April 21, 2014 Press TV has conducted an interview with Elias Farhat, retired Army General, about the British government approving arms exports of up to 4 billion pounds to Saudi Arabia. What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview. Press TV: Elias Farhat, UK Prime Minister David Cameron saying the arms sales is legitimate in the case of Saudi Arabia. What is your reaction? Farhat: I mean its legitimate because it is from a state to state but the western media disclosed a lot of corruption in this arms deals mainly the deal called the Yamamah deal where the late defense minister was accused to take bribes more than one hundred and fifty million dollars of some Lebanese dealers who mediated between the two governments and took a lot of money. And this comes amid a dispute between the princes of the royal family on the position of defense and authority of defense in the Saudi kingdom. You noticed that last month in a strange step, king Abdullah fired the deputy defense minister Prince Khalid bin Sultan and replaced him by the former commander of the Saudi Navy and later he fired the air force commander and replaced him by another general from the Saudi air forces. So this dispute or conflict between the Saudi princes was leaked into the western media, lot of briberies and commissions from the deals with Britain in the Yamamah and other deals. So the legitimacy that Mr. Cameron talked about it is that it is from a state to state. He tries to cover [up] the accusations of the bribery in the western media and towards the public opinion inside Britain rather than to cover it [up] inside Saudi Arabia. Press TV: Albeit to mention though the fact that these arms sales brings money, it keeps the manufactures busy in terms of employment, etc. But the other angle about this is that the sales of arms to regimes that suppress dissent, in this case Saudi Arabia which is known to have done that, isn’t there something wrong with that aspect of it, of which it has obviously irked many rights activists and human rights organizations? Farhat: Yes the human rights organizations, they do not move alone in such movements against arms sales because you know the United States ... an arms sales with Saudi Arabia with more than fifty billion dollars and [none] of these organizations moved to disapprove or to object on these arms sales. But as to Britain, now I think it is something slightly different from the United States because the British government is now in between to listen to the human rights organizations which accuse the Saudi government of oppressing the people in the Eastern part of the kingdom and intervening in Bahrain as well and between their interest in selling a deal for billion pounds which means that a lot of people will, they create more jobs and the companies of arms will work years and years in order to meet the requirements. AHK/KA
Posted on: Mon, 21 Apr 2014 09:21:02 +0000
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