Newsweek: How Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar muscled Tony Blair into silence

[sabra]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/149626

How Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar muscled Tony Blair into silence.

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball


The United Kingdom's highest court today provided new details of how the Saudis pressured British Prime Minister Tony Blair's government to shut down a politically embarrassing bribery investigation two years ago that implicated the Saudi ambassador to Washington. The ruling, by a House of Lords judicial panel, offers an unusually revealing window into how international power politics is played in the post-9/11 era.

The five-member panel recounts how Blair, faced with Saudi threats to cut off cooperation on counterterrorism operations, personally intervened to scuttle a criminal investigation into billions of dollars in allegedly improper payments made by British Aerospace Systems (BAE) to obtain Saudi contracts.

But the former prime minister, the court found, acted out of good faith: he and his advisers were genuinely worried that, if the Saudis followed through on their threats, it could lead to another "7/7"—British shorthand for the devastating July 7, 2005, terrorist bombings in the London subway system that killed 52 commuters and injured 700.

"The threats to national and international security (are) very grave indeed and ... British lives on British streets would be at risk," the British ambassador to Riyadh warned the Serious Fraud Office, the British unit conducting the probe, according to the court ruling.

...

Bandar, a longtime close personal friend of the Bush family who is now national-security adviser to Saudi King Abdullah, was so worried about investigations into the BAE payments that last year he hired the international legal and security firm Freeh Group International, headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh, to defend him from the charges. Among the Freeh Group's partners is Sir Stephen Mitchell, a prominent British barrister and former High Court judge. In addition, Bandar has hired William Bradford Reynolds, a former top official in the Reagan Justice Department, to represent him in a private shareholder lawsuit relating to the alleged improper payments.

[blm]

1. Gee - they needed a Jackson Stephens grooming their ballplayers for them the way it's done here

in the US. BCCI's outstanding matters didn't deep-six themselves in the 90s.

BushInc needed a cooperative Dem president to protect the secrecy and privilege of his powerful cronies like Stephens, Dubai and Saudi royals, Bin Ladens, Rich, et al, and Jackson Stephens covered that task, but good, eh?

[notadmblnd]

2. So is this an admission that the Sauds are behing terrorist attacks?

I know the article said they threatened to stop cooperating on counter terrorism operations, but what exactly does that mean?

I just keep having that flash back to right after 911 where the Saudis were raising money in telethon fashion for the terrorists.

[Virginia Dare]

3. Not to mention that part of the 9/11 Commission Report..

was redacted at the behest of the Saudi Royals. We still to this day don't know what it said.

[LeftishBrit]

4. Not quite - it means that they often have useful 'intelligence' about terrorists..

which they can convey to the UK, but they'll keep it to themselves if we piss them off too much.

Blackmailers!