Italy Probe Unearths Huge Iraq Arms Deal
QuestionGirl August 12th, 2007 - 2:36 pmInteresting, other nations are complaining that U.S. weapons are making their way into their countries and into the hands of anti-government militants. I have a feeling that was the plan to begin with. Iran is one of those countries.
PERUGIA, Italy (AP) — In a hidden corner of Rome’s busy Fiumicino Airport, police dug quietly through a traveler’s checked baggage, looking for smuggled drugs. What they found instead was a catalog of weapons, a clue to something bigger.
Their discovery led anti-Mafia investigators down a monthslong trail of telephone and e-mail intercepts, into the midst of a huge black-market transaction, as Iraqi and Italian partners haggled over shipping more than 100,000 Russian-made automatic weapons into the bloodbath of Iraq.
As the secretive, $40 million deal neared completion, Italian authorities moved in, making arrests and breaking it up. But key questions remain unanswered.
For one thing, The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi government officials were involved in the deal, apparently without the knowledge of the U.S. Baghdad command - a departure from the usual pattern of U.S.-overseen arms purchases.
Why these officials resorted to “black” channels and where the weapons were headed is unclear.
More at the Assoicated Press
August 12th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
The British Empire are cover their BAE Scandal… wich is bigger that any other.
British Vs. Italy?
And where is the Saudi OIL?
Not to believe that the powerful Cheney/BAE/England/Saudi Kingdom are agitating Italy because they are against the financal crisis and the are speaking out against the Wall Street/City of London.
British against italy?
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Saturday June 9, 2007
The Guardian
The government was last night fighting to contain the fallout over £1bn in payments to a Saudi prince as the attorney general came under renewed pressure to explain how much he knew about the affair.
While in public the government was issuing partial denials about its role in the controversy, in private there were desperate efforts to secure a new BAE £20bn arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
And any hopes that the furore could be halted were dashed last night when the Guardian learned that the world’s anti-corruption organisation, the OECD, was poised to resume its own inquiry into why the British government suddenly abandoned its investigations into the £43bn al-Yamamah arms deal.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
The British Empire and their cover ups.
BAE, Europe’s biggest arms company, claims there is ‘no evidence’ that it has engaged in massive corruption to sell arms overseas
August 12th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
The British Empire is the most powerful empire in the planet.
Arms, Saudi oil, Monarchs, Kings, Queens, and the Iraq war.
Cheney/USA/England and their war in the Middle East.
Italy is the scape goat? Rusia will be the scape goat?
Cheney/British cooking the destruction of every body.
British vs. Italians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/baefiles
August 12th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
David Leigh and Rob Evans
Thursday June 7, 2007
The Guardian
Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The arms company BAE secretly paid Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia more than £1bn in connection with Britain’s biggest ever weapons contract, it is alleged today.
A series of payments from the British firm was allegedly channelled through a US bank in Washington to an account controlled by one of the most colourful members of the Saudi ruling clan, who spent 20 years as their ambassador in the US.
It is claimed that payments of £30m were paid to Prince Bandar every quarter for at least 10 years.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
It is alleged by insider legal sources that the money was paid to Prince Bandar with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors. For more than 20 years, ministers have claimed they knew nothing of secret commissions, which were outlawed by Britain in 2002.
An inquiry by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the transactions behind the £43bn Al-Yamamah arms deal, which was signed in 1985, is understood to have uncovered details of the payments to Prince Bandar.
But the investigation was halted last December by the SFO after a review by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith.
He said it was in Britain’s national interest to halt the investigation, and that there was little prospect of achieving convictions.
Tony Blair said he took “full responsibility” for the decision.
However, according to those familiar with the discussions at the time, Lord Goldsmith had warned colleagues that British “government complicity” was in danger of being revealed unless the SFO’s corruption inquiries were stopped.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
The same way London wants to destroy Putin with the poisoning of the ex-soviet spy, now London wants the Italian Goverment out too, finally Berlusconni the neocon lost and Prodi won.
So with the neocons at England, France and the US, all the rest need to play with London/Cheney for more wars and Saudi Arabia providing secret oil deals and financing sunnis in IRAQ with british blessing.
It this the new British/Cheney empire against italy, rusia, Afganitan, China, and beyond???????
Wow.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Chaos creates opportunity. Always has, always will.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:25 am
You got it Bro