[A-List] UK exports success: arms to Saudi Arabia

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Third of MoD arms sale unit works for Saudis

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Wednesday March 9, 2005
The Guardian

Almost a third of the government's arms sales machine is dedicated to
selling to a single regime, Saudi Arabia.

A Ministry of Defence publication circulated to defence firms and obtained
by the Guardian shows the extent of Saudi dependence on Britain to run its
air force.

According to the document, no fewer than 161 of the department's 600
officials work for the "Saudi Armed Forces Project".

Ministers will today address a closed annual conference of the Defence
Export Services Organisation (Deso), the Whitehall department which sells
British weapons round the world.

Outside the meeting a group of anti-arms sales protesters will gather.

They want Deso closed down, but have always been denied information about
the secretive department's workings.

The team is headed by Air Vice-Marshal John Thompson, based in central
London. He has a place on Deso's main board, headed by Alan Garwood, a
former executive of Britain's biggest arms company, BAE.

Stationed on the ground in Riyadh are two senior military men, Air Commodore
Ray Hodgson and Air Commodore John Chandler. They are the British team
commander and logistics chief respectively.

The two RAF officers head a squad of 54 British officials who are
permanently based in Saudi Arabia.

The files show that they are distributed between the capital, Riyadh, a navy
base at Jubail, and three big Saudi air bases at Dhahran, Khamis and Tabuk.

These figures do not include the significant number of RAF air crew who are
seconded to the Saudis to fly the Tornados and Hawks which Britain has sold
to Riyadh under its longstanding Al Yamamah arms contract.

The Deso officials are there to supervise the training and technical support
which keeps the Saudi air force flying. Their other task is to supervise the
payments of £1bn a year which Saudi Arabia makes to BAE in return for spares
and maintenance.

The Deso teams range from a small unit at Tabuk in the north, near Israel,
with a squadron leader handling training and a warrant officer in charge of
supply, to a large team in the capital, where Group Captain Nick Watson is
in charge of flight operations and a civil servant, John Radcliffe, heads
the finance department.

At Jubail, on the Gulf, a navy captain, Grenville Johnson, superintends the
Saudi fleet of Vosper minehunters at the head of a naval team of eight.

A senior Deso official, Michael Salkeld, is also stationed at the British
embassy in Riyadh to promote further arms sales.

A team of 81 officials work at Deso's headquarters, next to Centrepoint in
London's West End, on behalf of Saudi Arabia, headed by the commercial
director, Stephen Pollard, and the deputy director in charge of contracts,
John Davis.

Deso officials are also stationed at air bases round the UK, organising
training and back-up for the Saudis.

One team is based at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire, where the Tornado
warplanes of the type purchased by the Saudis are maintained.

Others are at RAF Marham in Norfolk, RAF Stafford and the electronic warfare
unit at RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire.

The department also has a Saudi liaison team posted to BAE's factory at
Samlesbury in Lancashire. The MoD says that all these British officials are
paid for by the Saudi regime, who hand over an undisclosed fee to Whitehall
in return for what is in effect, the hire of an entire air force.

Deso originally refused the Guardian's Freedom of Information request for an
unexpurgated copy of its staff directory, which is supplied as a glossy
brochure to all British arms firms.

However, we have subsequently obtained a leaked copy.

Deso says it seeks to conceal the identity of all its staff on the grounds
that they could be intimidated. It also refused to divulge which government
ministers will adress its annual symposium for arms manufacturers today.

Beccie D'Cunha, a spokeswoman for the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, said:
"We are an intrinsically peaceful organisation - there is no question that
we would ever attack or harass Deso staff."

She claimed: "Saudi Arabia is an autocratic, corrupt regime in an unstable
area. The use of so many civil servants to promote arms to the Saudi regime
is completely unethical."