Thursday, December 27, 2012

Your Prince Bandar

""Prince Bandar, while ambassador to the U.S., was used by the Saudi government to negotiate a wide range of arms deals around the world, which included the biggest arms deal in history, a deal called the al-Yamamah deal between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia worth 43
billion British pounds. Around six billion pounds of bribes were paid on that deal alone. Over one billion pounds of those bribes flowed through Prince Bandar's accounts that were held in Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C., as it then was. Bandar describes a 15-minute conversation with then
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in which he says he told the prime minister that the Saudis had certain special needs, the prime minister said she fully understood that, and that was the end of the negotiation, the easiest negotiation he's ever had for an arms deal.  Prince Bandar has effectively acted as bag man on all sorts of international arms transactions going back to the Iran-Contra imbroglio of the Reagan administration, up until fairly recent times."" (thanks Dale)