Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The sleazy punk making this extortionate threat wasn't Tommy "Sneakers" Cacciopoli or Frankie "Breeze" Calabrese. This bit of cheap extortionism was most recently issued by one of our Saudi royal friends - specifically His Royal Highness Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz.
...the same Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz who was appointed Secretary-General of the National Security Council by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King "moderate ally" Abdullah.
...it's the same Bandar who, prior to his appointment, served as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the USA from October 24, 1983 to September 8, 2005, and who was a beloved friend to all of our presidents, Democrats and Republicans.
According to court documents from the BAE case in Britain, Bandar threatened Britain with "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they continued their investigation into the scandal.
Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.
Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.
He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.
The threats halted the fraud inquiry, but triggered an international outcry, with allegations that Britain had broken international anti-bribery treaties.
This is the same extortionist Bandar who, according to the BBC, enjoyed unparalleled access to centres of power in the US and played an important behind-the-scenes role in diplomacy and international deals.
...the same Bandar who was so beloved by Jimmy Carter and his family.
The same Bandar who has permission to land at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.
The same Bandar who, according to Bob Woodward, was secretly briefed on our plans to get Saddam out of Iraq - and whose approval was so essential to our plans.
The same Bandar who sent thousands of dollars to 9/11 hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar.
Good thing the FBI did an investigation and found out that there was no connection between our royal Saudi friends and terrorism.
Now that we know the beloved Prince Bandar is an extortionist, the next step would be to find out how often he's successfully made threats like this. I'm sure top men are working tirelessly on that question right now.
UPDATE: Mere Rhetoric has more:We're not saying that this is the kind of thing that's been holding up the investigation into how Saudi money is corrupting future diplomats at Georgetown... No really, it's not. We just needed a way to work that investigation into a post, and "the corrupting influence of Saudi money" is the least strained hook we could come up with. It's not bribery or blackmail as much as it's the usual anti-American intellectual alliance between State Department sophisticates and Our Friends the Saudis. Unseemly, but probably not illegal.
Almost difficult to imagine how US foreign policy elites came up with the brilliant idea of giving the Saudis 20 billion in cutting edge weapons.
[Edit by Solomon]: Good to see this coming out. Readers will recall we've noted the BAE scandal before: Saudis to Britain: Hands off our prostitutes!, Saudis threatening to go to France, and Brits Ditch Their Own Corruption Probe Under Saudi Pressure.
