Two questions: What are the Saudis hiding, that they would find it necessary to take this measure? But also, why should it be the end of the line for the investigation? Surely London could respond with consequences of its own.
An update on this story. "Risk to British lives ended Saudi jet probe," by Gaby Hinsliff and Antony Barnett for The Observer:
Saudi Arabia threatened to stop sharing vital intelligence - particularly intercepted communications between al-Qaeda members active there - unless Britain suspended its investigation into a controversial arms deal, The Observer can reveal.
Senior Whitehall sources said the Saudis warned they would also kick out British military and intelligence personnel based in the country.
'They were threatening everything: intelligence, everything. The US and the UK have got their bases in Saudi, that is their "in" to the Middle East,' said one source. 'Essentially, the line was that British lives could be lost if this relationship broke down. It would have been them freezing everybody out and speaking to nobody about anything.'
The investigation into allegations that BAE Systems paid bribes to senior Saudis was dropped last Thursday following a detailed report from the security services. Saudi sources insisted yesterday the real reason was that the firm - which had said it risked losing a £6bn deal for the Saudis to buy 72 Typhoon jets - could have gone bust if it lost contracts.
However the intelligence threats appear to have been made after months of commercial ones failed to get the desired result. One senior intelligence expert said the Saudis' contribution to the battle against al-Qaeda could not be underestimated: 'The Saudis are very, very important. Mucking up that relationship is something you do not do.'
The fight against terrorism itself could have been at risk. The Serious Fraud Office's director, Robert Wardle, confirmed yesterday in an interview with the Financial Times that he was convinced to drop the case by national security considerations. However, Whitehall sources said the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, had gone further by concluding there was little chance of bringing charges.
Goldsmith believed the main evidence gathered so far dated back to before the introduction of Britain's current anti-corruption laws, which meant it might not be prosecutable. Goldsmith also thought the SFO would be obstructed by the constitutional position of the Saudi royal family in their country's government: they are only held liable nder law when acting in a government capacity, rather than as royals.
One bit of good news:
MPs, however, are reluctant to let the issue drop. Members of the powerful Commons public accounts select committee are now pushing to be allowed to see the findings of the National Audit Office report - suppressed by the then Conservative government - into the original Al-Yamamah deal.
I am sure the global drugs trade provides employment to a lot of people, maybe that's also why Britain happens to be awash with drugs.
I wonder how much money changed hands for the inquiry to be dropped? There will be a few New Labour politicians now who will have a more comfortable retirement.
On top of that, do we need Saudi Money? It has blood on it, notwithstanding the fact that 95% of the Saudi Professional classes support the aims of Al Qaeda.
http://www.hindu.com/2005/08/03/stories/2005080303551100.htm
"In 2001 a Saudi intelligence survey of educated, professional Saudis concluded that 95 per cent supported Al-Qaeda's cause."
New Labour is the enemy within, not only do they cave in and take bribes to stop legal investigations but they ship arms to countries like Saudi Arabia and that country is on a knife edge. A huge amount of our oil is coming from a country that could be in grubby little Al Qaeda hands tomorrow, next week, next year.
Britain is not an economic superpower, it cant pick and choose everything.
You would sacrifice thousands of jobs because some fat cat gave a nice car to a rich saudi?
Why? The moral principle?
Please.... This is how billion dollar deals are conducted.
The Rule of Law.
Glanvill, Bracton, Maitland. The parchment rolls. The slow and stately development. Trespass on the case. The assize of novel disseisin. The fee tail. The common recovery. All the way right up the present age of wiggery-and-waggery for the common man, immortalized by John Mortimer. But still, the ideal, even with the hanging judges (Mansfield, Denning), of the Rule of Law.
Now comes the Defendant (the House of Al-Saud), and for its answer does not deny each and every allegation of the plaintiff's complaint, but instead threatens to blow everything sky-high if the case is not immediately dismissed, threatens to take its custom elsewhere, aod so all that solemn pish-posh about the Rule of Law, the kind of thing that is the stuff of speeches about the Anglo-American tradition at those American Bar Association meetings held in London so this or that rich American lawyer can run around to Francis Edwards or Quaritch to buy some early edition of something that makes him feel better about his own practice, as he acquires some book or document or autograph that gives him a little history, a little sheen, somethiing in the great Anglo-American Legal Tradition, that Rule of Law, and that after enjoyhing for a decade or two, he can always donate to his old law school, and take a nice write-off to boot. The Rule of Law. The Common Law. The Anglo-American Tradition. Judges above politics. Just a little bit harder now to invoke, thanks to the daggers-and-dishdashas plutocrats and their menacing ways.
The justification we all know: raison d'etat. Or rather raison de fric. That's an argument. That's a reason. But that's not the Rule of Law.
So here is my question: is it worth it? Is it worth everyone seeing that, in the end, that a big and obvious hole has been blown in the famous Rule of Law?
Let's put that question, m'lud, in the law French of case from an older and simpler day:
"Le utility del chose excusera le noisomeness del stink."
Yes or No?
Does the "utility" of keeping Saudi goodwill, and avoiding a possible cancellation of an airplane contract, excuse the noxiousness of the stink of the whole stinking affair? An affair that is emblematic of the power of the Al-Saud, and expressive of how that power corrupts in the Western world.
You can answer in modern-day English.
Blair was stupid............he passed a law in 2001 and then gave permission for the SFO to go trawling through files of the 1990s ie before the Act came into force just so he could embarrass the previous governments.
Why did he give permission to use the Act retrospectively in 2004 ?
I would rather end the Saudi deal and endure economic hardship than do a deal with the Saudi devil. Those people are pure evil. They pretend to be pro western yet fund Al Qaeda. Then evil goes with the territory of Islam.
Excellent illustration of the stupidity of the "war on terror". Saudi Arabia indoctrinates and funds muslim terrorists, then threatens Britain that it will not share its' intelligence on who they funded and trained.
MEMO to Blair: the guys who trained the bad guys don't make a reliable ally.
Basically, the west had a decision to make after 9/11. It could have worked to form a coalition of countries in whose long-term national interests it is to stop the expansion of Islam - India, China, Russia, etc. Or it could pretend that Islamic expansion is not the threat and form an "anti-terror" coalition that includes some of the worst states in terms of funding terrorism and proliferation, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The first option was harder, would likely involve initial higher casualties, but could eventually eliminate the threat. The second option was easier, but since it includes subsidizing the countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan which are producing the terrorists and the proliferation, it has zero chance of succeeding, and leading to anything better then the current mess. Imagine if Roosevelt decided to work with the "moderate" nazis such as Franco and Mussolini. World War II would not be over in a few years, but he would find himself in an incoherent mess where "friends" would be enemies, and with "enemies" that could have been friends, much like today.
These Saudis are disgusting-their money has really gone to their pin heads.
Saudis funding to the terrorists sure is a good way to fight them.
Ugh. I don't know the specifics of this case, of course, but I do know that we wouldn't be dealing with these dishonest, backward, and violent people at all if wasn't for the oil that lies under their worthless country.
The sooner we develop some alternative sources of energy the better.
It's really quite simple...half the royal family are pro-alQaeda and have been for a very long time.
They won't aloow anyone to discover who they are either...much like family collusion, even if they're not on the same side.
One major reason why we in the US have made changes, of which saudi is no longer #1 oil importer...they're #5 and dropping. Our #1 is now Canada, hence, the sudden drop in oil prices the past 6 months.
(Note- saudi oil also hasn't been #1 with us anyway...it's HEAVY sweet crude, not LIGHT sweet, which is our #1 supply source. Only 20% of our refineries can even handle it as it needs to be "cracked" more than once...the west coast has NO refineries to accommodate heavy sweet, so the saudi threat here is not as big as it has been blown up to be. It's the "grid" in Rotterdam that many worry about, and make a fuss over).
Oil info source from US Dept of Energy/ Energy Information Agency 2006 report.