UK Guardian: Huge arms deals and terror intelligence links

[seafan]

Huge arms deals and terror intelligence links

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday October 30, 2007

Arms and intelligence have been at the centre of Britain's unique and close relationship with Saudi Arabia for decades. They still are.

Only last month the two countries announced a deal for the sale of 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft to the desert kingdom for £4.4bn. Whitehall officials said the potential total value of the contract would be much higher, though they will not say whether it might approach the scale of the £20bn-plus al-Yamamah contract with Saudi Arabia negotiated by the Thatcher government and involving the sale of Tornado jets, also made by BAE Systems.

The Eurofighter deal was being put together at the time that a bribery investigation by the Serious Fraud Office involving allegations against BAE was dropped.

Tony Blair at the time made no mention of the arms deal. Instead, he said that the Saudis had privately threatened to cut intelligence cooperation with Britain unless the fraud inquiry was stopped.

Mr Blair went so far as to say that Britain's national security would be at risk unless the fraud inquiry was abandoned.

Yesterday, however, the question of what Britain did with Saudi intelligence surfaced. As King Abdullah arrived in London for a state visit, he claimed that Britain did not act upon information provided before July 7 which he said "may have been able to maybe avert the tragedy". The claims are not new. More than a year ago the parliamentary intelligence and security committee said it had "looked in detail into claims that the Saudi Arabian authorities warned the British agencies about the attacks".

Some information was passed by the Saudis about "possible terrorist planning for an attack on the UK". The intelligence was assessed to be "not credible".

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Observers suggested yesterday that there was a mismatch between Mr Blair's claims about Saudi threats to cut off intelligence cooperation if the bribery investigation went ahead, King Abdullah's claims that Britain had ignored crucial intelligence supplied by the Saudis in the past, and Whitehall's outright dismissal of the monarch's claims.

The Saudis, however, have an interest in raising the issue and to be seen to be proactive now in the fight against terrorism. Saudi money helped to prop up the Taliban and fuel the spread of Islamist extremism in the madrasas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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[tailwind]

1. Nothing To See Here Move Along.

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