The Al Yamamah (“dove”) agreements of the mid-1980s were between the Thatcher government in the UK and the Saudi Arabian government. Military equipment, especially Tornado and Hawk jets, were to be supplied by the company that is now BAE Systems.

More recently, BAE has been promoting its Eurofighter Typhoons. Preliminary agreements between the UK and Saudi governments were signed in December 2005 and August 2006, but the detailed contract has not yet been agreed. This new package is known as Al Salam, or “peace”. In addition to the Eurofighters, Jane’s Defence Weekly has reported discussions on the sale of 60 BAE Hawk aircraft.

Prince Bandar

In mid-June the Guardian and the BBC Panorama programme alleged that BAE, with approval of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, had made payments worth hundreds of millions of pounds over two decades to bank accounts under the personal control of Prince Bandar, the son of Prince Sultan, who has been the Saudi Defence Minister since 1962. Prince Sultan was described by the UK ambassador in 1971 as having “a corrupt interest in all contracts”. The new reports said that BAE bought Prince Bandar an Airbus for £75 million and is continuing to pay its running costs.

These allegations suggest that, since 1985, successive UK governments have used Ministry of Defence bank accounts to facilitate corrupt payments to a foreign official. This is more serious than the widely-reported allegation of a £60 million “slush
fund” run by BAE for the personal benefit of Saudi royals because it suggests the active involvement and complicity of the UK government.

The UK government is very heavily involved in all deals with Saudi Arabia, not least because about 200 of the Defence Export Services Organisation’s 500 civil servants and military personnel work on the Saudi Armed Forces Project, paid for by the Saudi government.

US probe

On 26th June, BAE had to tell the London Stock Exchange that the United States Department of Justice
was investigating the company’s deals, including those to Saudi Arabia. Prince Bandar had been the Saudi Ambassador to the US and many of the BAE payments had been made to a Washington bank. The news of the investigation knocked eight per cent off BAE’s share price in a day.

The US government has now formally requested all the Al Yamamah information from the UK government. Asked on 16th July if the UK government would cooperate, the Prime Minister’s spokesperson said that this was a matter for BAE. The implication of this is most disturbing: it is that the Government will do what BAE wants. This is yet another illustration of where the real power resides.

Independent advice?

On 27th June the Serious Fraud Office Director Robert Wardle told the Commons’ Constitutional Affairs Committee how he had concluded that a continuation of the inquiry into Al Yamamah would be a threat to national security. He said his decision was based on memoranda sent to the Attorney General by Tony
Blair and accompanying papers from Sir Richard Mottram, Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience in the Cabinet Office.

Mottram previously worked for the Ministry of Defence, heading it as Permanent Secretary from 1995 to
1998. Earlier in his career, in September 1985, when he was Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, Michael Heseltine, he prepared Margaret Thatcher’s briefing for her meeting with Prince Sultan when the first Al Yamamah contract was signed. The same day, Mottram, along with Michael Heseltine and the head of the Defence Export Services Organisation, Colin Chandler, met both Princes Sultan and Bandar.

The ex-UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was Robert Wardle’s other source of
information about the dangers to the UK. According to an article by Robert Fisk in the Independent, he was on very friendly terms with the Saudis.