Royal Saudi Air Force -- Panavia Tornado From Newsweek:
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.
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My Comment: This is a fascinating story on how Saudi Arabia threatened to withhold counter terrorism information to the U.K. on possible terrorist attacks. While the courts ruled that the U.K. Government acted in good faith, I found their reasoning to be flawed. The Government may have acted in good faith .... but the fact is that this case has blown the cover of Saudi Arabia's insistence that the terrorist threat coming from its country is exaggerated or not true.
This case also provides a small glimpse into how money and business is done in Saudi Arabia. Reading these stories always make me appreciate what Osama Bin Laden has been saying when it comes to the corruption of the House Of Saud. You realize that he is right.
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