Since the 1960's Saudi Arabia has been a major buyer of UK weapons. The UK government has always been, and remains, very heavily involved as the main deals are operated through Government-to-Government contracts. Through the Ministry of Defence Saudi Armed Forces Programme, about 200 UK Ministry of Defence civil servants and military personnel work in the UK and Saudi Arabia to support the contracts. They are paid for by the Saudi Arabian government.
The UK government's contracts with Saudi Arabia are complemented by those between the UK government and the main contractor, BAE Systems.
The Al Yamamah deals
The Al Yamamah (“dove”) agreements of the mid-1980's were between the Thatcher government in the UK and the Saudi Arabian government. Military equipment, especially Tornado and Hawk jets, were to be supplied by what is now BAE Systems. The deals also included servicing, spares and ancillary services.
The Salam Project and SBDCP
More recently, BAE sold 72 of its Eurofighter Typhoons in a £4.4 billion deal called The Salam ("peace”) Project. Preliminary agreements between the UK and Saudi governments were signed in December 2005 and August 2006, and the detailed contact was signed in September 2007. The first 24 planes will be built at Warton in Lancashire, with the remainder likely to be assembled in Saudi Arabia.
The Typhoons are replacing the Air Defence Variant Tornados supplied under the Al Yamamah deals; the remaining Tornados continue to be upgraded and serviced under what is now called Saudi British Defence Co-operation Programme.
Human rights
The promotion of the sales over several decades, and the financial and practical support given to them by successive UK governments, has given succour to the undemocratic government of Saudi Arabia. This has a human rights record which makes it a “country of concern” for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It treats women as second-class citizens and its immigrant workers appallingly.
Selling arms to the Saudi government sends the message that the human rights of the Saudi people are of lesser concern that the commercial interests of BAE.
Corruption
Corruption has been a recurrent feature with regards to arms deals to Saudi Arabia. Government records from the late 1960's and early 1970's, show that the corruption was known about by officials in the Government's Defence Sales Organisation who turned an amused blind eye. In a letter in 1971 letter the then UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia described Prince Sultan, Saudi Defence Minister then and still today, as having "a corrupt interest in all contracts .."
Rumours of corruption over the Al Yamamah deal started almost as soon as the contract was signed. The Government's spending watchdog, the National Audit Office, investigated, but the 1992 report has never been made public.
The allegations continued, many the subject of reports in The Guardian. In 2004, following revelations about a £60 million "slush fund", the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began an investigation. There were further allegations in June 2007 that BAE, with approval of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, had made payments worth hundreds of millions of pounds since 1985 to bank accounts under the personal control of Prince Bandar, the son of Prince Sultan.
On 14th December 2006 the SFO announced that it was stopping its investigation. CAAT and The Corner House challenged the decision in the courts. In April 2008 the High Court ruled that the SFO had acted unlawfully in curtailing the inquiry, but this ruling was overturned by the House of Lords on 30th July 2008. More information about the case and documents which were released during it can be viewed here.
The economic myths
The arms companies and the Government frequently say that the arms sales are good for the economy and employment. However, the Government has done no study on the economic benefits of the Al Yamamah deal, and even the Ministry of Defence has accepted that the economic picture about arms exports in general is not as traditionally portrayed. In its 2005 Defence Industrial Strategy, it accepted that economic arguments should not be used to justify arms exports. Whilst sales to Saudi Arabia undoubtedly bring commercial benefit to UK-based companies, such as BAE, this is not the same as benefiting the UK economy as a whole.
The arms companies are, not unnaturally, prone to exaggerate the number of jobs sustained by the arms industry. In the run-up to the decision to stop the SFO inquiry, figures of up to 50,000 jobs under threat were appearing in the press. However, a June 2006 report commissioned by the Eurofighter PR and Communications Office said that the Saudi Eurofighter deal would secure around 11,000 jobs throughout the whole of Europe, with less than 5,000 jobs located in the UK.
Further Information
Information Tribunal documents and transcripts from appeals against a ruling by the Information Commissioner not to release papers regarding arms sales to Saudi Arabia. March 2008.
Saudi arms files revealed for first time. CAAT has placed into the public domain UK Government documents on the highly secretive Al Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia. The deal is the subject of the only National Audit Office report ever kept from Parliament. March 2007.
Al Jazeera's February 2007 documentary "Trail of the Dove", about Al Yamamah and the allegations of corruption that surround it, is available on YouTube:
Part 1
Part 2
As agreements for the massive Eurofighter Typhoon sale to Saudi Arabia were being finalised, a CAAT researcher unearthed secrets of the previous Al Yamamah contract. The Government was so worried that it retrieved the files from The National Archive. Read about it in The Guardian, October 2006.
CAAT research revealed by Newsnight: UK arms sales to Saudi founded on bribery, June 2006.
Information regarding documents uncovered by a CAAT researcher in the UK's National Archives reveal the lengths to which past and present Governments have gone to cover up questionable payments in UK arms deals, especially with Saudi Arabia, January 2006.
The Arabian Connection: the UK arms trade to Saudi Arabia, CAAT, 2000.
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