For British politics, the defining moment of the last decade was not an election result or a policy announcement. It was February 15 2003, when over a million people marched through London to oppose the invasion of Iraq. It was the biggest demonstration in British history, but both Labour government and Tory opposition went ahead and launched a war without public support. This striking turn of events illustrates two key aspects of the last decade - a government pursuing a thoroughly militaristic agenda and a public resistant to going along with it. Tony Blair's attachment to militarism was a key characteristic of his premiership. The terrorists who murdered thousands in the World Trade Centre in 2001 hoped to provoke a war that would be seen as an assault on Islam. George Bush played right into their hands. Blair fell into line with sizeable but far from overwhelming public support for invading Afghanistan. While al-Qaida was known to be a loose network, the media spoke as if it were a global conspiracy. Bush and Blair announced the "war on terror." It didn't work. Attempts to secure public support for invading Iraq failed from the start, with few taken in by fictitious weapons of mass destruction. Blair's comments on Saddam's brutality were undermined by his friendship with Saudi despots. For the first time in living memory, British troops were sent into a war that was opposed by a majority of the population.
But militarism is about more than troop deployments. The government plans to renew the Trident nuclear weapons system. The arms firm BAE Systems has enjoyed so much influence that former foreign secretary Robin Cook said that BAE's boss had "the key to the garden door at No 10." This twisted relationship reached its zenith in 2006, when Blair intervened to end a criminal investigation into allegedly corrupt BAE arms deals with Saudi Arabia. The incident was a staggering demonstration of the way that both militarism and capitalism distort democracy. Blair defended millionaire gunrunners, Saudi despots and Washington neocons while treating public opinion with contempt. With a few honourable exceptions, his militarism was enthusiastically supported by his ministers and the Tory opposition. By backing BAE, Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron showed their belief in furthering the financial interests of the wealthy at the expense of the majority. Taxpayer-funded subsidies for arms dealers reached around £850 million per year in the middle of the decade. Nor is war immune from the privatisation craze - military occupation has been outsourced, with contracts handed to mercenary companies whose soldiers in Iraq outnumbered British troops.
The privatisation of war has contributed to dramatic changes in the nature of armed conflict. Listening to certain commentators, you could get the impression that no such changes have taken place. Cheerleaders for militarism still talk as if war were a matter of defending nations from aggression with established armies. In reality, over 90 per cent of casualties in modern warfare are civilian. The vast majority of the decade's wars have been within, not between, countries. Their combatants have been resourced by multinational arms companies without national loyalties and have frequently included mercenaries. The changes to the nature of warfare are rarely acknowledged because they make the traditional arguments for militarism redundant. The horrific day in 2005 when terrorists blew up commuters in London has been used by politicians to justify all manner of policies. But no amount of battalions, tanks, Eurofighters or Trident missiles would have prevented such an attack. Bombs and bullets do not lead to compassion and understanding. Furthermore, it is clear that the biggest threat we face to our security is the danger of catastrophic climate chaos. The floodwaters will not stop at national borders or be repelled by a hail of bullets. While the government ploughs money into military "solutions," its supporters claim it would be "unrealistic" to do otherwise.
Given that the world now spends nearly $2,000 on military force for every dollar spent on conflict prevention, it is amazing that non-violent approaches are successful at all. Yet recent years have seen non-violent methods of conflict resolution used successfully in countries as diverse as Estonia, Guatemala and Mozambique; the relative lack of violence in Northern Ireland is surely one of the greatest successes of the decade. Non-violence has far less money and publicity than violence, but the British people have shown themselves able to see through the flimsy network of lies and reassurances used to justify militarism. Not only were most of the public opposed to the Iraq war but polls consistently show majorities against Trident and the occupation of Afghanistan. Last November it became clear that the government's gung-ho approach to war had massively mistaken the public mood when an independent poll revealed that 87 per cent of British adults believe the dead on all sides should be commemorated on Remembrance Day. The millions who marched in 2003 did not prevent the Iraq invasion, but they may have made Blair or Bush think twice about laying into Syria or North Korea. Many more people are now aware of the arms industry's influence within government. In 2008, campaigners achieved the closure of the Defence Export Services Organisation - the arms companies' lobbying unit within the MoD. Arms dealers were infuriated by its replacement with a slightly weaker, but still abhorrent, unit within UK Trade and Investment.
No longer can arms companies have it all their own way. NGOs have highlighted the true cost of Trident, resulting in a Cabinet split that means there is a real chance of Trident renewal not going ahead. With British soldiers still dying and killing in Afghanistan and other armed conflicts around the world rarely even making the British press, there is far, far more to do. Climate change and economic crises have gripped the world's attention. It is vital that we make the links between militarism, climate change and capitalism. This means not only co-ordinated campaigning but clearer messages. We must continue to expose the way that both war and climate change have delivered profit and power to the few, at the expense of the planet and its people. Militarism sustains its support by constantly telling us, despite the evidence, that people cannot achieve things alone, that we need powerful individuals employing men with guns to keep things under control. Gandhi suggested that one of the biggest threats to Indian freedom was the people's reluctance to trust themselves. There is always a tendency to fall back on trusting violence, governments, money, traditions or even activist heroes. The first step to challenging militarism is having the confidence simply to trust ourselves.
Showing posts with label BAE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BAE. Show all posts
Monday, 5 April 2010
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Perfect match for BAE bandits
Britain's biggest arms firm has just put a top George Bush official who was deeply implicated in the Republicans' torture policies onto its board. BAE hired Michael Chertoff, formerly the US secretary of homeland security, at the end of last week. The appointment of one of Bush Jnr's crazy gang to the BAE board was ignored by the British press, but US reporters are shocked such about a high official joining a company that recently had to promise the US government not to bribe any more high officials. BAE also had to pay $447 million to settle charges about bribing the Saudis. The US press thinks that BAE promising not to bribe government officials while giving jobs to government officials looks a bit tacky. But when it comes to the unseemly, BAE and Chertoff seem a perfect match. Chertoff was the head of the criminal division of the US Justice Department from 2001 to 2003. He was promoted to head of homeland security in January 2005. It was in the former job that Chertoff first covered up torture. And then helped to spread it. Chertoff worked hard to hide the abusive interrogation of John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban." Lindh was a Catholic boy from Washington DC who converted to Islam and went to join the Afghan Taliban in May 2001. He was captured by the US-friendly warlords of the Afghan Northern Alliance in 2001 and was interrogated by a CIA officer.
Lindh then joined a prison uprising as foreign fighters held by the Northern Alliance tried to break free from their Afghan fort prison. Hundreds were killed when the uprising was brutally put down. Lindh's CIA interrogator also died in the fighting. Lindh was shot in the leg, recaptured and transferred to the prison at a US base called "Camp Rhino." He was shipped to the US and hit with 10 charges, including "conspiracy to murder," supporting terrorism and supporting al-Qaida. He faced 90 years in prison. The evidence against him was stronger than many of those unfortunates stuck in Guantanamo. Then something strange happened. Lindh pleaded guilty to lesser charges of carrying a rifle for the Taliban. This ended the trial before any real evidence was heard and got Lindh a 20-year sentence. This was mild by US standards. Why? Because Chertoff arranged a plea-bargain with Lindh. Chertoff pushed the deal to stop details of Lindh's abuse being discussed in court. Lindh was questioned while strapped naked to a stretcher inside an unheated cargo container with an untreated bullet wound in his leg. Lindh says guards kept him awake at night by hammering on the container. His confession was given before the bullet was removed. Chertoff brought the strange and mysterious end to Lindh's trial with a deal that hid the strange and shocking treatment of the captive. Had Lindh's abuse been exposed in 2002, there was a chance the US would have turned away from torture more quickly. Instead, Chertoff helped to spread the practice. The Bush White House asked the Justice Department to legally OK "coercive" interrogation methods. Under Chertoff's leadership, junior justice officials wrote bizarre, grotesque memos suggesting, for example, that interrogations causing anything short of the pain of organ failure were OK as long as the president said so. Records show Chertoff was a bit queasy about some of these suggestions.
He refused to give a blank cheque to the CIA. He would not offer them immunity from prosecution if interrogations got out of hand. The New York Times also said Chertoff ruled out a few interrogation methods such as using death threats against family members and mind-altering drugs that would change a detainee's personality. But The Times says Chertoff did approve waterboarding for interrogations. So after covering up torture in Lindh's case, Chertoff helped authorise it, reluctantly. A Justice Department ethics panel later very mildly slapped Chertoff's wrist, saying he "should have looked beyond the surface complexity" of the torture memos written by his underlings and checked if they really were "sound." But never mind, Chertoff is respectable enough for a job on the BAE board. You can get a sense of Chertoff's views from his address to the right-wing US Heritage Foundation at a meeting called to discuss the TV show 24. In the "Ronald Reagan Building" in Washington DC, in front of the cast and writers of 24, Chertoff said of the torture-happy adventure show, "frankly, it reflects real life." Chertoff was clearly delighted by the way 24 portrays investigators as macho men who are just forced to abuse suspects to save lives. Chertoff claims 24 accurately showed justice officials had "choices about whether to take drastic and even violent action against a threat, and weighing that against the consequence of not taking the action and the destruction that might otherwise ensue."
BAE wants Chertoff because, as the firm said, he "is uniquely well positioned to support the company as it continues to grow in the global security market." It thinks that "his years of experience in the security domain will be of tremendous value to our businesses as we help our government and private-sector customers develop cyber-security solutions, combat terrorism and organised crime and strengthen border and transportation security." That is, it wants Chertoff to win those war on terror contracts, running spying and immigration databases, surveillance systems and so on. BAE relies heavily on British government support. So our tax money will pay to help Bush's pal Chertoff to spy on us. BAE is at the very centre of British politics - Speaker John Bercow recently admitted he had hired a BAE subsidiary called Detica to try and flush out who leaked the MPs' expenses details. The Home Office is preparing a report proposing BAE and other firms will help with "social profiling" to catch "terrorists." And now it can do this with the help of a man who helped Bush to abuse prisoners.
Lindh then joined a prison uprising as foreign fighters held by the Northern Alliance tried to break free from their Afghan fort prison. Hundreds were killed when the uprising was brutally put down. Lindh's CIA interrogator also died in the fighting. Lindh was shot in the leg, recaptured and transferred to the prison at a US base called "Camp Rhino." He was shipped to the US and hit with 10 charges, including "conspiracy to murder," supporting terrorism and supporting al-Qaida. He faced 90 years in prison. The evidence against him was stronger than many of those unfortunates stuck in Guantanamo. Then something strange happened. Lindh pleaded guilty to lesser charges of carrying a rifle for the Taliban. This ended the trial before any real evidence was heard and got Lindh a 20-year sentence. This was mild by US standards. Why? Because Chertoff arranged a plea-bargain with Lindh. Chertoff pushed the deal to stop details of Lindh's abuse being discussed in court. Lindh was questioned while strapped naked to a stretcher inside an unheated cargo container with an untreated bullet wound in his leg. Lindh says guards kept him awake at night by hammering on the container. His confession was given before the bullet was removed. Chertoff brought the strange and mysterious end to Lindh's trial with a deal that hid the strange and shocking treatment of the captive. Had Lindh's abuse been exposed in 2002, there was a chance the US would have turned away from torture more quickly. Instead, Chertoff helped to spread the practice. The Bush White House asked the Justice Department to legally OK "coercive" interrogation methods. Under Chertoff's leadership, junior justice officials wrote bizarre, grotesque memos suggesting, for example, that interrogations causing anything short of the pain of organ failure were OK as long as the president said so. Records show Chertoff was a bit queasy about some of these suggestions.
He refused to give a blank cheque to the CIA. He would not offer them immunity from prosecution if interrogations got out of hand. The New York Times also said Chertoff ruled out a few interrogation methods such as using death threats against family members and mind-altering drugs that would change a detainee's personality. But The Times says Chertoff did approve waterboarding for interrogations. So after covering up torture in Lindh's case, Chertoff helped authorise it, reluctantly. A Justice Department ethics panel later very mildly slapped Chertoff's wrist, saying he "should have looked beyond the surface complexity" of the torture memos written by his underlings and checked if they really were "sound." But never mind, Chertoff is respectable enough for a job on the BAE board. You can get a sense of Chertoff's views from his address to the right-wing US Heritage Foundation at a meeting called to discuss the TV show 24. In the "Ronald Reagan Building" in Washington DC, in front of the cast and writers of 24, Chertoff said of the torture-happy adventure show, "frankly, it reflects real life." Chertoff was clearly delighted by the way 24 portrays investigators as macho men who are just forced to abuse suspects to save lives. Chertoff claims 24 accurately showed justice officials had "choices about whether to take drastic and even violent action against a threat, and weighing that against the consequence of not taking the action and the destruction that might otherwise ensue."
BAE wants Chertoff because, as the firm said, he "is uniquely well positioned to support the company as it continues to grow in the global security market." It thinks that "his years of experience in the security domain will be of tremendous value to our businesses as we help our government and private-sector customers develop cyber-security solutions, combat terrorism and organised crime and strengthen border and transportation security." That is, it wants Chertoff to win those war on terror contracts, running spying and immigration databases, surveillance systems and so on. BAE relies heavily on British government support. So our tax money will pay to help Bush's pal Chertoff to spy on us. BAE is at the very centre of British politics - Speaker John Bercow recently admitted he had hired a BAE subsidiary called Detica to try and flush out who leaked the MPs' expenses details. The Home Office is preparing a report proposing BAE and other firms will help with "social profiling" to catch "terrorists." And now it can do this with the help of a man who helped Bush to abuse prisoners.
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
BAE gets away with murder
Britain’s biggest arms company BAE has paid its way out of corruption charges. The corrupt arms dealer BAE has always believed itself above the law – and proved on Friday last week that it is. BAE paid a £288 million bribe to courts in the US and Britain to be let off, in its own words, “conspiring to make false statements... in connection with certain regulatory filings and undertakings”. In the British settlement, the company admits to, “payments made to a former marketing adviser in Tanzania” in connection with an air traffic control system. The US settlement refers explicitly to paying bribes. The deal means that investigations into BAE corruption in South Africa, Romania, Chile, the Czech Republic, Qatar, Bosnia, Nigeria, Zambia, Costa Rica and Egypt have now all been dropped. Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly faced trial for making “corrupt payments to unknown officials and other agents”. He has now escaped prosecution. Mensdorff was BAE’s key secret agent in central Europe. He denied the accusations against him “wholesale.” “BAE adopted and deployed corrupt practices to obtain lucrative contracts for jet fighters,” the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) told the courts.
It was a “sophisticated and meticulously planned operation involving very senior BAE executives”. BAE conspired with Mensdorff and spent more than £10 million funding a bribery campaign in Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Mensdorff paid bribes “to public officials to favour BAE’s bids to supply Gripen jets”. More than $17 million in total was transferred to Mensdorff, but all he officially did in return was produce “marketing reports”. All charges against Mensdorff were dropped in the “public interest” – because of the BAE bribe deal. The company has now admitted to one case of corruption – in Tanzania. In 2001 BAE sold Tanzania a £28 million air traffic control system. Even the World Bank said it was unnecessary and overpriced. It was a high-tech military system – but Tanzania barely had an air force. The deal was pushed through by then British prime minister Tony Blair. More than a third of the contract price went in bribes to Tanzanian officials. As part of the settlement, further investigation into the air traffic control system will stop and the facts so far established will be kept secret. BAE is the world’s third largest arms dealer. It makes fighter aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery systems, missiles, munitions and much more.
In September 2003 The Sunday Times reported that BAE had hired a private security contractor to collate information about individuals working at the Campaign Against Arms Trade and their activities. In February 2007, it again obtained private confidential information from CAAT. Like many arms manufacturers, BAE has received criticism from various human rights and anti-arms trade organisations due to the human rights records of governments to which it has sold equipment. These include Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. BAE's US subsidiary makes several subsystems for F-16s, 236 of which have been supplied to the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, BAE was excluded from the portfolio of the government pension fund of Norway "because they develop and/or produce central components for nuclear weapons". "According to the ethical guidelines for the Government Pension Fund – Global, companies that produce weapons that through normal use may violate fundamental humanitarian principles shall be excluded from the fund." BAE is indirectly engaged in production of nuclear weapons - through its 37.5% share of MBDA it is involved with the production and support of the ASMP missile, an air launched nuclear missile which forms part of the French nuclear deterrent. BAE is also the UK's only nuclear submarine manufacturer and thus produces a key element of the UK's nuclear weapons capability.
BAE Systems has been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, into the use of political corruption to help sell arms to Chile, Czech Republic, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania and Qatar. In response, BAE Systems' 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report states "We continue to reject these allegations...We take our obligations under the law extremely seriously and will continue to comply with all legal requirements around the world. In June 2007 Lord Woolf was selected to lead what the BBC described as an "independent review.... [an] ethics committee to look into how the defence giant conducts its arms deals." The report, Ethical business conduct in BAE Systems plc – the way forward, made 23 recommendations, measures which BAE has committed to implement. The finding stated that "in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business," and was described by the BBC as "an embarrassing admission." In September 2009, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it intends to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption. The Guardian claimed that a penalty "possibly of more than £500m" might be an acceptable settlement package. On 5 February 2010, BAE Systems agreed to pay £280 million in criminal fines to the US and UK authorities.
In September 2005 The Guardian reported that banking records showed that BAE paid £1 million to Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. The Guardian has also reported that "clandestine arms deals" have been under investigation in Chile and the UK since 2003 and that British Aerospace and BAE made a number of payments to Pinochet advisers. BAE has been criticised for its role in disposing of surplus Royal Navy warships. HMS Sheffield was sold to the Chilean Navy in 2003 for £27 million, however the government's profit from the sale was £3 million, after contracts worth £24 million were placed with BAE for upgrade and refurbishment of the ship. The SFO's Czech Republic investigation related to alleged bribery as part of the deal to lease BAE/Saab Gripen fighters to that country. BAE is alleged to have paid "secret offshore commissions" of over £7 million to secure the sale of HMS London and HMS Coventry to the Romanian Navy. BAE received a £116 million contract for the refurbishment of the ships. The Tanzania inquiry relates to the sale of a radar system to that country in 2002. The sale was criticised by then Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short, opposition MPs and the World Bank. Clare Short, the former Secretary of State for International Development, claimed that BAE had "ripped off" developing nations.
Last year the company, worth an estimated £19bn, made a profit of over £18.5 million from selling weapons. BAE Systems is the predominant supplier to the UK Ministry of Defence, being the only company to receive more than £1 billion from the MOD in 2004/2005. Oxford Economic Forecasting states that in 2002 BAE's UK businesses employed 111,578 people, achieved export sales of £3 billion and paid £2.6 billion in taxes. These figures exclude the contribution of Airbus UK. Since its creation BAE had a difficult relationship with the MOD. This was attributed to deficient project management by the company, but also in part to the deficiencies in the terms of "fixed price contracts". BAE CEO Mike Turner said in 2006 "We had entered into contracts under the old competition rules that frankly we shouldn't have taken". These competition rules were introduced by Lord Levene during the 1980s to shift the burden of risk to the contractor and were in contrast to "cost plus contracts" where a contractor was paid for the value of its product plus an agreed profit. BAE Systems Australia is the largest defence contractor in Australia, having more than doubled in size with the acquisition of Tenix Defence. The Al Yamamah agreements between the UK and Saudi Arabia require "the provision of a complete defence package for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia"; BAE employs 4,600 people in the kingdom. BAE Systems Land Systems South Africa, 75% owned by BAE, is the largest military vehicle manufacturer in South Africa, and is currently taking part in the US MRAP programme. Apart from its share of Saab, BAE's interests in Sweden are a result of the purchases of Alvis Vickers and UDI, which owned Hägglunds and Bofors respectively; The companies are now part of BAE Systems AB and have a combined workforce of approximately 1,750. Also, BAE Systems owns 49% of Air Astana, Kazakhstan.
Weapons manufacturer BAE paid a bribe to avoid bribery charges last week; those who protested in Britain against the use of those weapons in Gaza face jail this week. Manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction can pay their way out of the courts. Young people protesting against war crimes are subject to harsh jail terms. This is the reality of British justice – an upside down system where BAE can win contracts worth £50 billion through bribes and then, when it is found out, pay less than a 0.5% of the loot to go free. Tony Blair called off a corruption inquiry in 2006. BAE supplied key components for the Israeli assault on Gaza, which began at the end of 2008. Demonstrators faced police attacks and arrests when they marched against the slaughter and destruction. The police have hounded some protesters for many months. Two young women involved in the protests have already been sent to prison. More demonstrators faced jail this week. War criminals go free; anti-war marchers get locked up. Welcome to democracy under capitalism.
It was a “sophisticated and meticulously planned operation involving very senior BAE executives”. BAE conspired with Mensdorff and spent more than £10 million funding a bribery campaign in Austria, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Mensdorff paid bribes “to public officials to favour BAE’s bids to supply Gripen jets”. More than $17 million in total was transferred to Mensdorff, but all he officially did in return was produce “marketing reports”. All charges against Mensdorff were dropped in the “public interest” – because of the BAE bribe deal. The company has now admitted to one case of corruption – in Tanzania. In 2001 BAE sold Tanzania a £28 million air traffic control system. Even the World Bank said it was unnecessary and overpriced. It was a high-tech military system – but Tanzania barely had an air force. The deal was pushed through by then British prime minister Tony Blair. More than a third of the contract price went in bribes to Tanzanian officials. As part of the settlement, further investigation into the air traffic control system will stop and the facts so far established will be kept secret. BAE is the world’s third largest arms dealer. It makes fighter aircraft, warships, tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery systems, missiles, munitions and much more.
In September 2003 The Sunday Times reported that BAE had hired a private security contractor to collate information about individuals working at the Campaign Against Arms Trade and their activities. In February 2007, it again obtained private confidential information from CAAT. Like many arms manufacturers, BAE has received criticism from various human rights and anti-arms trade organisations due to the human rights records of governments to which it has sold equipment. These include Indonesia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Zimbabwe. BAE's US subsidiary makes several subsystems for F-16s, 236 of which have been supplied to the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, BAE was excluded from the portfolio of the government pension fund of Norway "because they develop and/or produce central components for nuclear weapons". "According to the ethical guidelines for the Government Pension Fund – Global, companies that produce weapons that through normal use may violate fundamental humanitarian principles shall be excluded from the fund." BAE is indirectly engaged in production of nuclear weapons - through its 37.5% share of MBDA it is involved with the production and support of the ASMP missile, an air launched nuclear missile which forms part of the French nuclear deterrent. BAE is also the UK's only nuclear submarine manufacturer and thus produces a key element of the UK's nuclear weapons capability.
BAE Systems has been under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office, into the use of political corruption to help sell arms to Chile, Czech Republic, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania and Qatar. In response, BAE Systems' 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report states "We continue to reject these allegations...We take our obligations under the law extremely seriously and will continue to comply with all legal requirements around the world. In June 2007 Lord Woolf was selected to lead what the BBC described as an "independent review.... [an] ethics committee to look into how the defence giant conducts its arms deals." The report, Ethical business conduct in BAE Systems plc – the way forward, made 23 recommendations, measures which BAE has committed to implement. The finding stated that "in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business," and was described by the BBC as "an embarrassing admission." In September 2009, the Serious Fraud Office announced that it intends to prosecute BAE Systems for offences relating to overseas corruption. The Guardian claimed that a penalty "possibly of more than £500m" might be an acceptable settlement package. On 5 February 2010, BAE Systems agreed to pay £280 million in criminal fines to the US and UK authorities.
In September 2005 The Guardian reported that banking records showed that BAE paid £1 million to Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. The Guardian has also reported that "clandestine arms deals" have been under investigation in Chile and the UK since 2003 and that British Aerospace and BAE made a number of payments to Pinochet advisers. BAE has been criticised for its role in disposing of surplus Royal Navy warships. HMS Sheffield was sold to the Chilean Navy in 2003 for £27 million, however the government's profit from the sale was £3 million, after contracts worth £24 million were placed with BAE for upgrade and refurbishment of the ship. The SFO's Czech Republic investigation related to alleged bribery as part of the deal to lease BAE/Saab Gripen fighters to that country. BAE is alleged to have paid "secret offshore commissions" of over £7 million to secure the sale of HMS London and HMS Coventry to the Romanian Navy. BAE received a £116 million contract for the refurbishment of the ships. The Tanzania inquiry relates to the sale of a radar system to that country in 2002. The sale was criticised by then Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short, opposition MPs and the World Bank. Clare Short, the former Secretary of State for International Development, claimed that BAE had "ripped off" developing nations.
Last year the company, worth an estimated £19bn, made a profit of over £18.5 million from selling weapons. BAE Systems is the predominant supplier to the UK Ministry of Defence, being the only company to receive more than £1 billion from the MOD in 2004/2005. Oxford Economic Forecasting states that in 2002 BAE's UK businesses employed 111,578 people, achieved export sales of £3 billion and paid £2.6 billion in taxes. These figures exclude the contribution of Airbus UK. Since its creation BAE had a difficult relationship with the MOD. This was attributed to deficient project management by the company, but also in part to the deficiencies in the terms of "fixed price contracts". BAE CEO Mike Turner said in 2006 "We had entered into contracts under the old competition rules that frankly we shouldn't have taken". These competition rules were introduced by Lord Levene during the 1980s to shift the burden of risk to the contractor and were in contrast to "cost plus contracts" where a contractor was paid for the value of its product plus an agreed profit. BAE Systems Australia is the largest defence contractor in Australia, having more than doubled in size with the acquisition of Tenix Defence. The Al Yamamah agreements between the UK and Saudi Arabia require "the provision of a complete defence package for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia"; BAE employs 4,600 people in the kingdom. BAE Systems Land Systems South Africa, 75% owned by BAE, is the largest military vehicle manufacturer in South Africa, and is currently taking part in the US MRAP programme. Apart from its share of Saab, BAE's interests in Sweden are a result of the purchases of Alvis Vickers and UDI, which owned Hägglunds and Bofors respectively; The companies are now part of BAE Systems AB and have a combined workforce of approximately 1,750. Also, BAE Systems owns 49% of Air Astana, Kazakhstan.
Weapons manufacturer BAE paid a bribe to avoid bribery charges last week; those who protested in Britain against the use of those weapons in Gaza face jail this week. Manufacturers of weapons of mass destruction can pay their way out of the courts. Young people protesting against war crimes are subject to harsh jail terms. This is the reality of British justice – an upside down system where BAE can win contracts worth £50 billion through bribes and then, when it is found out, pay less than a 0.5% of the loot to go free. Tony Blair called off a corruption inquiry in 2006. BAE supplied key components for the Israeli assault on Gaza, which began at the end of 2008. Demonstrators faced police attacks and arrests when they marched against the slaughter and destruction. The police have hounded some protesters for many months. Two young women involved in the protests have already been sent to prison. More demonstrators faced jail this week. War criminals go free; anti-war marchers get locked up. Welcome to democracy under capitalism.
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