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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Calladine who wrote (107705)	6/6/2007 9:41:19 PM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 360897

Saudi prince 'received arms cash' The BBC Online Arms deals with the Saudis have been worth billions to the UK BBC investigation A Saudi prince received secret payments from the UK's biggest arms dealer, a BBC investigation has revealed. BAE Systems made regular payments of hundreds of millions of pounds to Prince Bandar bin Sultan for more than a decade. The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence. Prince Bandar would not comment and BAE systems said they acted lawfully at all times. The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential. The Prince served for 20 years as Saudi ambassador to the US. Warplane deal Up to £120m a year was sent by BAE from the UK into two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington for more than a decade. There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy or official government accounts David Caruso American bank investigator The BBC's Panorama programme has established that these accounts were actually a conduit to Prince Bandar, the architect of the 1980s Al Yamamah deal to sell warplanes to Saudi. The purpose of one of the accounts was to pay the expenses of the Prince's private Airbus. David Caruso, an investigator who worked for the American bank where the accounts were held, said Prince Bandar had been taking money for his own personal use out of accounts that seemed to belong to his government. He said: "There wasn't a distinction between the accounts of the embassy, or official government accounts as we would call them, and the accounts of the royal family." Mr Caruso said he understood this had been going on for "years and years". "Hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars were involved," he added. Investigation stopped According to Panorama's sources, the payments were written into the arms deal contract in secret annexes, described as "support services". They were authorised on a quarterly basis by the MoD. The payments were discovered during a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation. The SFO inquiry into the Al Yamamah deal was stopped in December 2006. Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the time it had been dropped because of national security concerns. Story from BBC NEWS: news.bbc.co.uk Published: 2007/06/06 22:47:47 GMT © BBC MMVII Prince Bandar has formed close relationships with several American presidents, notably George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, who gave him the affectionate nickname "Bandar Bush".[2] His friendship with Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne Cheney, extends to the years before Cheney took office as the United States Vice President. Prince Bandar invited the Cheney family to his daughter's wedding in the 1990s, but they did not attend. The close relationship with the Bush family is also described in Craig Unger's book House of Bush, House of Saud and is highlighted in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11.