US pressured Blair into arms bribery inquiry

[cal04]

A bribery investigation threatening the future of 50,000 British jobs followed heavy pressure on Tony Blair from George Bush's administration, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

(snip)
Now documents released under US freedom of information laws reveal how the probe followed arm-twisting by the Bush administration.

They show how Britain's most senior defence civil servant was taken to task by the Pentagon over "a longstanding, widespread pattern of bribery allegations involving BAE systems" in July 2002.

Sir Kevin Tebbit, then the top civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, had an uncomfortable meeting with the US Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs, E Anthony Wayne.

Mr Wayne said that, though it had signed up to international anti-bribery agreements, "the UK was slow to take action to correct perceived deficiencies".

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2035172.ece

[Kagemusha]

1. Oh they'll just love Tony for this one.

I'm no fan of bribery but, sounds like the US got Tony to put the UK out of the warplane business by getting it to investigate itself on graft, putting the UK out of competition with American defense corporations.

[acmavm]

2. Another irony: it was the most corrupt administration in American

history that put the screws to him.

That's irony overload.