http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/15/bae.armstrade?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Quote :

"BAE: secret papers reveal threats from Saudi prince Spectre of 'another 7/7' led Tony Blair to block bribes inquiry, high court told Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday. Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence. 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 threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE. He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family. The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties. Lord Justice Moses, hearing the civil case with Mr Justice Sullivan, said the government appeared to have "rolled over" after the threats. He said one possible view was that it was "just as if a gun had been held to the head" of the government. The SFO investigation began in 2004, when Robert Wardle, its director, studied evidence unearthed by the Guardian. This revealed that massive secret payments were going from BAE to Saudi Arabian princes, to promote arms deals. Yesterday, anti-corruption campaigners began a legal action to overturn the decision to halt the case. They want the original investigation restarted, arguing the government had caved into blackmail. The judge said he was surprised the government had not tried to persuade the Saudis to withdraw their threats. He said: "If that happened in our jurisdiction [the UK], they would have been guilty of a criminal offence". Counsel for the claimants said it would amount to perverting the course of justice. Wardle told the court in a witness statement: "The idea of discontinuing the investigation went against my every instinct as a prosecutor. I wanted to see where the evidence led." But a paper trail set out in court showed that days after Bandar flew to London to lobby the government, Blair had written to the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, and the SFO was pressed to halt its investigation. The case officer on the inquiry, Matthew Cowie, was described by the judge as "a complete hero" for standing up to pressure from BAE's lawyers, who went behind his back and tried to secretly lobby the attorney general to step in at an early stage and halt the investigations. The campaigners argued yesterday that when BAE failed at its first attempt to stop the case, it changed tactics. Having argued it should not be investigated in order to promote arms sales, it then recruited ministers and their Saudi associates to make the case that "national security" demanded the case be covered up. Moses said that after BAE's commercial arguments failed, "Lo and behold, the next thing there is a threat to national security!" Dinah Rose, counsel for the Corner House and the Campaign against the Arms Trade, said: "Yes, they start to think of a different way of putting it." Moses responded: "That's very unkind!" Documents seen yesterday also show the SFO warned the attorney general that if he dropped the case, it was likely it would be taken up by the Swiss and the US. These predictions proved accurate. Bandar's payments were published in the Guardian and Switzerland subsequently launched a money-laundering inquiry into the Saudi arms deal. The US department of justice has launched its own investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices act into the British money received in the US by Bandar while he was ambassador to Washington. Prince Bandar yesterday did not contest a US court order preventing him from taking the proceeds of property sales out of the country. The order will stay in place until a lawsuit brought by a group of BAE shareholders is decided. The group alleges that BAE made £1bn of "illegal bribe payments" to Bandar while claiming to be a "highly ethical, law-abiding corporation"."

Prince Bandar says to stop investigating bribes related to arms deals involving his family or there'll be terrorist attacks. If he'd said the same thing on a video tape released by Al Jazeera this shit would be all over the news...

And just who is this Prince Bandar guy and why aren't we after him?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan

Quote :

"Prince Bandar has formed close relationships with several American presidents, notably George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, who gave him the affectionate and controversial nickname "Bandar Bush". [2] His friendship with Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, extends to the years before Cheney took office as the United States Vice President. Prince Bandar invited the Cheney family to his daughter's wedding in the 1990s, but they did not attend."

When is a terrorist threat not a terrorist threat?

When it's uttered by those with powerful friends.

2/15/2008 8:28:18 PM

leave your liberal rhetoric in chapel hill; we all know the terrorists were really working with Saddam duh. now that he's out of power freedom is once again shining around the world

2/15/2008 8:58:36 PM

This has been in the press for a while (upto a year), sans the threats part, but with the non-cooperation in anti-terror activities part.

Prince Bandar is [censored].... Living in that very country, the last thing I want to do is give my opinion publically of people who could literally vaporize me [and family and friends to the 6ht degree] off the face of this earth.

2/15/2008 9:15:20 PM

do you think prince towel head's agents would seriously hack into TWW to find one of there sons of allah bad mouthing the good prince in order to execute him.

2/15/2008 9:27:49 PM

^ I'm not sure his concern is unwarranted.

We're talking about a country that didn't outlaw slavery until 1962.

2/15/2008 10:54:31 PM

You do realize that even though the UK dropped the investigations into the BAE-Saudi Scandals, the United States Justice Department is currently involved in an investigation for the very same issue (the United States has the right to do this since BAE has an incorporated subsidy here to bid on Pentagon contracts)?

Apparently Prince Bandar isn't a good enough friend of Bush that the President would pressure DOJ to drop the investigation. After all, if the UK felt that they didn't need to investigate their defense champion, why should the US do so (or so would the justification be if the White House truly wanted to kill it)?

Oh, and from your own article:

Quote :

"The US department of justice has launched its own investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices act into the British money received in the US by Bandar while he was ambassador to Washington."

[Edited on February 16, 2008 at 1:28 AM. Reason : Added quote]

2/16/2008 1:27:47 AM

i mean the US was like Gittt-errr- DUnnnn when it came to Iraq yet we are buddy buddy with Saudi Arabia even when 1/2 the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi nationals!!!!! what gives???

2/16/2008 4:27:32 AM

^ Under that rationale we should be attacking Tunisia as well since several of the co-conspirators were Tunisian.

I could be wrong, but I believe that these governments (Tunisian, Saudi, etc.) do take steps to eradicate these people from their respective countries due to their radical beliefs and that is one reason they ended training in Afghanistan, etc. as men without a country.



[Edited on February 16, 2008 at 1:58 PM. Reason : n]

2/16/2008 1:58:18 PM

Quote :

"RedGuard: You do realize that even though the UK dropped the investigations into the BAE-Saudi Scandals, the United States Justice Department is currently involved in an investigation for the very same issue (the United States has the right to do this since BAE has an incorporated subsidy here to bid on Pentagon contracts)?"

Of course I do. I did read the article after all. I just don't understand why it should have any bearing on my outrage over this.

What about the Justice Department's continued involvement in the bribery probe forgives foreign government administrators making terrorist threats to US allies?

Quote :

"RedGuard: Apparently Prince Bandar isn't a good enough friend of Bush that the President would pressure DOJ to drop the investigation. After all, if the UK felt that they didn't need to investigate their defense champion, why should the US do so (or so would the justification be if the White House truly wanted to kill it)?"

Are you really arguing that since the blackmail failed to deter our own justice department as well, it didn't constitute a real terrorist threat?

Terrorist threats are simply not acceptable instruments of policy. How you can argue otherwise baffles me.

[Edited on February 16, 2008 at 2:13 PM. Reason : ...]

2/16/2008 2:12:22 PM

Quote :

"What about the Justice Department's continued involvement in the bribery probe forgives foreign government administrators making terrorist threats to US allies?"

I think you're putting an incorrect spin on this as well. The way you're implying it, Prince Bandar is saying that he's going to blow up the UK. However, if you strip away the sensationalism, he's pretty much saying that if the UK insists on this course of action, they could jeopardize British-Saudi intelligence sharing, which reduced the chance of terrorist activity, by poisoning relations with the Saudi Royal Family. It's still distasteful and a threat (almost childish in that taking-my-toys-and-going-home sort of way), but it's not a direct threat on the same lines as an al-Qaeda video.

Here is another take from the FT.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/611ab03e-dc30-11dc-bc82-0000779fd2ac.html

Quote :

"The government yesterday admitted it was unable to counter Saudi threats to withdraw co-operation on vital security issues unless the Serious Fraud Office scrapped a corruption probe into arms deals between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia. Philip Sales QC, a lawyer for the SFO, told the High Court that it was "a fact of life" that Britain did not have the power to force Saudi Arabia, as another sovereign state, to reconsider its position. In a memo released to the court, Helen Garlick, SFO assistant director, noted that the office had been told "British lives on British streets" were at stake with the possibility of another "7/7"-style bomb attack on London. Senior members of the Saudi royal family also threatened to cancel a lucrative order for a new fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft under a £43bn arms programme. The two judges hearing the case reserved their ruling until a later date."

[Edited on February 16, 2008 at 3:29 PM. Reason : .]

2/16/2008 3:23:50 PM

Wheres John Paul Jones when we need em

2/16/2008 3:34:48 PM

I have respected that very "fact of life" your article mentions from the very beginning, RedGuard.

That's why I, and no one like me, is out there making veiled threats of terrorist attacks against their country. We operate by a different standard.

My point is that the UK, as a strategic ally of the United States, ought to move forward with their criminal probe anyway because in Western governments, laws, if you haven't forgotten, form the basis of constitutional fucking society and consider re-evaluating Saudi Arabia's status as it relates to terrorist sponsorship and collaboration as diplomatic response.

This is international politics after all, not a vacuum.

How in fuck you defend what is unavoidably an admission by a welfare state our tax dollars heavily subsidize that they are willing to turn an even blinder eye to terrorists that OMF WANNA KILL US LOL continues to baffle me.

Since strawmen do not become of us, I'll disregard the rest of your complete mischaracterization of my argument.

[Edited on February 16, 2008 at 7:16 PM. Reason : ...]

2/16/2008 7:15:21 PM

I agree with you that the United Kingdom should have moved forward with the probe and think that the British government has set a bad precedent with it, but again, I disagree with you that what the Prince said is a direct terrorist threat. He did not directly threaten to take action against the British. He simply said, based on the numerous other takes on this story from nearly every other source, that the British better back off or their going to cut off intelligence support making British attempts to thwart terrorism much more difficult. You're the one who's trying to prop this event up on the same level as a direct threat from al-Qaeda or any other source.

Quote :

"Prince Bandar says to stop investigating bribes related to arms deals involving his family or there'll be terrorist attacks. If he'd said the same thing on a video tape released by Al Jazeera this shit would be all over the news..."

You then try to reinforce that point by saying that we should be chasing after him like we do any other terrorist when this is clearly a political issue and not a direct military threat by making comments like this.

[b]And just who is this Prince Bandar guy and why aren't we after him?

"Prince Bandar has formed close relationships with several American presidents, notably George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, who gave him the affectionate and controversial nickname "Bandar Bush". [2] His friendship with Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, extends to the years before Cheney took office as the United States Vice President. Prince Bandar invited the Cheney family to his daughter's wedding in the 1990s, but they did not attend."

When is a terrorist threat not a terrorist threat? When it's uttered by those with powerful friends.[/quote]

You're the only who's falsely implying in your initial post that because Prince Bandar happens to be a friend of the Bush family that somehow he's getting special treatment by both the British and the Americans. He's definitely not from us since we're pursuing an investigation, and the British don't seem to have received any pressure from the US to drop the issue nor have any direct friends or influences within the British government. This makes the whole second half of your post misleading at best, a cheap shot at the administration when it has nothing to do with them.

I agree that the Saudis are corrupt, that Prince Bandar is no saint, and that threatening to cut off intelligence to a nation which needs it to protect the lives of its citizen is a despicable act. But again, I don't see it as a direct threat of terrorism and death against the British.

2/16/2008 11:36:51 PM

well if Gamecat just suddenly disappears along with his relatives, then we'll know the terrorist threat from the Saudi government is for real.

2/17/2008 8:44:59 AM

NOTICE TO LAW ENFORCEMENT: BELOW POST IS FOR ILLUSTRATION ONLY

I know how to prevent radical elements within RedGuards neighborhood who really wish to kill him and anyone else like him from doing so. I'm a nice enough guy, though, I share the information about what they'll be up to and when with law enforcement to save them whenever shit looks hot.

But one day, I get all butthurt that investigators are sniffing around my "shipping" operation.

I make a phone call to the mayor, who's in My Circle, and tell him "If you don't get that prosecutor RedGuard to stop investigating White Sands Trucking Co.'s freight trucks, then I'm going to stop cooperating with your cops, and your citizens will die. What do you think of that?"

How would the mayor interpret that?

How would you?

What if information I obtain and choose to withhold after the mayor grows a spine and lets RedGuard move forward, as he suggests the British do, leads to the deaths of let's just say scores of innocent civilians? What about hundreds? Or thousands?

I certainly didn't squat in a cave, point a camera at myself, and wag my finger in front of it while I cursed infidels in Arabic. I also didn't burn a cross an anybody's lawn. But my actions had the same effect on the lives of the victims. Is it only later, after they've died, that one can safely call my original words what they should have been called in the first place? A threat?

// END ILLUSTRATION

RedGuard is quibbling over simple points.

Willful omission of material fact remains an act itself, and therefore those who do so retain culpability ESPECIALLY when doing so results in the violent deaths of others. That's why many Western nations have ACCESSORY TO MURDER laws. Accessory to terror laws exist, too. But of course, you knew that.

You claim to have read the article.

Did you catch this part?

Quote :

""If that happened in our jurisdiction [the UK], they would have been guilty of a criminal offence.""

Did you happen to read who said it?

Go ahead, look. I'll wait for you.

That's right.

A British judge.

One only wonders what criminal offence this wool-wearing moron meant.

Bandar "Bush" told Tony Blair to call off the dogs or the state of Saudi Arabia was prepared to play accessory to mass murder--a term I'd love to hear you distinguish from 'terrorist' over dinner with the folks--of innocent British women and children.

And that's letting him and that wretched waste of our tax money off light.

[Edited on February 18, 2008 at 4:09 AM. Reason : ...]

2/18/2008 3:54:00 AM

It's obvious I'm not going to convince you, but I'm still going to disagree with you.

The Saudis don't have direct information that something is about to happen. They aren't saying that if you don't do this or that, something is going to happen tomorrow at noon. What they are saying is that they will not cooperate in the future with British authorities, that the British need them or great harm is probably going to happen. Prince Bandar's comments were diplomatically stupid at best.

You insist that there's no distinction, but I do even if both acts are reprehensible. I say this because a direct terrorist threat implies that the British should go in and deal with it with a borderline justification for military force. A threat to cut all cooperation, risking the lives of British citizens, while still reprehensible and probably deserving of some sort of political reaction, is still within the rights of the Saudi government to do so, no matter how ruthless it may be. The Saudis are not legally bound to help the British, they've been doing a favor for them at significant political cost.

I'm not trying to defend "Bandar 'Bush'" nor implying that the British population should not be outraged about their government's actions. They should be outraged, but there is a distinct difference between the two types of threats particularly because the implications are very different and have to be addressed in different ways.

2/20/2008 11:23:58 PM

Quote :

"The Saudis don't have direct information that something is about to happen. They aren't saying that if you don't do this or that, something is going to happen tomorrow at noon. What they are saying is that they will not cooperate in the future with British authorities, that the British need them or great harm is probably going to happen."

Right.

"We're not cooperating with terrorists this minute...trust us. But that doesn't mean we won't hesitate to cooperate with them in the future because you won't leave our bribes alone."

2/21/2008 3:07:06 AM