord Goldsmith.
Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the Panorama allegations.
But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".
The SFO's inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point where there was a risk that BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh.
Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.
Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.
The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.
She believed the payments would thrust the issue back into the public domain and raise a number of questions.
'Bad for business'
Labour MP Roger Berry, head of the House of Commons committee which investigates strategic export controls, told the BBC that the allegations must be properly investigated.
If there was evidence of bribery or corruption in arms deals since 2001 - when the UK signed the OECD's Anti-Bribery Convention - then that would be a criminal offence, he said.
He added: "It's bad for British business, apart from anything else, if allegations of bribery popping around aren't investigated."
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".
"It seems to me very clear that this issue has got to be re-opened," Mr Cable told BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight.
"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it."
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6732921.stm
Last Updated: Friday, 8 June 2007, 15:36 GMT 16:36 UK
Goldsmith denies BAE cash claim
The attorney general has denied claims he concealed from an international anti-bribery watchdog the existence of secret payments to a Saudi prince.
The Guardian claims that Lord Goldsmith hid details from the OECD of payments from BAE Systems to ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Lord Goldsmith told the BBC the claims were "absolutely untrue"....
...Asked about the payments, Lord Goldsmith told BBC News: "I am not going into the detail of the individual allegations.
"The reason is that the Ministry of Defence, which is the responsible department, regard the United Kingdom as being bound by confidentiality provisions.
"It is not for me to break those - still less, as the Ministry of Defence say, if going into detail about certain matters would cause the very risk to national security which caused the director of the Serious Fraud Office to bring this investigation to an end."
The Guardian issued a statement following Lord Goldsmith's rejection of the allegations, in which it said there was "no dispute" that the payments were concealed from the OECD when they requested explanations for the dropping of the SFO inquiry.
It remains unclear whether the payments to the prince were actually illegal - a point which depends in part on whether they continued after 2001, when the UK made bribery of foreign officials an offence.
On Thursday Prime Minister Tony Blair declined to comment on the payments.
But he said that if the SFO investigation into BAE had not been dropped, it would have led to "the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship and the loss of thousands of British jobs".
Lord Goldsmith refused to comment on whether any further investigations would be held into the deal.
"These are matters you need to put to the Ministry of Defence, not to me," he told the BBC.
An investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme, due to be broadcast on Monday, revealed that BAE Systems, the UK's biggest arms manufacturer, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the prince over a decade.
It found that up to £120m a year was sent by BAE Systems from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington.
Private plane
Panorama established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar for his role in the 1985 deal to sell more than 100 warplanes to Saudi Arabia.
The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the prince's private Airbus.
Panorama reporter Jane Corbin explained that the payments were Saudi public money, channelled through BAE and the MoD, back to the Prince.
The SFO had been trying to establish whether they were illegal when the investigation was stopped, she added.
The SFO's inquiry is thought to have angered Saudi Arabia, to the point that there was a risk BAE could lose a contract to sell the new Typhoon fighter to Riyadh.
Lord Goldsmith said the reasons for the investigation being halted had been made clear.
"The director of the Serious Fraud Office who made that decision has made those absolutely plain.
"His reasons were because of the serious risk to national security on the advice of those whose job it is to care about the interests of people in this country and their lives."
Prince Bandar, who is the son of the Saudi defence minister, served for 20 years as US ambassador and is now head of the country's national security council.
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7244051.stm
Last Updated: Thursday, 14 February 2008, 18:21 GMT
BAE inquiry 'put lives at risk'
The government thought "British lives on British streets" would have been at risk if an arms deal inquiry had not been dropped, court documents show.
The claims were made at the start of a High Court challenge brought by the pressure groups Corner House Research and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT).
The groups want to overturn a decision to halt a corruption inquiry into an arms deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia.
They claim that business rather than security reasons brought it to an end.
A lawyer for the groups argued that the decision had been influenced by hopes of winning new contracts.
BAE denies claims
BAE, the UK's largest defence group, has always said it acted lawfully.
The judicial review at the High Court in front of Lord Justice Moses and Mr Justice Irwin is expected to last for two days.
In the documents released to the court, Helen Garlick, assistant director of the Serious Fraud Office, was quoted as recalling what the Foreign Office told her about its fears of another bomb attack in the UK.
"If this caused another 7/7 how could we say that our investigation, which at this stage might or might not result in a successful prosecution was more important?," the notes quoted her as saying.
Judicial review
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) had been examining whether BAE gave money to Saudi officials to help secure contracts in the 1980s.
The allegation investigated by the SFO centred on BAE's £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal to Saudi Arabia in 1985, which provided Tornado and Hawk jets plus other military equipment.
BAE was accused of operating a slush fund to help it secure the contract.
The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006 by the government, with attorney general Lord Goldsmith announcing that it was threatening the UK's national security.
Corner House and CAAT are trying to prove in court that hopes of winning a huge new arms contract from Saudi Arabia influenced officials.
Threats from members of the Saudi royal family to withdraw security and intelligence cooperation were also to blame, lawyers for the groups argue.
Under pressure
The SFO began its investigation into the Saudi arms deal in November 2004.
Documents released to the High Court showed that a year later BAE wrote letters to the Attorney General setting out the "reasons why the company considers it not to be in the public interest for the investigation to continue".
In one letter, BAE expressed concern that the disclosure of payments to agents and consultants involved in the deal would be seen by the Saudi Arabian government as a "serious breach of confidentiality by the company and the UK government".
It said this would "adversely and seriously" affect diplomatic relations between the UK and Saudi Arabian governments and "almost inevitably prevent the UK securing its largest export contract in the last decade".
Nicholas Hildyard, director of Corner House, said that the documents made it clear that national security, "the reason ultimately given for pulling the plug on this investigation", was used as a last resort.
"It was trotted out as a concern only when all these other special pleadings of commercial and diplomatic consequences had failed," he said.
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Quote:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/14/business/bae.php
Britain opens inquiry on Saudi arms deal
By Julia Werdigier
Published: February 14, 2008
....Earlier this week, a federal judge in the United States temporarily froze some funds there belonging to Prince Bandar pending resolution of a class-action lawsuit, the Associated Press reported.
The suit was filed in September by a small Michigan city retirement system accusing some BAE Systems directors of breaching their fiduciary duties in connection with the alleged bribes paid to Bandar....
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Quote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/bu...html?ref=world
By JULIA WERDIGIER
Published: February 15, 2008
LONDON — A British High Court judge raised new questions Thursday about why the government ordered the Serious Fraud Office to stop investigating claims of corruption related to a 1990s arms deal with Saudi Arabia that was brokered by BAE Systems, the biggest British weapons maker.
The office abruptly canceled its inquiry last year after Tony Blair, the prime minister at the time, said the investigation would threaten thousands of British jobs and affect diplomatic and intelligence ties with Saudi Arabia.
Mr. Blair said an investigation would not “have led anywhere, except to the complete wreckage of a vital strategic relationship for our country.” BAE has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
At a judicial review Thursday, the Campaign Against Arms Trade and the Corner House, a social justice advocacy group, said the government acted unlawfully in December 2006 when it told the fraud office to stop looking into allegations that BAE paid bribes to Saudi Arabian officials in exchange for arms deals.
Dinah Rose, a lawyer representing the two groups, said new documents showed that BAE Systems wrote to the attorney general confidentially, urging him to halt the investigation for commercial and diplomatic reasons.
The high court judge, Justice Alan Moses, said the government should have sought other ways to minimize risks to diplomatic ties or national security.
“What really puzzles me is why weren’t the Saudis told, ‘Hang on, this is just an investigation, and there may not even be any evidence?’ ” he said.
Justice Moses said he saw no evidence so far that the government did anything but “just roll over” by dropping the inquiry.
Lawyers representing the government will present their case on Friday. Watchdog groups and lawmakers have urged the government to restart the investigation.
British news media reported last year that more than $2 billion ended up in bank accounts in Washington controlled by Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia and that the BAE payments were linked to an arms deal negotiated in 1985 and then worth £43 billion (about $85 billion). Prince Bandar has denied accepting “improper secret commissions.”
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Quote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7247714.stm
Last Updated: Friday, 15 February 2008, 21:13 GMT
Judges to rule on BAE challenge
Judges hearing a legal challenge to the decision to drop a corruption inquiry into an arms deal between BAE and Saudi Arabia have reserved judgement.
After the two-day hearing, the two judges said they would come to a conclusion as "soon as possible" on the case but gave no exact date.
The Serious Fraud Office says the probe was halted for security reasons...
.....The SFO lawyer Philip Sales was frequently interrupted by one of the judges with questions about the stance taken by the SFO and the British government in the face of an alleged "serious and imminent" threat to national security.
Lord Justice Moses said it appeared that Britain had simply "rolled over" instead of trying to make the Saudi government withdraw the threats, which amounted to criminal offences under British law.
Symon Hill (left) of CAAT and Nicholas Hildyard, director of Corner House
CAAT and Corner House challenged the SFO decision to drop the probe
But Mr Sales hit back: "We in the UK can't compel the Saudi Arabian government to adopt a different stance."
Documents released to the court showed the government thought "British lives on British streets" would have been at risk if the inquiry into alleged bribery had not been dropped.
In the documents, Helen Garlick, assistant director at the Serious Fraud Office stated:
"If this caused another 7/7 how could we say that our investigation, which at this stage might or might not result in a successful prosecution, was more important?" .....
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