According to a new report by Middle East Eye, Prince Bandar bin Sultan – Saudi Arabia’s most famous arms dealer, longtime former ambassador to the US, and recent head of Saudi intelligence – was among those detained as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) so-called “corruption purge” that started with the initial arrests of up to a dozen princes and other top officials last weekend.
If confirmed, the arrest and detention of Bandar would constitute the most significant and high profile figure caught up in the purge – even above that of high profile billionaire investor Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal – given Bandar’s closeness to multiple US administrations and involvement in events ranging from Reagan’s Nicaraguan Contra program (including direct involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal), to making the case for the Iraq War as a trusted friend of Bush and Cheney, to directing US-Saudi covert operations overseeing the arming of jihadists in Syria.
Famous photograph of George W. Bush and his close confidant Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Middle East Eye issued the report based on multiple contacts “inside the royal court” and indicates further that the scale of MBS’ aggressive crackdown is much larger than previously reported, and even involves the torture of “senior figures” among those detained:
Some senior figures detained in last Saturday’s purge in Saudi Arabia were beaten and tortured so badly during their arrest or subsequent interrogations that they required hospital treatment, Middle East Eye can reveal. People inside the royal court also told MEE that the scale of the crackdown, which has brought new arrests each day, is much bigger than Saudi authorities have admitted, with more than 500 people detained and double that number questioned.
And shockingly, those sources say that the longtime Saudi ‘deep state’ power broker and liaison with the West, Prince Bandar, is among the detained:
One of the most famous is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a former Saudi ambassador to Washington and confidant of former US President George W Bush. There is no word on his fate, but Saudi authorities said that one of the corruption cases they are looking at is the al-Yamamah arms deal, in which Bandar was involved.
While no doubt Bandar’s very well-known role in Saudi “oil for arms” programs which have come to define Saudi relations with the West over the past decades is a trumped up and “selective” charge (insofar as the highest levels of the state have overseen such shady dealing) the al-Yamamah deal in particular – which goes back to the mid-1980’s – has been an historical embarrassment to both the UK and Saudi governments (BAE Systems was the prime British contractor involved) for the astounding level of fraudulent accounting exposed in UK courts.
Concerning Prince Bandar’s role in the al-Yamamah deal, Middle East Eye continues:
Bandar bought an entire village in the Cotswolds, a picturesque area of central England, and a 2,000-acre sporting estate with part of the proceeds from kickbacks he received in the al-Yamamah arms deal, which netted British manufacturer BAE £43bn ($56.5bn) in contracts for fighter aircraft.
As much as $30m (£15m) is alleged to have been paid into Bandar’s dollar account at Riggs Bank in Washington and the affair led to corruption probes in the US and UK, although the case was dropped in the UK in 2006 after an intervention by then-prime minister Tony Blair.
But more likely is that Bandar has been caught up in this week’s MBS dragnet for his closeness to Western heads of state and foreign intelligence services. With MBS’ aggressive consolidation of power which could result in ascension to the throne at any moment, and with fate of multiple princes and officials still unknown – not the least of which is now ex-PM of Lebanon Saad Hariri – a shroud of secrecy has resulted in myriad theories concerning what is really happening behind the scenes.
Likely, Bandar has been detained to ensure a communications blackout with Western intelligence and media until MBS’ plans are complete, with the added benefit of ensuring the “anti-corruption” angle to the purges for the consumption of international media.
Bandar (left) has been close to multiple US administrations spanning decades with direct involvement in events ranging from Reagan’s Nicaraguan Contra program (including being named in the Iran-Contra scandal), to making the case for the Iraq War as a trusted friend of Bush and Cheney, to directing Obama-era covert operations to arm jihadists in Syria.
Ironically, Bandar himself once seemed to publicly boast about receiving massive kickbacks in relation to Saudi weapons dealing, which perhaps further made him an easy and high profile target in this week’s crackdown. According to a royal family profile highlighting corruption in the New York Times from early this week:
Perhaps the most famous statement on corruption in Saudi Arabia was made by Prince Bandar. In an interview with PBS in 2001, he said: “If you tell me that building this whole country, and spending $350 billion out of $400 billion, that we had misused or got corrupted with $50 billion, I’ll tell you, yes. But I’ll take that anytime.”
And the New York Times summarized the key events of the multi-billion pound weapons deal with the UK as follows:
Weapons contracts have long been a source of wealth. British media reported that Prince Bandar received well over $1 billion in secret payments from BAE Systems, the leading British military contractor, over the course of a decade. The son of founding King Abdulaziz’s personal doctor, Adnan Khashoggi, became a billionaire as an arms dealer and go-between for weapons makers and members of the royal family.
Meanwhile news of Bandar’s possible arrest and detention hasn’t spread very widely in international media reports as of this writing, but it will be interesting to see the response in the West should the news be confirmed. Will Bandar’s friends in Washington and London go to bat for him? Or will Prince Bandar quietly recede into the background of a permanent forced retirement from public life?
Most likely the latter will be the case. Regardless, for friends of the former powerful Saudi intelligence director on either side of the Atlantic and within Saudi Arabia itself, Bandar no doubt knows where all the skeletons are buried, and this alone makes him a worrisome, volatile and unpredictable figure in the midst of a transfer of power.
Sissyfuss on Fri, 10th Nov 2017 5:41 pm
Bandar in the photo above,” Give me the tongue
you silly shrub. You will forget all about Condi when I am done with you. And if your’re any good I will make my 37th wife. How do you like your camel?”
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 1:58 am
Breakup of the West latest: hard Brexit ever more likely. EU poses two week ultimatum in the knowledge that nothing will happen. Which is fine, since we have a gigantic Eurasian hinterland to do business with. EU-UK ice age coming up with punative tariffs imposed. And it is so easy for the EU to compensate itself: UK firms HQ and of course Gibraltar. That would be a nice test case, for starters, for the coming EU army.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/brexit-verhandlungen-auch-nach-sechster-runde-festgefahen-a-1177416.html
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 3:39 am
More bad news for the libtard NWO: uncle Erdogan denies that a “moderate Islam” exists.
Islam = Islam.
https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/929258122593624064
Forget about the western integration lie, it doesn’t exist.
Yet another victory for populism.
Wonder how forum commie ubertard apneaman will talk himself out of this.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 4:28 am
“AN EU ARMY? FOUR REASONS IT WILL NOT HAPPEN”
http://tinyurl.com/ydhwm856
“One: Mixing apples and oranges History has shaped the defence cultures of different EU member-states in very different ways. Some countries may therefore find it easier to work together than others….The Franco-German joint brigade illustrates as much. Though created in 1989, it was only first deployed (and then only partially) as part of a training mission in Mali last year. In Afghanistan, the two countries were unable to agree on an acceptable level of risk for the troops involved, blocking deployment. The problem would only be worse in multinational EU units.”
“Two: Unwillingness to deploy The lack of a shared vision of how to use EU forces would be an enormous problem in a crisis. Member-states would be keen to protect their sovereignty, which means that a single government could block a deployment. Europeans have learned this the hard way, through the EU Battle Groups. Created in 2007, these consist of rotating troop contingents from member-states, in theory ready to deploy at ten days’ notice. In practice, they have never been used. Differing national military strategies and threat assessments deter EU members from volunteering soldiers for operations. An unattractive system of cost distribution, which places the brunt of an operation’s financial burden on the deploying country, does not help. Indeed, the longer battle groups have gone unused, the weightier the symbolism of deciding to use them has become.”
“Three: Re-inventing the wheel Some member states worry that an EU army would compete with NATO structures. With 22 of 28 EU states also being NATO members, NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has urged Europeans to avoid duplicating NATO – money invested in an EU army would be money lost for the alliance.”
“Four: Lord make me pure but not yet Finally, a European army would fall foul of politics in key EU capitals. Germany’s alleged commitment to creating an EU army is also weaker than it may appear. Though the project features explicitly in the government’s coalition agreement and is supported by almost all political parties, German politicians all stress the long-term nature of this ambition. It is considered good form for a ‘good European’ in Germany to reaffirm the commitment to a European army. But Christian Moelling, a senior fellow for security policy at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, who was involved in the ministry of defence’s white book consultation process, says that no one is preparing concrete implementation plans.”
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 5:18 am
Hahaha, dream on Davy. CER is a London based thinktank that professes to be a little pro-European.
The article is of May en Brexit date June 2016.LOL And Trump was November.
Article is irrelevant, EU army IS going to happen with approvement of Trump. Britain was never anything but a US trojan horse and they are now out, good riddance to them. Two Anglo centuries coming to an end. Eurasian century is next:
https://goo.gl/images/5cn7h7
Keep on googling Dummy-Dave to find support for your wishful thinking and next time check the date first before you post.ROFL
The roles EU-US are now going to be reversed.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 5:22 am
I always check my dates dumb n dutch and this article is just as relevant today as last year. There is no change in EU army status just talk. Talk like all you are on many topics. Revisions, embellishments, and futures considered reality is your MO.
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 5:36 am
Write in your agenda Dummy-Dave: 2020
http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2017/09/26/macron-veut-accueillir-des-militaires-etrangers-dans-larmee-francaise_a_23223335/
Intervention force.
Intervention where?
North-America of course, when that ticking timebomb goes off.
EU and Russia have many millions of soldiers (Poland alone 11 million, incl reserves)
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 6:08 am
dumb dutch talk. Show the goods dumb n dutch. Show me real references of actual Eurotard Army developments. Instead you talk about more millions of phantom soldier. We had 10MIL under arms on the Korean peninsula now the dumb n dutch talk is 11MIL in Poland. No wonder mad kat and clog are a couple now.
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 9:06 am
Davy wants to keep us in his shabby third world empire at all cost, as the self-styled “liberator” (read bunch of massmurderers under command of the “Soros maffia”). The hour of revenge is approaching. Now go fight a war against China. Or Iran.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 9:37 am
That’s fun wasn’t it dumb n Dutch. Sounds like stuff Baghdad Bob would say as the American tanks were rolling into Baghdad. LMFAO. You and Mad Kat the dementia men hard at work making themselves look the Fool!!!!
Apneaman on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 10:56 am
Clog, who is this “us” you presume to speak for?
The ‘Caucasian Micro Penis Society of Europe”?
Here – you & your loser hate bum buddies can suck on this.
Racist Propaganda Fails: Sikh Indian American Ravi Bhalla Elected Hoboken Mayor; Falguni Patel Wins School Board Seat
http://www.indiawest.com/news/global_indian/racist-propaganda-fails-sikh-indian-american-ravi-bhalla-elected-hoboken/article_cfc81274-c4c4-11e7-b7d3-c3ad062690c6.html
Bahahahahahaha
makati1 on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 11:05 am
Cloggie, they couldn’t win a war against the Boy Scouts. Iran would kick their ass. The thousandth of body bags coming home to the US in the first months would end the war. Russia would not mess around. They would just destroy the 10 carrier fleets and then a few dozen coastal cities in the US the first day. The US couldn’t touch Russia. All the US has left is hot air.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 11:10 am
More Baghdad Bob talk. You and dumb n dutch are a pair. You two belong together.
GregT on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 11:14 am
“as the American tanks were rolling into Baghdad”
Mass murderers, masquerading as liberators, to the sick and the dumbed down, such as the delusionalist.
makati1 on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 11:25 am
Greg, it appears that this site is proving that the US is the most dumbed down, brainwashed, arrogant, immature, and just plain stupid country in the world. The list grows longer every day.
It is entertaining though, watching the collapse of a once great country. And they either cannot or will not see it. The number one denial country. All they can do is call names, try put downs, ‘kill’ the messenger or other wise prove their immaturity and ignorance. No wonder the empire is collapsing faster every day.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 11:58 am
Where you been widdle g? Mad Kat is getting blistered without your flanking. You are as bad as he is widdle g. You support a bad person which makes you worse becuase you would think you would know better. You act so self ritiously respectable but the reality is you are a disgusting lie of a person.
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 12:00 pm
You are no messenger Mad Kat. You are a liar plain and simple. You parade around as a messenger like you have credentials. Your credentials are hate and prejudice.
GregT on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 12:51 pm
You deserve everything that’s coming your way, and much more. You sick fuck.
Cloggie on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 1:04 pm
“That’s fun wasn’t it dumb n Dutch. Sounds like stuff Baghdad Bob would say as the American tanks were rolling into Baghdad. LMFAO”
Baghdad Bob happened to be right in the end, now wasn’t he? Ok, with him in the grave, but still. In the end brave Muslim fighters, including suicide bombers, got the Americans driven into that Green Zone corral, from where they decided that it was better to leave the country alive with their tails between their legs, while they still could. And obviousy they yelled “we won” for the cameras, which was true for the irrelevant success, namely killing Saddam, but they failed in the big task: adding Iraq to the empire.
But that’s all too complicated for empire dave.
Apneaman on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 1:18 pm
Davy, when you saw the tanks rolling into Baghdad did you get a patriotic stiffy? Cream you panties?
Like pig faced, sea cow Madeleine Albright, do you think it was “worth it”?
Iraq and Afghanistan: The US$6 trillion bill for America’s longest war is unpaid
“The enormous figure reflects not just the cost of fighting – like guns, trucks and fuel – but also the long-term cost of providing medical care and disability compensation for decades beyond the end of the conflict. Consider the fact that benefits for World War I veterans didn’t peak until 1969. For World War II veterans, the peak came in 1986. Payments for Vietnam-era vets are still climbing.
The high rates of injuries and increased survival rates in Iraq and Afghanistan mean that over half the 2.5 million who served there suffered some degree of disability. Their health care and disability benefits alone will easily cost $1 trillion in coming decades”
http://theconversation.com/iraq-and-afghanistan-the-us-6-trillion-bill-for-americas-longest-war-is-unpaid-78241
I was going to say that your kids and their kids and their kids will be paying that war profiteer bill off their entire lives, but it’s unlikely they will due to the hosts immune response.
With the exception of Granada, the US military hasn’t won since WWII. Useless for anything other than destruction & 1%er war profiteering.
Couldn’t win a ham sandwich if they owned a pig farm.
They
Davy on Sat, 11th Nov 2017 1:27 pm
Geeze, you friggen Candians have hardons that won’t quit. This is not a discussion on the Iraq War. This is about people like you and widdle g flanking and supporting a lie parading as a human which makes both of you part of the lie. Mad Kat is a lie if you support him you are a lie.
IanC on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 5:53 pm
I think you dudes are the last ones actually paying attention to this site. How the mighty have fallen.
makati1 on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 6:18 pm
IanC, how much can you say about a worn out topic like “Peak Oil”? Guess at how many barrels are left? What the price will be next year? @0 years from now? Etc.
Most of the discussions here are about how the already peaked oil will affect the world and what is happening in the real world. Only ‘investors’ are concerned about price/bbls. They are probably less than 0.0001% of humanity.
Davy on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 6:54 pm
IanC is right this board has descended into the pathetic becuase of about 7 people and yea I am one but I don’t want it to be this way. The extremist do and that is why this place is toxic and will remain this way. I will be here until mad kat is gone. I promised him hell to pay and I keep my promises. did you hear that mad kat!
fmr-paultard on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 6:59 pm
mad katie aswang eurotard SENTAPBs ruining this board. I’m only here to promot women in combat and kill alt-tard media. my teeth are ruined because alt-tard research said it gives me cancer. I now brush with fluoride toothpaste. my teeth aren’t my best feature but at least they’re my pride and alt-tard media destroyed it.
plus my gold investment is s*ht. i was a paultard and we were big on gold.
fmr-paultard on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 7:02 pm
alt-tard media also taught me drugs and succeeded in convincing it’s a miralcle cure-all. They also said HEMP!
When I said so it fix nitrogens and essential nutrients like a perpectual motion machine? No word.
i hate ZH and alt-tard media. I’m glad to report MSM is firmly in charge. SENTAPBs media fell off the face of the earth and they risk real bumpski
Boat on Tue, 14th Nov 2017 7:07 pm
Clog, The oil is flowing in Iraq. Oil dollars are being spent on killing sharia law all over the Middle East along with much fewer US dollars. Looks like a win to me.