Showing posts with label Saudis. Show all posts

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Breaking News: Palestinian rivals 'strike deal'

Last Updated: Thursday, 8 February 2007, 19:06 GMT

Palestinian factions 'agree deal'
BBC breaking news

Rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a national unity government after talks in the Saudi city of Mecca, officials say.

Senior figures from both sides said a deal had been struck and would be signed in the coming hours.

There had been divisions over who would take the key post of interior minister.

The factions travelled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of violence between rival supporters, which left more than 20 people dead in recent clashes in Gaza.

Hamas ousted Fatah from power in elections in January 2006.

The Palestinian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Jamal al-Shubaki, said the accord would be signed on Thursday night in Mecca.

"We have agreed to form a national unity government. The agreement will be signed very soon," he said.

Agreement was reached earlier on Thursday on candidates for most posts in a national unity government.
The key position of interior minister, with control over most of the Palestinian security forces, is expected to go to a compromise candidate.

Friday, December 15, 2006

The arms deal they called the dove: how Britain grasped the biggest prize

The Saudis want Iran whacked. Time to go after these sumbitches, folks.
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· No expense spared as UK wooed Saudi politicians
· US and France lost out on tens of billions

David Pallister
Friday December 15, 2006
The Guardian

The deal of the century, as it came to be known, took three years to complete. But when it was finally signed by Prince Sultan, the Saudi defence minister, on the Caribbean island of Bermuda in 1988 it provided British Aerospace with a stream of revenue worth around $2bn (£1.02bn) a year, with a current total that stands at more than $40bn.

It involved the sale of 72 Tornado fighters and 50 Hawk jet trainers, the construction of two airbases and a host of other equipment, training and spares, serviced by more than 3,000 UK experts stationed in Saudi Arabia. They called it Al-Yamamah: the dove.

Britain's role as one of the world's top arms exporters was guaranteed by the partnership, but it was a close-run battle. In 1985 the Saudis were desperate to upgrade their defences. They were concerned even then about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism touching their Shia citizens in the oil-rich east, as well as the possibility of being drawn into the Iran-Iraq war, in which they took the side of Saddam Hussein. They approached France for its Mirage 2000s and the US for the F-15E, in the face of strenuous opposition from the Israeli lobby.

In the end Britain triumphed, due, in large part, to the intervention of Margaret Thatcher. She assiduously cultivated Sultan on his private visits to London and developed a close relationship with King Fahd, whose opinion of the British prime minister verged on infatuation.

The British party that flew to Bermuda to sign the memorandum of understanding included Sir Colin Chandler, head of defence export services and now chairman of easyJet; air vice-marshal Ronald Stuart-Paul, head of the Saudi armed forces project at the Ministry of Defence; and John Weston, the British Aerospace director in charge of the project.

The deal was immediately controversial and perpetually shrouded in secrecy. It was paid for by the delivery of up 600,000 barrels oil a day, with the money going into a dedicated MoD account. But given the Saudi royal family's propensity for extravagance and corruption, the allegations of kickbacks soon surfaced and have never gone away.

It was not only princes and their officials who were said to have benefited but also, allegedly, Mrs Thatcher's son, Mark, through his friendship with one of the intermediaries, the Syrian/Saudi billionaire Wafic Said.

Campaigners against the arms trade argued that Britain should not be selling war planes and military equipment to an undemocratic regime that practised torture. They claimed that the British government refrained from criticising Saudi human rights abuses, even when British citizens were involved, in order not to upset the arms sales.

Such was the sensitivity of the arrangement that a National Audit Office report in the early 1990s was, unprecedentedly, suppressed. The official British line has always been that this was a government-to-government contract, and no agents were involved. But evidence that commissions or bribes were paid by BAE, as it now is, and some of its sub-contractors such as Rolls Royce, Thorn EMI and Royal Ordnance, have been seeping into the public domain for years. Rolls Royce was even sued in the high court by agents acting for one of the princes because it had reduced the level of its commissions.

The alleged principal method for concealing the bribes was to increase the price of the goods; so, it appears, the Saudi princes were stealing from their people.

But after Al-Yamamah 1, the deal just rolled on. It was renewed in 1993 when Saudis agreed to buy another batch of 48 Tornado war planes. In a third stage, signed last year, Britain is selling up to 72 more planes, this time Typhoons.

The Guardian disclosed that accidentally released Whitehall papers, including a telegram from Chandler, revealed how the price of the Tornados had been inflated by 32%. Another document in the archives quotes a dispatch from a British ambassador saying the family of Prince Sultan "had a corrupt interest in all contracts". Two years ago this newspaper also revealed something of the quantity of money that was allegedly being passed around when it published details of the lavish BAE Systems hospitality showered on Prince Turki bin Nasser, the deputy head of the air force, and his family.

By then, the Serious Fraud Office had launched an inquiry into allegations; laws that came into force in 2002 made paying bribes on overseas deals a criminal offence. SFO officers have been trawling seized documents and have arrested and interviewed some BAE officials.

They unravelled details of arrangements for commissions being paid through Swiss bank accounts, and appeared to be about to approach the Swiss authorities for access to them. The scale of the alleged slush fund, concealed in Swiss bank accounts of Panamanian companies, may be as much as £100m.

BAE and all individuals have always denied any wrongdoing.

All the allegations have infuriated the Saudi royal family, not least because they have fuelled the resentment against the regime by its own militants and fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world.

In the past few weeks there have mutterings - aired by BAE Systems itself - that the Saudis are upset, the new Typhoon deal is in peril, and thousands of jobs are at risk if the Serious Fraud Office continues its investigations.

Key dates

Mid-1980s
Saudis keen to upgrade defences; consider French and US-made systems as well as British.

1985
Al-Yamamah deal signed by Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan and then defence secretary Michael Heseltine. Britain's biggest arms deal, it provides for the sale of 72 Tornado and 30 Hawk warplanes to Saudi Arabia. Worth £43bn so far. Al-Yamamah means "the dove" in Arabic.

1989
Deliveries begin.

1992
National Audit Office scrutinises the deal following allegations that members of Saudi royal family and middlemen were secretly paid hundreds of millions of pounds in kickbacks. But report is suppressed over fears it would anger the Saudis.

1993
Al-Yamamah deal renewed. Saudis agree to buy 48 Tornados.

1997-1999
BAE sets up offshore accounts in British Virgin Islands and Switzerland to move around large sums of off-balance-sheet cash.

2002
Laws come into force making it illegal to pay bribes to foreign public officials.

2004
Guardian reveals scale of hospitality BAE showered on Prince Turki bin Nasser, deputy head of air force.

2004
SFO launches investigation into corruption, including allegations that BAE Systems ran a multimillion pound "slush fund" to secure the Saudi arms deals.

2005
Third phase of deal sees Britain sell up to 72 Typhoon aircraft in £6bn deal.

2005
Sir Richard Evans, BAE chairman, interviewed by SFO.

Oct 2006
Guardian publishes documents showing how price of Tornado warplanes was inflated by £600m.

Nov 2006
SFO pursues evidence that millions of pounds of BAE cash was found in Swiss accounts potentially linked to the Saudi royal family.

A dangerous illusion

The idea that caving to Saudi pressure to halt the SFO's inquiry could be in Britain's national interest is absurd - and disastrous.

December 15, 2006 06:15 PM

Ian Davis

The decision to discontinue the Serious Fraud Office investigation into BAE Systems' arms deals with Saudi Arabia was not only a "shabby, shaming day, among the most inglorious" Tony Blair has spent in office, it is also one that leaves Britain less secure.

This arms deal with Saudi Arabia will ensure that Britain remains a target for al-Qaida, is almost certainly bad for British jobs and the economy, lacks transparency and accountability, drives a coach and horses through proposed tougher measures against corruption in international business and undermines UK leadership of an international arms trade treaty. Apart from boosting the coffers of BAE Systems and its shareholders, what does Britain gain from this highly visible, seemingly unquestioning appeasement of one of the most ineffective, corrupt and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East?

There are at least four grounds for disagreeing with the Attorney General's interpretation of the UK public interest in this case.

First, it is in Britain's national interest to promote our international standing as a democratic country that values the rule of law and seeks to promote it elsewhere. This decision not only undermines confidence in UK anti-corruption legislation, but also opens the door for other countries to apply political pressure to prevent criminal investigations that might conflict with foreign policy objectives. Will the Scotland Yard inquiry into the murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko be the next casualty should Vladimir Putin decide to threaten our access to gas and oil supplies?

And where does this leave Hilary Benn, appointed in June this year as our "ministerial champion" for tackling international corruption with the support of a new taskforce including the City of London and Metropolitan police? This will now be seen as a fruitless exercise and have no credibility with either domestic opinion or other governments.

How different the wheels of justice spin in Germany, for example, where the former junior defence minister, Ludwig-Holger Pfahls, was jailed in August 2005 for two years and three months on bribery and tax evasion charges stemming from a controversial export of 36 armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf war.

Second, it is in Britain's national interest to promote restraint in international arms transfers. Indeed, down at the Foreign Office, Margaret Beckett, is supposedly championing an international arms trade treaty to ban arms transfers if they are likely to contribute to human rights violations, fuel conflict or undermine development. As one of the world's leading arms exporters, this was always going to be a difficult trick to pull off. The Saudi arms deal makes it nigh impossible.

The British arms industry has long been heavily dependent on one major deal: the al-Yamamah contract to supply Tornado fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia, which was secured only after personal lobbying by Margaret Thatcher and after high levels of secrecy and commissions were guaranteed. Al-Yamamah accounted for 62% of all UK military exports from 1997-1999, but by the end of the millennium the deal was coming to a close, increasing pressure on BAE to secure a follow-up order for the Typhoon Eurofighter.

Built by a four-nation consortium, which includes Britain's BAE, the Typhoon was delivered to the RAF a decade later than first planned (hence the change in name from Eurofighter 2000), at a total cost for the UK alone of over £19bn, £12bn more than initially projected. That is about £350 for every adult and child living in the UK, the equivalent of paying £1.1m for every job that the project is said to sustain.

Like several other controversial arms deals agreed in recent years, the export of Typhoons to Saudi Arabia will breach a series of criteria outlined in the 1998 European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. For example, the code requires consideration of the impact of any export on the preservation of regional security. President George HW Bush's 1991 Middle East Arms Control Initiative also called for a series of proposals designed to "restrain destabilising conventional arms build-ups", since the situation in the Middle East poses "unique dangers". Despite all this, the US and UK have carried on transferring vast quantities of destabilising weapons to the Saudis.

Similarly, the code states that arms exports should be compatible with "the technical and economic capacity of the recipient country, taking into account the desirability that states should achieve their legitimate needs of security and defence with the least diversion for armaments of human and economic resources". Saudi Arabia's weapons purchases over the past 20 years have been among the largest in the world, vastly outweighing domestic technical capability, with much of the equipment being operated or serviced by UK government officials and RAF personnel. In short, Britain is effectively running the Saudi air force.

This leads to my third point that it is in Britain's national interest to balance "UK/Saudi security, intelligence and diplomatic cooperation" in the war on terror with the pursuit of political reform in Saudi Arabia. There is a strong public perception in the Arab world that the ruling Saudi family is corrupt and exists in mutual dependency with the west. This has led not only to increased support for al-Qaida but also to fears of a palace coup. More recently, a steady stream of Saudis have become involved in the insurgency in Iraq, a further indication of the depth of support for radicalism in the Saudi state. Reconciling the tension within Saudi Arabia between an internal radical Islamic stance and an external pro-western policy can only be made more difficult by a further arms deal with the UK government.

Finally, it is also in Britain's national economic interest to remove the costly subsidies that underpin such arms deals. Lord Goldsmith's claim that "no weight has been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest" carries no credibility whatsoever. Large defence export contracts have helped to ensure BAE's continuing viability, but at a significant cost for Britain. By 2003, for example, £1,015,166,892 of Saudi debt was guaranteed by the UK Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD), mostly for military exports. And industry claims that 50,000 UK jobs are at stake are pure fantasy. The Eurofighter consortium's own report (The Industrial and Economic Benefits of the Eurofighter Typhoon, June 2006) states that Eurofighter sales to Saudi Arabia would secure around 11,000 jobs throughout the whole of Europe. Fewer than 5,000 of these jobs would be located in the UK.

Moreover, studies by the MoD's own chief economist have suggested that a halving of military exports from Britain would lead to an increase in the numbers employed, as investments shift to less capital-intensive activities elsewhere in the economy. Because of the level of subsidy offered by the government to defence exporters (up to almost £1bn a year, for an industry that accounts for less than 2% of exports), the exchequer and the wider economy would clearly benefit from a shift in resources.

It is now almost 12 months since then defence minister, John Reid, signed the latest multi-billion-pound arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal has profound political and security implications - and the high likelihood that it is being underpinned by publicly-funded subsidies. Yet, with the exception of a few political commentators (such as George Monbiot) and a handful of parliamentary questions from Liberal Democrats, the silence from our guardians of truth and accountability has been deafening.

When the late Robin Cook took over foreign policy in 1997, in the wake of the arms-to-Iraq scandal, the promise was that things would be different. A stronger ethical or moral compass would guide Britain's relations with the rest of the world. Today, such an approach is needed more than ever, not only to enhance Britain's tarnished international reputation as result of an illegal war in Iraq, but also to dampen some of the poisonous thinking at home that led to the London terrorist bombings. An ethical foreign policy would also make Britain more secure. Unfortunately, Britain's ethical foreign policy appears to have been finally buried by the Attorney General's statement in the House of Lords yesterday.

Dr Ian Davis is executive director of the British American Security

Information Council (BASIC). With offices in Washington, DC and London, BASIC provides independent research, analysis, and advocacy on nuclear and WMD non-proliferation, missile defense, the international weapons trade, and global security issues. BASIC acts as a transatlantic bridge for policy makers and opinion formers on these issues, and seeks to promote public awareness of security and arms control in order to foster a more informed debate leading to creative and sustainable solutions.

Ian has a rich background in government, academia, and the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector. He received both his Ph.D. and B.A. in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford, in the United Kingdom. He has made high-level presentations in Washington, D.C. and in Europe on WMD non-proliferation and transatlantic security issues.

His publications include: The Regulation of Arms and Dual-Use Exports: Germany, Sweden and the UK, SIPRI/Oxford University Press (2002); Sailing Into Uncharted Waters? The Proliferation Security Initiative and the Law of the Sea, BASIC Research Report (2004); and Unravelling the Known Unknowns: Why no Weapons of Mass Destruction have been found in Iraq, BASIC Special Report, (2004).

Britain caved in to Saudi Blackmail? Breaking an international convention against bribery & corruption

'National interest' halts arms corruption inquiry
---
Saudi Arabia

From World Press Network

Major criminal investigation stopped

A major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by the arms company BAE Systems and its executives was stopped in its tracks yesterday when the prime minister claimed it would endanger Britain's security if the inquiry was allowed to continue.
The destruction of its inquiry will be a severe blow to the SFO which has spent more than £2m on what was its most extensive current investigation, and taken hundreds of pages of statements from witnesses.

Blair defends Saudi probe ruling

Critics argue the government had succumbed to Saudi threats to pull out of a deal to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE, amid reports the Saudi royal family was prepared to ditch the contract and deal with France instead.
The Lib Dems have called for an inquiry and accused the government of putting cash before principle and said it was a "sad day" for the rule of law in Britain.
Lib Dem peer, Lord Goodhart, told the BBC's Today programme: "I think what has happened here is that we have been bounced into this decision by what is effectively blackmail by the Saudi Arabian government."
He added: "It is clear it was not the SFO's own decision, and it was not something that was instigated by the SFO. This came from the top."
- WPN Note : The above paragraph, which appeared in the initial BBC report, has been removed from the current BBC report [without any note or comment]. We wonder who "objected" to it ? Too close to the truth for comfort ?
The government and the SFO have both said "no weight" was given to economic interests.

WPN Note : The government statement above, that "no weight was given to economic interests", is just not credible. When will the government realise that the public will not trust anything they say until the government and most politicians stop treating the public as "serfs" who shouldn't question what they are told, and who are to be kept too busy with day-to-day life (especially taxes and expenses) so that don't have the time, energy, or resources to hold the government or politicians to account.

"British lectures on the "rule of law" will lose some of their force."

Foreign competitors will see another performance by 'perfidious Albion', as the British government holds its hand on its heart and promises that commercial interests have played no part.
Other governments - and frankly, many of the British workers engaged on the project - will not believe that the size of the contract in question was not the determining factor. It is for 72 Typhoon Eurofighters from BAE.
It is a classic of its kind in diplomatic and legal history.
Yet, the attorney general affirmed, the decision had been for the Serious Fraud Office alone, who had not been "under pressure in any sense."
- WPN Note : The above statement is just not credible.
The Liberal Democrats called it "blackmail" by Saudi Arabia and a violation of an international convention, contradicted Article 5 of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions which says that states should "not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest [or] the potential effect upon relations with another state".
- WPN Note : What message does this send to foreign business men : i.e. do they now have to make even bigger bribes to stay in business ? Also, what about the implications for third-world debt ? Can't the debtor countries now say that bribery was a fundamental part of the loan system, and as thus the loans and dependent transactions were a fraud against the people of that third-world country, and thus not repayable ?
Cue cynicism from around the world.
And we have been here before. In 2001 the British parliament passed the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which banned the bribery of officials aboard. Payments made before that law was passed did not result in any prosecutions either.
Nobody anywhere is therefore surprised at this new decision.
- WPN Note : Is the above statement a BBC admission that Britain has no moral standing in the eyes of the world ? Has Britain's reputation fallen as far down as the US's reputation ? The old adage that "you can judge a person by the company he keeps" seems to apply to nations as well. 'Sleaze' taint may cling to Blair

Fighter aircraft fraud probe ends

The Serious Fraud Office has ended its corruption inquiry into a £6bn fighter planes deal with Saudi Arabia.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the decision had been made in the wider public interest, which had to be balanced against the rule of law.
Lord Goldsmith said that both Mr Blair and Defence Secretary Des Browne had argued that carrying on the investigation would harm intelligence and diplomatic co-operation with Saudi Arabia, in turn damaging the UK's national security.
"No one is going to win any Saudi business until this SFO investigation ends " Senior defence executive
The SFO said "No weight has been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest."

WPN Note : It seems clear that the prosecutors, the SFO, was leant on to drop this investigation. Indeed, when the Attorney general says you have to balance against the rule of law, it seems to be an admission that the law was broken, but due to the national interest (which seems to be defined as including national security), the investigation should be "discontinued". The SFO might "technically" not have lied if they thought that the issue was national security, but the main issue was bound to be commercial/economic (and national security as a by-product). i.e. The SFO statement is a way to gloss over a break in the law.

Probe 'threat' to British firms

Top British defence and manufacturing firms have written to the government to warn that billions of pounds could be lost in contracts with Saudi Arabia.
The DIC's letter is the latest twist in the row over an inquiry into bribes allegedly paid in the huge Al-Yamamah arms deal won by BAE Systems.
It says the threat extends to the UK industrial base and to British security.

WPN Note : A transparent and representative government should have nothing to fear from a probe into bribery. Indeed, a bribe paid by a supplier is effectively an increase in the "official" price charged to that purchasing country, i.e. it is embezzlement of funds from the citizens of that purchasing country (as well as undermining the faith of shareholders in the company paying the bribe). Furthermore, bribery undermines the level competitive playing field between countries which, for legal (or moral) reasons, refuse to pay bribes. As such, it is in Saudi Arabia's interest for this matter to be properly investigated. The SFO should NOT be placed under political pressure to close the investigation

Saudi Arabia to pressure Iran "using money, weapons or its oil power" but not Israel ?

Saudi will intervene in Iraq if US withdraws-aide "using money, weapons or its oil power"

If the Saudis are prepared to flood the oil market to hurt the Iranians, why can't they put pressure on the Israelis by restricting supply ? Why is it OK to use Oil markets to "pressure" the Iranians, but not the Israelis ?

Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunnis

Maybe the public is being "prepared" for an invasion of "Saudi Arabia" (or "regime change"), ignoring the huge possibility that the US has already decided to switch support from the Iraq Shiites to the Iraqi Sunnis (i.e. the "insurgents" who now Saudi Arabia is being accused of funding -- the Saudis are probably following "orders" from the US anyway).

Shit Hits Fan! Saudis to Back Sunni Insurgency in Iraq

When did they tell us this? Remember when Dick Chenney got summoned to Saudi Arabia? Yup, that's when. They called Dick and told him to go fuck himself (kind of poetic justice, don't you think?). They told him that regardless of what's good for America, America must do what's good for Saudi Arabia.
As a result of our fucking up Iraq, now the entire middle east (majority Sunni Arabs, even though they are the minority in Iraq) is now ready for a bloody civil war. Iran is interested in supporting the Shiites and increasing its influence while Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others are interested in protecting their influence. Is this what George Bush meant when he talked about transforming the middle east? Transform it into total chaos?

Retrieved from "http://worldpressnetwork.net/index.php/Saudi_Arabia"

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Britain caved in to Saudi Blackmail? Breaking an international convention against bribery & corruption

'National interest' halts arms corruption inquiry
---
Saudi Arabia

From World Press Network

Major criminal investigation stopped

A major criminal investigation into alleged corruption by the arms company BAE Systems and its executives was stopped in its tracks yesterday when the prime minister claimed it would endanger Britain's security if the inquiry was allowed to continue.
The destruction of its inquiry will be a severe blow to the SFO which has spent more than £2m on what was its most extensive current investigation, and taken hundreds of pages of statements from witnesses.

Blair defends Saudi probe ruling

Critics argue the government had succumbed to Saudi threats to pull out of a deal to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE, amid reports the Saudi royal family was prepared to ditch the contract and deal with France instead.
The Lib Dems have called for an inquiry and accused the government of putting cash before principle and said it was a "sad day" for the rule of law in Britain.
Lib Dem peer, Lord Goodhart, told the BBC's Today programme: "I think what has happened here is that we have been bounced into this decision by what is effectively blackmail by the Saudi Arabian government."
He added: "It is clear it was not the SFO's own decision, and it was not something that was instigated by the SFO. This came from the top."
- WPN Note : The above paragraph, which appeared in the initial BBC report, has been removed from the current BBC report [without any note or comment]. We wonder who "objected" to it ? Too close to the truth for comfort ?
The government and the SFO have both said "no weight" was given to economic interests.

"British lectures on the "rule of law" will lose some of their force."

Foreign competitors will see another performance by 'perfidious Albion', as the British government holds its hand on its heart and promises that commercial interests have played no part.
Other governments - and frankly, many of the British workers engaged on the project - will not believe that the size of the contract in question was not the determining factor. It is for 72 Typhoon Eurofighters from BAE.
It is a classic of its kind in diplomatic and legal history.
Yet, the attorney general affirmed, the decision had been for the Serious Fraud Office alone, who had not been "under pressure in any sense."
- WPN Note : The above statement is just not credible.
The Liberal Democrats called it "blackmail" by Saudi Arabia and a violation of an international convention, contradicted Article 5 of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions which says that states should "not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest [or] the potential effect upon relations with another state".
- WPN Note : What message does this send to foreign business men : i.e. do they now have to make even bigger bribes to stay in business ? Also, what about the implications for third-world debt ? Can't the debtor countries now say that bribery was a fundamental part of the loan system, and as thus the loans and dependent transactions were a fraud against the people of that third-world country, and thus not repayable ?
Cue cynicism from around the world.
And we have been here before. In 2001 the British parliament passed the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which banned the bribery of officials aboard. Payments made before that law was passed did not result in any prosecutions either.
Nobody anywhere is therefore surprised at this new decision.
- WPN Note : Is the above statement a BBC admission that Britain has no moral standing in the eyes of the world ? Has Britain's reputation fallen as far down as the US's reputation ? The old adage that "you can judge a person by the company he keeps" seems to apply to nations as well. 'Sleaze' taint may cling to Blair

Fighter aircraft fraud probe ends

The Serious Fraud Office has ended its corruption inquiry into a £6bn fighter planes deal with Saudi Arabia.
Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the decision had been made in the wider public interest, which had to be balanced against the rule of law.
Lord Goldsmith said that both Mr Blair and Defence Secretary Des Browne had argued that carrying on the investigation would harm intelligence and diplomatic co-operation with Saudi Arabia, in turn damaging the UK's national security.
"No one is going to win any Saudi business until this SFO investigation ends " Senior defence executive
The SFO said "No weight has been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest."

Probe 'threat' to British firms

Top British defence and manufacturing firms have written to the government to warn that billions of pounds could be lost in contracts with Saudi Arabia.
The DIC's letter is the latest twist in the row over an inquiry into bribes allegedly paid in the huge Al-Yamamah arms deal won by BAE Systems.
It says the threat extends to the UK industrial base and to British security.

Saudi Arabia to pressure Iran "using money, weapons or its oil power" but not Israel ?

Saudi will intervene in Iraq if US withdraws-aide "using money, weapons or its oil power"

If the Saudis are prepared to flood the oil market to hurt the Iranians, why can't they put pressure on the Israelis by restricting supply ? Why is it OK to use Oil markets to "pressure" the Iranians, but not the Israelis ?

Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunnis

Maybe the public is being "prepared" for an invasion of "Saudi Arabia" (or "regime change"), ignoring the huge possibility that the US has already decided to switch support from the Iraq Shiites to the Iraqi Sunnis (i.e. the "insurgents" who now Saudi Arabia is being accused of funding -- the Saudis are probably following "orders" from the US anyway).

Shit Hits Fan! Saudis to Back Sunni Insurgency in Iraq

When did they tell us this? Remember when Dick Chenney got summoned to Saudi Arabia? Yup, that's when. They called Dick and told him to go fuck himself (kind of poetic justice, don't you think?). They told him that regardless of what's good for America, America must do what's good for Saudi Arabia.
As a result of our fucking up Iraq, now the entire middle east (majority Sunni Arabs, even though they are the minority in Iraq) is now ready for a bloody civil war. Iran is interested in supporting the Shiites and increasing its influence while Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and others are interested in protecting their influence. Is this what George Bush meant when he talked about transforming the middle east? Transform it into total chaos?

Retrieved from "http://worldpressnetwork.net/index.php/Saudi_Arabia"

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Saudi royal family, gov't split on Iraq

By SALAH NASRAWI, Associated Press WriterWed Dec 13, 4:20 PM ET

Saudi Arabia's royal family and government leaders are deeply divided over how to handle the growing crisis in Iraq and other looming Mideast problems like Iran, with some favoring strong aid to fellow Sunnis and others more cautious.

The split played a key role in this week's abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to Washington. It also could hurt U.S. efforts to forge a new overall strategy to calm Iraq.
More broadly, the internal dispute shows how Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, long key partners in U.S. efforts to stabilize the Middle East, are struggling to decide how to proceed as Iraq boils over and Iran gains influence.

The tension in the region is straining Saudi relations with the United States, despite both countries' assertions that all is fine.

The resignation of Prince Turki al-Faisal, after just 15 months as ambassador to Washington, for example, came after Saudi officials concluded he was not succeeding at building strong ties with the United States, a Saudi official said Wednesday.

"Many in the royal family concluded that if he stayed longer, things might even get worse," said the official, who has close working ties with the Saudi Foreign Ministry but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity.

The Saudis had no official comment, and the White House merely wished Turki well. Turki himself could not be reached for comment.

But Iraq was clearly central to the dispute.

Turki last week fired a Saudi security consultant, Nawaf Obaid, after Obaid wrote in The Washington Post that "one of the first consequences" of any American troop pullout from Iraq would "be massive Saudi intervention" in Iraq "to stop Iranian-backed Shiite militias from butchering Iraqi Sunnis."

Saudi Arabia denied that Obaid was speaking on its behalf.

But The Associated Press reported last week that Saudi private citizens are sending millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq, much of it used to buy weapons, because they worry about Iranian influence in Shiite-led Iraq.

Iraqi officials have said they believe some members of the Saudi royal family are either involved in that flow of money or turning a blind eye — a charge Saudi Arabia strongly denies.
The Saudis and the United States also denied a Wednesday report in The New York Times that the Saudi king told Vice President Dick Cheney the kingdom might provide financial aid to Iraqi Sunnis if the U.S. pulls troops out of Iraq.

"That's not Saudi government policy," White House spokesman Tony Snow said. He added that the Saudis, however, were "rightly concerned about the adventurism of Iranians in Iraq, and we share that concern."

The United States has been pushing Saudi Arabia to persuade Sunnis in Iraq to leave the insurgency and join with Shiites in political efforts — an effort the Saudi government has said it is undertaking.

But the royal family has been sharply divided over what strategy to adopt toward Iraq, said two Saudis with close ties to the government, speaking anonymously because internal royal deliberations are highly sensitive. Some favor robust support of fellow Sunnis inside Iraq, while others urge caution.

The bottom line has been power struggles and indecision about the best course, both said.
"They have an obsession that Shiites and Iran will control Iraq, but they do not know how to stop that," said one Saudi. The other described what he called total confusion within the government over the best course.

On Monday, 30 prominent Saudi clerics called on Sunni Muslims around the Middle East to support Sunnis in Iraq against Shiites and praised the insurgency. The clerics warned that Shiite Muslims were taking control of Iraq in a conspiracy with "crusaders" — a reference to Westerners — to marginalize Sunnis.

Many of the clerics are known to have close connections with top royal family members and receive generous donations from them.

Saudi Arabia is also increasingly worried by events elsewhere in the region including Lebanon and Iran and there is tension with the United States over the Palestinian issue.
Despite all that, Saudi and U.S. ties have long endured and "Saudi diplomacy is very much active," said Saudi political analyst Fahad al-Harithi. It looks to the contrary, he said, only "because the smoke is billowing high in the area, and hides this reality."

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Saudi King "read the riot act" to Cheney

Official: Saudis to back Sunnis if U.S. leaves Iraq

Story Highlights

•NEW: AP says White House rejects report on Saudi plan to act in Iraq if U.S. leaves
•Source says Saudi king "read riot act" to Vice President Dick Cheney about Iraq
•Saudi Arabia would support Sunnis in Iraq if the U.S. pulls out, the source says
•King Abdullah also is said to oppose talks between the U.S. and Iran

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia would back the Sunnis if the United States pulls out of Iraq, according to a senior American official.

The official said the king "read the riot act" to the vice president when the two met last month in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The New York Times first reported the conversation Wednesday, saying Saudi support would include financial backing for minority Sunnis in the event of a civil war between them and Iraq's Shiite majority.

Violence between the two sects has exploded in waves of revenge killings since February's bombing of a revered Shiite mosque in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

The White House dismissed the report.

"That's not Saudi government policy," press secretary Tony Snow said in Washington, according to The Associated Press.

"The Saudis have made it clear that they're committed to the same goals we are, which is a self-sustaining Iraq that can sustain, govern and defend itself, that will recognize and protect the rights of all, regardless of sect or religion," Snow said, the AP reported.

Cheney's November 25 visit marked his fourth trip to Saudi Arabia as vice president. An official with Cheney's office said the one-on-one meeting lasted two hours.

The Saudi king told Cheney that his country would be forced to step in and support "like-minded Sunni Arabs" if the situation in Iraq fell apart and the Sunnis' safety was in jeopardy, the senior U.S. official said.

The monarch said he would "intervene aggressively on one side absent an American presence," the source said.

The source said the king did not mean to imply that Saudi Arabia would support al Qaeda in Iraq, but rather tribal groups. However, some of those groups overlap with insurgents who are fighting Americans, the source conceded.

Saudi fears

The bipartisan Iraq Study Group that reported to President Bush and Congress said last week that money from Saudi citizens is funding Sunni insurgents in Iraq, although the Saudis may not know exactly where their money is going. (Watch how Saudis may be helping Iraqi insurgents )

Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution said Saudi Arabia has a reason to take sides.

"They're terrified that Iraq is going to fall into civil war. They're terrified that civil war will spill over into Saudi Arabia. But they're also terrified that the Iranians, backing the various Shiite militias in Iraq, will come out the big winner in a civil war," Pollack told CNN.

However, the king's tough words to Cheney don't mean Saudi support for the United States is wavering, said Richard Murphy, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

"This has nothing to do with the Saudi-American alliance," Murphy said. "What it has to do with is the Saudi concern that we will quickly evacuate Iraq and that the Shia majority will take revenge actions against the Sunni."

In his meeting with Cheney, the Saudi king voiced strong opposition to talks between the United States and Iran, which has a majority Shiite population. The Iraq Study Group called for engaging other countries in the region, including Iran and Syria, in the search for solutions in Iraq.

According to the senior American official, the king told Cheney that Sunni Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, believed that talking to Iran was dangerous.

The Saudis are "nervous about giving Iran any more legitimacy or any more influence in Iraq," Murphy said.

"[Iraq is in] everybody's backyard -- Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran," he said. "And they all have interests, they're all watching each other very closely lest one get an undue advantage over the other. And it's going to take an extraordinarily skillful, wide-ranging regional diplomacy on America's part to cope with that."

A senior U.S. official said the conversation between Cheney and King Abdullah reflects the "anxiety about the situation" and the Saudi concern about being left "high and dry" if the United States leaves Iraq.

But the official said leaving Iraq is a "doomsday scenario" that will not happen because the United States isn't going to withdraw.

"We are not walking away from it," the official said.

CNN's Elise Labott, Kelli Arena, John King, Elaine Quijano and Zain Verjee contributed to this report.

The New Middle East Cold War: Saudi/Israel/Lebanon versus Iran/Syria/Iraq/Hizbullah

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Juan Cole

Helene Cooper with Hassan Fattah of the NYT has the scoop that Saudi King Abdullah told US VP Dick Cheney two weeks ago that if the US withdrew precipitately from Iraq, the kingdom would have little choice but to support the Sunni Arab guerrillas. The Saudi government had pledged to the US not to do so as long as US troops were in Iraq. But it is alleged that Saudi oil millionaires privately already send money to the guerrillas. Saudis, as Wahhabi Muslims, belong to a sect that is to the right of Sunnism. But the Wahhabi tradition dislikes Shiites and in any Sunni-Shiite struggle, the Wahhabis will come in on the Sunni side.

This item is no surprise, of course, and I have brought up this likelihood a number of times myself. What is remarkable is that it is being stated by the Saudi leadership and published in the press. The Saudis are usually circumspect. If they are leaking this sort of thing, their hair must be on fire with anxiety.

Cooper also reports the abrupt and mysterious resignation of Saudi Ambassador to the US Turki al-Faisal after only 22 months in Washington. Prince Turki has been an effective diplomat and has done a lot of outreach work, addressing ordinary American audiences (a style very unlike that of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, his long-serving predecessor). Prince Turki is the only Saudi official I know of publicly to espouse Gandhian principles of non-violence for the Palestinian cause. I met him more than once and was impressed by his humanity and acumen. I'm sorry to see him leave Washington. There are rumors that he is leaving to become foreign minister of the kingdom. If that were the case, I should have thought the promotion would be announced along with his resignation, which he called a "retirement." The way this is being handled looks more to me as though he lost some big policy fight with the establishment in Riyadh. But we shall see.

The Saudis are usually important to the formulation of US policy in the Middle East. W. is now rudderless, with Rumsfeld gone and Cheney neutered by the November elections. Prince Turki's departure in addition to hysteria about a regional guerrilla war in Iraq on the part of the Saudi King are an element of instability in White House policy-making that we could have done without.

Meanwhile, a de facto Israeli-Saudi alliance appears to be building against Iran and the Shiites. Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz is now saying that the 2002 Beirut peace plan put forward by then crown prince--now King--Abdullah of Saudi Arabia must be the basis for going forward with an Arab-Israeli peace process. Abdullah got the Arab League to offer Israel full recognition and political and economic relations if only they'd go back to the 1967 borders and recognize a Palestinian state.

At the time, then prime minister Ariel Sharon dismissed Abdullah's plan rather rudely. But now Israel has been bloodied by a Lebanon war that it lost on points to Hizbullah despite its clear military superiority. Bashar al-Asad of Syria pointed out that every generation of Arabs hates the Israelis more than its predecessors. Iran is emerging as a new hegemon in the eastern stretches of the Middle East.

Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Olmert hoped that the Lebanon War of last August would finish off Hizbullah. Instead, Hizbullah put up a respectable resistance to the Israeli military. Now, Hizbullah and its Christian allies loyal to Michel Aoun have staged enormous daily protests aimed at bringing down the reform government of Fuad Seniora, and they may even succeed. Hizbullah is allied with Syria, which is allied with Iran.

While Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel are unified states in this new alliance, their de facto allies in Lebanon and Iraq include the bloc of Saad al-Hariri in the Lebanese parliament and the Kurds and Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

Iran gets support from Syria and Shiite Iraq and from Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh went to Tehran recently and got pledges of $120 mn. in aid. Haniyeh while there pledged never to recognize Israel. Iran has Shiite clients in Iraq now, and is reaching into the Levant with its patronage for Hizbullah and Hamas.

Iran's farce of a "conference" on the Holocaust is a way of underlining its government's complete rejection of a two state solution and of a Zionist state in the Middle East. Iran's leaders support a maximalist Hamas vision of a fundamentalist Muslim Palestinian state in all of historical Palestine, which requires the dissolution of the Israeli state. Since Israelis tend to justify their state project with reference to the Holocaust, the Ahmadinejad faction in Iran is replying with Holocaust denial as a counter to this argument. Note that other prominent Iranians, such as former President Mohammad Khatami, accept the Holocaust and have lambasted Ahmadinejad for questioning it.

So Israel is up against determined enemies on its borders, which it has not been able to crush militarily, and which are political clients of Iran. Iran does not pose a conventional military threat to Israel, but Tehran is able to put pressure on it through support of asymmetrical operations, which it hopes can make the Israeli state collapse in the same way that the Soviet state collapsed. The Israeli leadership believes that Iran is trying to get a nuclear weapon, even though there is no good evidence for an Iranian nuclear weapon program (as opposed to a civilian nuclear research program).

I have been told that the Israeli leadership is extremely anxious about Iran becoming a nuclear power, and sullen about the outcome of the Lebanon war. They are further demoralized by the Baker-Hamilton Commission report, which calls for US talks with Iran. The Israeli leaders interpret this passage as a surrender by Washington to Iran's nuclear ambitions, and are preparing for the possibility that they might have to take on Iran themselves. This extreme anxiety about a nuclear Iran (which is at least 10 years away even if it is trying, according to the US National Intelligence Estimate) may have driven Olmert to make his gaffe of openly admitting that Israel has weapons of mass destruction. That gaffe has resulted in calls for his resignation. For one thing, in strict US law, it should result in sanctions by Congress. Olmert, battered by the outcome of the Lebanon War, and now accused of having loose lips of the sort that got Mordechai Vanunu an 18-year prison sentence, is desperate for a political breakthrough of the sort that might come from a realignment of Middle East politics.

Saudi Arabia is equally frantic about the possibility of a nuclear Iran, and is moreover apoplectic that the US delivered Baghdad into the hands of Iraqi Shiite fundamentalists allied with Iran. Saudi Arabia fears Hizbullah in Lebanon as an Iranian cat's paw in the Arab world. The Khomeinists of Iran and south Lebanon believe that Islam is incompatible with monarchy (Khomeini said, "there are no kings in Islam.")

Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and (de facto) the 14 March Bloc in Lebanon are ranged against Iran, Shiite Iraq, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia can openly admit to the tacit alliance for fear of anger from their own publics because of objectionable parties to it. But this is how things are shaking out.

Now the Saudis are openly saying that this new Cold War in the region could turn hot. If you don't own a bicycle, I'd buy one, because a regional war of the sort Saudi Arabia said it feared would potentially cut off 20 percent of the world's petroleum.

Report: Saudis Warn They May Back Sunnis

Wednesday December 13, 2006 12:16 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - Saudi Arabia has warned Washington it might provide financial aid to Iraqi Sunnis in any fighting against Shiites if the U.S. pulls its troops out of Iraq, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia, a majority Sunni country, has promised U.S. officials that it would not intervene to assist Iraq's Sunni insurgency, according to the report, which cited anonymous American and Arab diplomatic sources.

But that promise might not hold if U.S. troops leave Iraq, the newspaper said. The Bush administration has repeatedly said there are no plans for the immediate pullout of U.S. troops.

The Times reported that Saudi King Abdullah sent the warning to Vice President Dick Cheney two weeks ago during the vice president's visit to Riyadh. The message also emphasized the kingdom's displeasure with proposed talks between the U.S. government and Iran.

Iran - a majority Shiite country - is believed to be providing military and financial support to Shiite elements. The recently released Iraq Study Group report suggested the Bush administration engage Iran and neighboring Syria in talks aimed at applying pressure on Iraqi Shiites to keep what some analysts are calling a civil war from spiraling into a regional conflict.

Saudi Arabia has expressed concern that once U.S. troops leave Iraq that the controlling Shiite majority could massacre the Sunni minority, believed to comprise a large faction of the deadly insurgency that has claimed thousands of Iraqi civilian and U.S. military lives.

Saudi Arabia's fears seemed to have been exacerbated by growing discussions in Washington aimed at accelerating the timeframe for bringing troops home.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Saudi Ambassador Abruptly Resigns, Leaves Washington

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; A23

Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, flew out of Washington yesterday after informing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and his staff that he would be leaving the post after only 15 months on the job, according to U.S. officials and foreign envoys. There has been no formal announcement from the kingdom.

The abrupt departure is particularly striking because his predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, spent 22 years on the job. The Saudi ambassador is one of the most influential diplomatic positions in Washington and is arguably the most important overseas post for the oil-rich desert kingdom.

Turki, a long-serving former intelligence chief, told his staff yesterday afternoon that he wanted to spend more time with his family, according to Arab diplomats. Colleagues said they were shocked at the decision.

The exit -- without the fanfare, parties and tributes that normally accompany a leading envoy's departure, much less a public statement -- comes as his brother, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the highly influential Saudi foreign minister, is ailing.

Saud, who was appointed in 1975, has held the position of foreign minister longer than any of his counterparts anywhere in the world -- dating back to Henry Kissinger's tenure as secretary of state.

Saudi officials have not commented on Saud's condition, but he has suffered from tremors for years. Last year, he slipped in the shower and fractured a shoulder. After attending the opening of the U.N. General Assembly in September, he flew to Los Angeles for surgery and quietly remained in the United States until shortly before Thanksgiving, according to an Arab official.

As Saud's health has declined, Turki has increasingly been rumored as a possible replacement for his older brother. He would symbolize continuity in Saudi foreign policy at a moment of tension over Iraq between Riyadh and Washington, two long-standing allies in forging common political and economic policy in the Middle East. King Abdullah summoned Vice President Cheney after Thanksgiving for talks on Iraq and other Middle East flashpoints.

Turki has been the subject of both high praise and controversy. In the 1980s, while he was intelligence chief, he reportedly met al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden several times during the U.S.- and Saudi-backed support of mujaheddin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. He subsequently denounced bin Laden.

Turki later served as ambassador to Britain. "He was regarded as being one of the most effective ambassadors from any country and was held in very high regard," a British diplomat said yesterday.

Saudi Arabia, the guardian of Islam's holiest sites and a predominantly Sunni country, has been deeply concerned about the change in the balance of power in Iraq, with which it shares a 500-mile border. Riyadh has been alarmed by the rise of the Shiite majority in Iraq and the marginalization of the traditional Sunni elite. Young Saudi men have joined the Sunni insurgency as foreign fighters, while there have been persistent reports that Saudi citizens have provided financial aid to the Sunni insurgency.

The kingdom announced earlier this year that it will build an elaborate barrier along the remote desert frontier, with ultraviolet night-vision cameras, underground sensor cables and command posts.

Turki, a 1968 graduate of Georgetown University, will return briefly in January after the Hajj pilgrimage, the busiest time of the year in the kingdom, to say formal goodbyes, according to an Arab official.

Elephants Not in the Room

by Kim Petersen
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 11, 2006

Is self-hyping reporter Greg Palast kidding or is he finally showing off his Zionist-imperialist colors?

Does he think that progressives cannot see past his mordant wit to those whose agenda his writing serves?

His recent article takes on Iran and the “elephant in the room (camel in the tent?) that can’t be acknowledged”: Saudi Arabia. [1] Palast’s derisory language is tawdry and trivial. What would the reaction be if someone wrote about a “bagel in the kibbutz”?

That the “shy mullahs” of Iran are seeking a nuclear bomb is axiomatic for Palast. After all, “Iran has zero need of ‘peaceful’ nuclear-generated electricity. It has the second-largest untapped reserve of natural gas on the planet, a clean, safe, cheap source of power. There’s only one reason for a ‘nuclear’ program.” This glaring contradiction comes from the same Palast who devotes a sizeable chunk of his currently promoted book, Armed Madhouse, to Peak Oil. Apparently, Iranians are not affected by Peak Oil. But maybe the Shah of Iran was when the US assisted Iran in starting up its nuclear power program.

Palast is also denying Iranians the inalienable right to an equivalent self-defense that the “shy rabbis” have secured for Israel. [2]

Palast writes,

Here’s the problem with Baker’s weird combo of embedding our boys with Iraq’s scary army while sucking up to the Iranians: it won’t work. The mayhem will continue, with Americans in the middle, because the Baker brigade dares not mention two words: “Saudi” and “Arabia.” [italics added]

The descriptive language of Palast’s piece, upon comparing occupation fighters with Iraqi fighters, is most telling. Occupation fighters are: “US forces,” “our boys,” “our troops,” and “our soldiers.” Iraqi fighters are: “Shia death squads,” “Shia cut-throats,” “Iraq’s scary army,” “murderous Shia militias,” “Sunni ‘insurgents,’” “Sunni berserkers,” and “Shia killers.”

Palast does, briefly, manage to rip into the architects of the genocidal plunder of Iraq calling them “neo-con nuts.” Ouch! Of course, Palast dares not mention “Zio nuts.”

Palast asserts, “But the Shias only shifted into mass killing mode in response to the murder spree by Sunni ‘insurgents.’” Is Palast shifting culpability for the genocide in Iraq to the victims? Palast’s omissions speak loudly. The “murder spree” is a US-UK murder spree encouraged by Zionists. [3] The Shia death squads were set up by the Americans. What does that make such Shia squads? It makes them collaborators of the occupiers. Collaborators are a legitimate target for the Iraqi resistance forces.

Palast points to “Saudis” as financing Sunni “mayhem.” Who does Palast cite as an authority? The same organization that has been dissed by the Bush administration for providing faulty information on the danger that the Iraqi regime posed to the US (a risible proposition): US intelligence. Even though post-invasion the “seething memo[s]” were lambasted for being wrong, now Palast would seek to convince the reader based on the evidence of one “seething memo”? Nice.

Palast writes, “Yet we close our eyes to the Saudis acting as a piggy bank for the other side, the Sunni berserkers. (The House of Saud follows Wahabi Islam, a harsh, fundamentalist sect of Sunnism.)” Palast is remarkably blind when it comes to the Americans acting as a piggy bank for the their side: the Zionist “berserkers.” Moreover, the House of Saud does not follow Wahhabi Islam. [4] It rules through an accommodation with the Wahhabists.

Why is Palast so coy with the Zionists?

Palast has a new twist on the Mearsheimer-Walt thesis on the strength of the “Israel” Lobby. The genuine power is elsewhere. According to Palast, the neoconservatives are at the beck and call of the Sauds! How odd, then, that the Sauds cannot stop the US from sending high tech armaments and billions of dollars to Israel to ethnically cleanse and kill their Arab kin in Palestine. Palast’s zionist reasoning is that it is okay for US troops to kill Sunnis, but if the US delegates the killing of Sunnis to Shia death squads -- assuming that they are, indeed, responsible for the daily mayhem -- then that is unacceptable.

Palast sees the “fratricidal fracas in Iraq” (so just what is it: a “fratricidal fracas” or “uncivil war”?) as “a remote control proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia to control Iraq’s place in OPEC, the oil cartel.”

So, according to Palast, the US-UK invasion-occupation of Iraq has turned out to be a battle for control of Iraq’s oil not by the US but by Iran and Saudi Arabia?

Question: Whose hand is on the remote control?

While he might have been against the invasion of Iraq, the Palast agenda, when read closely, is “sucking up” to imperialism and Zionism. Therein lies the danger of theoretician Palast. Progressives must read with a sufficiently skeptical and questioning mind the liberal-sounding colloquial prose of a man who uses progressives as a base for self-promotion.

Kim Petersen, Co-Editor of Dissident Voice, lives on the outskirts of Seoul in southern Korea. He can be reached at: kim@dissidentvoice.org.

ENDNOTES

[1] Greg Palast, “The Baker Boys: Stay Half the Course: Iraq Study Group or Saudi Protection League?” Greg Palast, 7 December 2006.

[2] Kim Petersen, “The Inalienable Right to Self Defense: Balancing the Power,” Dissident Voice, 27 February 2006.

[3] Jeffrey Blankfort, “A War for Israel” Left Curve, January 2004.

[4] Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud (Gibson Square Books, 2004). Unger describes the gambling, drinking, and carousing of the Sauds that deviates from tenets of Wahhabism.

Sunday, December 3, 2006

Saudis and Iran prepare to do battle over corpse of Iraq

By Philip Sherwell in New York, Sunday Telegraph

Last Updated: 11:51pm GMT 02/12/2006

The gulf's two military powers, Sunni-Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, are lining up behind their warring religious brethren in Iraq in a potentially explosive showdown, as expectations grow in both countries that America is preparing a pull-out of its troops.

The Saudis are understood to be considering providing Sunni military leaders with funding, logistical support and even arms, as Iran already does for Shia militia in Iraq.

The strategy — outlined in an article last week by Nawaf Obaid, a senior security adviser to the kingdom's government — risks spiralling into a proxy war between Saudi and Iranian-backed factions in the next development in Iraq's vicious sectarian conflict.

Saudi Arabia, America's closest ally in the Arab world, is considering backing anti-US insurgents because it is so alarmed that Sunnis in Iraq will be left to their fate — military and political — at the hands of the Shia majority.

However, a Saudi government spokesman said yesterday that Mr Obaid's view "does not reflect the kingdom's policy, which uphold the security, unity and stability of Iraq with all its sects."

President George Bush sent vice-president Dick Cheney to Riyadh last weekend after the Saudis demanded high-level talks about their concerns. They told him Iran was trying to establish itself as the dominant regional power through its influence in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Saudi fears were strengthened as it emerged that some senior US intelligence officials are urging the Bush administration to abandon stalled attempts to reach a compromise with Sunni dissidents and adopt a controversial "pick a winner" strategy instead, giving priority to Shia and Kurd political factions.

The proposal is also known as the "80 per cent solution" since the Sunnis, who ruled the country under Saddam Hussein, comprise just 20 per cent of Iraq's 26 million population. It has been put forward as part of a crash White House review of Iraq strategy. Its backers claim that ambitious attempts to woo anti-US Sunni insurgents have failed, and now risk alienating Shia leaders as well, leaving the US without strong political allies in Iraq.

As the frenzy of diplomatic activity intensifies, the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel of foreign policy experts, this week plans to recommend the US withdraws nearly all of combat troops by early 2008.

Although President Bush continues to insist he will not tie US policy to timetables for withdrawal, the panel's recommendations will fuel the belief that a major US pull-out will be under way soon.

The issue was at the fore yesterday when 40 people were killed and more than 80 wounded after three car bombs exploded in Baghdad. The attacks came after US and Iraqi forces raided insurgent strongholds in the city of Baquba.

In Teheran, Iranian leaders have made clear that they believe they are the big winners from America's involvement in Iraq. "The kind of service that the Americans, with all their hatred, have done us — no superpower has ever done anything similar," Mohsen Rezai, secretary-general of the powerful Expediency Council that advises the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei, boasted on state television recently.

"America destroyed all our enemies in the region. It destroyed the Taliban. It destroyed Saddam Hussein… The Americans got so stuck in the soil of Iraq and Afghanistan that if they manage to drag themselves back to Washington in one piece, they should thank God. America presents us with an opportunity rather than a threat — not because it intended to, but because it miscalculated. They made many mistakes".

Iran also watched with pleasure as America, Britain, France and Germany failed to persuade Russia and China to sign up to a package of sanctions against Iran in a draft United Nations Security Council resolution. The West wanted to punish Tehran for pushing ahead with banned uranium enrichment for its nuclear programme. The US is now drawing up plans for a diplomatic "coalition of the willing" to pursue sanctions outside UN auspices.

The Iraq Study Group is also expected to recommend opening dialogue with Iran and Syria over Iraq, a move being resisted by hardliners who rule out talks with two regimes that are fomenting violence. However, in a break with previous policy, Mr Bush will meet tomorrow in Washington with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a party closely tied to Iran.

The talks are part of US efforts to strengthen links with Shia politicians and to undercut the influence of Moqtada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric and militia leader on whose support the prime minister Nuri al-Maliki depends.

The meeting will fuel Sunni fears they are being sidelined even though the White House also announced plans for future talks with the country's Sunni deputy prime-minister.

US pressured Blair into arms bribery inquiry

By Francis Elliott

Published: 03 December 2006

A bribery investigation threatening the future of 50,000 British jobs followed heavy pressure on Tony Blair from George Bush's administration, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Saudi Arabia says it will scrap an order with BAE Systems for 72 Eurofighter Typhoons worth around £40bn unless the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) stops probing previous arms deals with the company.

The Arab nation has reportedly set a deadline that expires this week for the investigation to be called off.

Now documents released under US freedom of information laws reveal how the probe followed arm-twisting by the Bush administration.

They show how Britain's most senior defence civil servant was taken to task by the Pentagon over "a longstanding, widespread pattern of bribery allegations involving BAE systems" in July 2002.

Sir Kevin Tebbit, then the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, had an uncomfortable meeting with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, E Anthony Wayne.

Mr Wayne said that, though it had signed up to international anti-bribery agreements, "the UK was slow to take action to correct perceived deficiencies".

He also complained of the "consistent pattern of alleged behaviour, over time" and, in a clear accusation that the British government was aware of the problem, added that: "Press accounts reinforce material from more sensitive sources."

A memo, setting out his "MUST DO" items, declared: "Ask what the British government has done to investigate allegations of bribery by BAE, not only in connection with recent projects, but in connection with older contracts for which bribe payments may still be ongoing ... In the US, this volume of allegations would have triggered a Department of Justice Criminal Division investigation long ago".

The SFO bribery investigation into the giant Al Yamamah arms deal, struck in 1985, started in July 2004 after detectives were shown evidence suggesting kickbacks had been paid. Detectives are reported to be investigating allegations of a £60m "slush fund".

BAE Systems denies any wrongdoing and insists that it does not tolerate "unlawful, dishonest or harmful" behaviour, while the British government maintained that it had tightened up anti-bribery legislation

Saturday, December 2, 2006

Saudis Threaten to Back the Baathists (Again) in a New Iraq Proxy War

Never mind the report of James Baker’s Iraq Study Group, whose primary purpose appears to be achieving national unity in Washington, and whose broad recommendations for a slow drawdown of American troops and a new focus on regional diplomacy may already have been eclipsed by events, and will almost certainly be mangled by an Administration still wedded to too many of its most damaging illusions. The most important documents to surface in Washington this week were, instead, the memo by Bush’s national security adviser Stephen Hadley leaked to the New York Times, and an extraordinary op-ed in the Washington Post by a well-known senior adviser to the Saudi regime that threatened, among other things, that the Saudis would provide financial and military support to the Sunni insurgency if the U.S. begins a phased withdrawal from Iraq.

Both documents reflect the extent to which Iraq has been plunged into chaos, although the media may have misjudged the relative significance of each: It was generally reported that it was a fit of pique at the contents of the Hadley memo that prompted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to snub Wednesday night’s scheduled dinner in Amman with Bush and King Abdulla. But, as my colleague Bobby Ghosh reports from Baghdad, Maliki was snubbing Abdullah rather than Bush:

Analysts say the Iraqi Prime Minister, a Shi’ite, doesn’t trust Jordan’s Sunni monarch and did not want to discuss sensitive issues with Bush in Abdullah’s presence.

Indeed, and that sentiment may have more to do with what is revealed in the Saudi op ed than in Hadley’s memo.

The most remarkable thing about Hadley’s memo is its spectacular naivete. Much of the media has focused on the fact that the document shows the Administration’s real assessment of Maliki is far removed from Bush’s public show of support for him. No question that to anyone who’s read Hadley’s report, or is familiar with the thinking of U.S. officials, Bush’s claim that “Maliki is the right guy for Iraq” sounds almost sarcastic. But even more alarming are the steps Hadley recommends Maliki should be pressed to take — break his alliance with Moqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite sectarian politician on whose support Maliki rode into power, appoint a cabinet of technocrats and abandon his Dawa party circle of advisers in favor of a more “representative” one, make more overtures to the Sunnis and Baathists, etc. Hadley warns

[Maliki] may simply not have the political or security capabilities to take such steps, which risk alienating his narrow Sadrist political base and require a greater number of more reliable forces. Pushing Maliki to take these steps without augmenting his capabilities could force him to failure — if the Parliament removes him from office with a majority vote or if action against the Mahdi militia (JAM) causes elements of the Iraqi Security Forces to fracture and leads to major Shia disturbances in southern Iraq. We must also be mindful of Maliki’s personal history as a figure in the Dawa Party — an underground conspiratorial movement — during Saddam’s rule. Maliki and those around him are naturally inclined to distrust new actors, and it may take strong assurances from the United States ultimately to convince him to expand his circle of advisers or take action against the interests of his own Shia coalition and for the benefit of Iraq as a whole…

…We could help him form a new political base among moderate politicians from Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and other communities. Ideally, this base would constitute a new parliamentary bloc that would free Maliki from his current narrow reliance on Shia actors. (This bloc would not require a new election, but would rather involve a realignment of political actors within the Parliament). In its creation, Maliki would need to be willing to risk alienating some of his Shia political base and may need to get the approval of Ayatollah Sistani for actions that could split the Shia politically.

You have to wonder, where has Hadley been for the past three years? Maliki is a Shiite politician elected in a democratic process in which most Iraqis voted on the basis of sect or ethnicity. His political and quite possibly his physical survival depend on his place at the center of the ruling Shiite coalition, of which he is a partisan. He’s a longtime Dawa activist with historic ties to Iran and Syria. And he is obviously mindful of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s injunction that, above all, Shiite politicians are obliged to maintain their united front. And Hadley imagines that at the behest of a hapless Bush Administration, Maliki’s going to give up on everything that he is and instead, be remade as a political creature of the U.S. [EM] a second Iyad Allawi, if you like. (Allawi, the last U.S.-appointed prime minister who pursued a similar strategy to the one outlined by Hadley lost heavily in the last election, and today lives primarily in London.) Hadley appears to be still laboring under the illusions of 2003, in which the U.S. can seek out actors and mould the Iraqi political landscape to its satisfaction. Let’s just say that the week started for Maliki with the U.S. warning him to drop Moqtada Sadr or else, and Sadr telling him to drop the U.S. or else. And it ended with Moqtada saying maybe he wouldn’t quit the government after all. And I’d say it’s a safe bet that Maliki will welcome his renewed support, regardless of Hadley’s coalition plans.

The Saudis, on the other hand, have never shared the illusions that guided Team Bush’s invasion of Iraq. For Nawaf Obaid, known as a top adviser to the ruling royal family who would be unlikely to weigh in unless his views were approved by Riyadh, the current malaise in Iraq is simply vindication of King Abdullah’s warning that invading to topple Saddam would cause more problems than it would solve.

Obaid was blunt: If the U.S. starts scaling down its involvement, the Saudis would be obliged to rally to the defense of the Sunnis, primarily by supporting the Sunni insurgency against what he sees as the Iranian-led Shiites. Indeed, he warns, it would do so on behalf of Jordan and Egypt as well:

Over the past year, a chorus of voices has called for Saudi Arabia to protect the Sunni community in Iraq and thwart Iranian influence there. Senior Iraqi tribal and religious figures, along with the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and other Arab and Muslim countries, have petitioned the Saudi leadership to provide Iraqi Sunnis with weapons and financial support. Moreover, domestic pressure to intervene is intense. Major Saudi tribal confederations, which have extremely close historical and communal ties with their counterparts in Iraq, are demanding action.

Obaid says the Saudis have until now rebuffed those calls having promised Bush they would stay out, and that they couldn’t be sure that Sunni insurgent groups they backed wouldn’t attack U.S. forces. “They will, however, be heeded if American troops begin a phased withdrawal from Iraq,” he warns. Not only would the Saudis start funding and arming the insurgency (as they say Iran is doing to the Shiite militias), they would also — and here it gets plain nutty — consider pumping more oil (!!) to bring down the price and make it harder for Iran to sustain its support of its Iraqi allies. (Imagine if the Iranians took that seriously and decided to respond by stopping Saudi oil shipments through the Hormuz Straits…)

Obaid says the Saudis know they could set off a war, but they also believe that they have no option becuase the U.S. drawing down troops would leave the Sunnis vulnerable to massacre.

This extraordinary intervention not only reveals the extent of panic among Washington’s key regional allies; its willingness to countenance a return to the tradition of funding holy wars abroad in defense of Sunnis under attack — one way to get rid of the challenge of the radicals at home, of course (it was a similar impulse in the Afghan jihad that gave us Osama bin Laden, after all) is pretty bizarre. It also underscores the talk of a Sunni strategy, with Obaid stressing that talks with Cheney had been positive. What’s interesting here, though, is that the “Sunni Front” that the U.S. has hoped to build against Iran may be taking shape, but one of its prime objectives may be rolling back the Shiite-led government that Iraqi democracy produced. (There was a reason, after all, that the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt had supported Saddam in his war with Iran.)

The strategy is a non-starter, of course, not only because it would set the U.S. against the majority of Iraqis, which is an untenable situation for an occupying army, but because the regional dynamic in the wake of the Iraq war has accelerated the collapse of the old regional order on which it is based. For all Obaid’s tough talk, the Iranians are unlikely to be quivering in their boots at the prospect of a more robust Saudi intervention in the region. The response of the region to last summer’s conflagration in Lebanon, where the Saudis initially blamed Hizballah and were then forced to retract as the Arab street rallied overwhelmingly behind the Shiite guerrilla movement, was a sign that as hostile as they may be to Iranian influence, the old Sunni autocracies of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are increasingly marginal players in the region. Bush succeeded in his aim of breaking the old order when he invaded Iraq, but the new Middle East he has created is nothing like what he intended. But it remains highly unlikely that this Administration is ever going to be ready to engage with the realities that it has helped create — a region in which most of the traditional U.S. allies have been repudiated and the representative political forces tend to be Islamist in character and hostile to Washington’s influence.

So, instead, as Antonio Gramsci warned us about situations in which the old order is dying but the new cannot be born, “in this interregnum, morbid phenomena of the most varied kind come to pass.” Brace yourselves.

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