Andrew Feinstein > Quotes

“President Carter’s re-election campaign in 1979 commenced amid spiralling global oil prices. With Bandar’s help, Carter drafted a letter to Fahd requesting Saudi Arabia to put more oil on the market.69 Fahd responded: ‘Tell my friend, the president of the United States of America, when they need our help, they will not be disappointed.’70 He promised to do ‘anything in his power externally or internally to ensure your re-election’, since this was ‘essential if there was ever to be a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’.71 This assistance, which saw Saudi oil trading $4–5 a day below other suppliers, cost the kingdom $30m to $40m a day. In gratitude, Carter invited Bandar to the White House in early December 1979, where they discussed Middle East politics and the US–Saudi relationship.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“While the Saudi rulers demand that their subjects adhere strictly to a rigid Wahhabism, their own behaviour could not be further removed from their faith.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“They are very greedy. You always have to pay bribes. If they want to buy this glass you tell them it’s five dollars. They will beat you down to one dollar, then they will say, “OK I will give you $3, but you give me $2 back!”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“A key ambiguity about large defence contractors: they are pillars of the free market economy whose shareholders are supposed to provide oversight, while receiving extensive state support which insulates them from market vagaries and meaningful oversight.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Over time, the Saudis gave $32m to the Contras.86 The routing of this money was linked to the AWACS sale in that a fund was created from the sale, from which the Contras’ monthly money was diverted.87 Bandar would say later: ‘I didn’t give a damn about the Contras – I didn’t even know where Nicaragua was.’88 This support was the Saudi way of investing in America, the ultimate aim being a Saudi–American alignment to compete with Israel’s relationship with the US.89”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Disparate groups emerged within countries or without any national affiliation in the case of religious extremism, seeking power or to cause maximum disruption for a diversity of reasons – the promise of ethnic utopia, economic advantage or religious expression. For the smaller arms dealers operating in the shadows, these new clients were fertile ground.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Mertins decided to get even. He rifled through der Hovsepian’s papers that were filed on the Thomasberg estate, and gave the whole incriminating pile to the German authorities.34 Mertins had snitched on his partner.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“vividly revealed the arms industry’s ‘constant tendency towards bribery, and the playing off of one country against another to sell arms’. It also exposed the extent to which arms salesmen were supported by their governments: ‘It makes one wonder,’ commented the Senator, ‘whether the army or the navy are just organisations of salesmen for private industry, paid for by the American government.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“high-level diplomacy between London and Washington resulted in a joint offer being made to the Saudis. In December 1965, the Saudis accepted the joint offer, which from the British side comprised forty-two BAC Lightning Fighters and an AEI radar system, with Airwork providing training. It was announced as Britain’s biggest ever export deal.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The first involved the sale of ninety F-86 aircraft to Pakistan, once again raised from surplus German stock. At the time Pakistan was a no-sale zone, embargoed by NATO because of its simmering conflict with India. The required subterfuge was undertaken with the help of the Shah of Iran, who allowed the planes to be delivered to Tehran by Luftwaffe officers and then flown to Pakistan by Iranian pilots dressed up as Pakistani officers.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Unwilling to borrow substantially from abroad, the Saudis’ profligate arms spending was under threat. Some of the equipment bought under the first phase of Al Yamamah was intended to be sold on to Iraq but the end of the Iran–Iraq War in 1988 left the Saudis without a buyer.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“To secure a contract, a company must secure the support not merely of a senior prince, often through an established agent through whom very substantial commissions have to be paid; but also of many ministers and officials down the line.’74”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“His most glorious creation was the Mirage jet, famed for its Delta wing and rocket booster. It became one of the most successful of all French exports and a major factor in French foreign policy. With his immense wealth, dominance of the French arms industry, political connections and newspapers, Dassault became a one-man military-industrial complex.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The US and the UK, who are party to laws and agreements obliging them to consider human rights before agreeing to arms exports, are blind to the kingdom’s autocratic, oppressive and misogynistic rule when it comes to selling weapons. Human rights abuses are frequent. The practice of any religion other than Islam is illegal and political parties are outlawed.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The Prince alighted from his gleaming silver-blue jet, his mind firmly on the task at hand: to persuade his close friend to go to war. Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, was in Crawford, Texas, in August 2002 to visit the President of the United States, his close friend George W. Bush. At the President’s ranch the two men, comfortable in one another’s company, chatted for an hour. The President was in determined mood. Bandar’s exhortation that he should not back off, that he should complete what his father had failed to do, that he should destroy the regime of Saddam Hussein once and for all, gratified the President. Satisfied by their mutual reinforcement, the dapper enigmatic Prince and the cowboy President took lunch with their wives and seven of Bandar’s eight children. A few weeks later, President Bush met the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, at Camp David. The two leaders declared they had sufficient evidence that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction to justify their acting against Saddam, with or without the support of the United Nations. Prince Bandar’s role in Washington and London was unique: diplomat, peacemaker, bagman for covert CIA operations and arms dealer extraordinaire. He constructed a special relationship between Washington, Riyadh and London, and made himself very, very wealthy in the process. The £75m Airbus, painted in the colours of the Prince’s beloved Dallas Cowboys, was a gift from the British arms company BAE Systems. It was a token of gratitude for the Prince’s role, as son of the country’s Defence Minister, in the biggest arms deal the world has seen. The Al Yamamah – ‘the dove’ – deal signed between the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia in 1985 was worth over £40bn. It was also arguably the most corrupt transaction in trading history. Over £1bn was paid into accounts controlled by Bandar. The Airbus – maintained and operated by BAE at least until 2007 – was a little extra, presented to Bandar on his birthday in 1988. A significant portion of the more than £1bn was paid into personal and Saudi embassy accounts at the venerable Riggs Bank opposite the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC. The bank of choice for Presidents, ambassadors and embassies had close ties to the CIA, with several bank officers holding full agency security clearance. Jonathan Bush, uncle of the President, was a senior executive of the bank at the time. But Riggs and the White House were stunned by the revelation that from 1999 money had inadvertently flowed from the account of Prince Bandar’s wife to two of the fifteen Saudis among the 9/11 hijackers.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“While during his campaign and the early months of his presidency, Barack Obama talked tough on the need for fundamental change to the way the defence industry and the Pentagon operate, the reality is that there has been only very small, peripheral change.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“It was a lucrative contract, by der Hovsepian’s own account worth $126m. As further reward for his rapid delivery, the arms dealer was awarded an official citation by the Saudi government.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Prince Bandar has the ability to charm the powerful and his country’s money with which to buy friendship and influence. He is comfortable and inventive at circumventing laws and restrictions and has on occasions appeared to be loose with the truth. This made him the ideal person to negotiate the world’s ultimate arms deal.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“general amorality of the weapons business in their disdain for any kind of control over the arms trade, their dislike of attempts to promote peace, and their willingness to use bribes.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The deal, together with other initiatives to extend its military influence in the region, would culminate in the US using the kingdom as a launching pad for the First Gulf War.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“At the time he was arming both sides, as he probably did up to 1915.18 In fact, for the thirty years leading up to the war, the British arms industry did as much to support the enemy’s military as anyone else.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Although the FBI and later the 9/11 Commission ultimately stated that the money was not intentionally being diverted to fund terrorists,9 investigators were surprised to discover how lax the safeguards at Riggs Bank were,10 especially as the bank was known to have close links to the CIA.11”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“the biggest problem the Saudis had to contend with was the inadequacies of Airwork, the providers of the training and maintenance contracts. The company’s commitments proved beyond its resources. The Ministry of Defence was compelled to become more deeply involved. Ex-RAF pilots were recruited to fly the planes, becoming, in effect, sponsored mercenaries to the Saudis; and eventually the British government had to set up its own organization in Riyadh, jointly with the Saudis, to supervise the programme. What began as an apparently simple commercial sale ended up, like many future arms deals, as a major government commitment.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The weapons were delivered aboard the Sky Bird in mid-1992 – with two UN arms embargoes being violated by a single deal. In order to avoid detection, the shipping manifests were altered. Repeating their previous ruse, it was claimed that the shipment was intended for the Lebanese Christian militia.27 Umag, a port city in Croatia, was the real destination, with an end-user certificate provided by the Finance Minister, Martinovic.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“I sat down with Governor Reagan, and we chatted a little bit. Then I explained why we needed the aircraft. He said to me at the end of it, ‘Prince, let me ask you this question. Does this country consider itself a friend of America?’ I said, ‘Yes, since King Abdulaziz, my grandfather, and President Roosevelt met. Until now, we are very close friends.’ Then Reagan asked a second question. ‘Are you anticommunist?’ I said, ‘Mr. Governor, we are the only country in the world that not only does not have relationships with communists, but when a communist comes in an airplane in transit, we don’t allow him to get out of the airplane at our airport.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Military thinkers and actors dominated the new White House and the key departments of state, both military and civilian. Over thirty senior arms industry executives, consultants or advisers were placed in key positions in the military and across government... More than half a dozen important policy positions in the Bush administration were occupied by Lockheed Martin executives, lobbyists or lawyers, reflecting the influence of defence contractors across the breadth of government.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“While the weapons were en route from communist Poland, where they had been purchased, to Portugal, US authorities lifted the arms embargo on the Nicaraguan Contras, leaving Enterprise with a huge cache of overpriced weapons. To save face, Mertins and Atwood interceded on behalf of Enterprise and convinced the CIA to purchase the weapons. Helmut Mertins, the son of Gerhard, was duly sent to Portugal to clean up the mess. He contracted another ship and oversaw the transfer of the weapons to a CIA depot in the US from where they were reportedly transferred on to the Contras.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“in 1994 Oman was approached by the Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, to discuss a special need. Karadzic, currently on trial for war crimes including the Srebrenica genocide, wanted to acquire something that would fundamentally alter the conduct of the Balkans conflict: a weapon of mass destruction.64 Karadzic believed that Oman could use his connections in the Russian military to deliver a so-called ‘vakuum’ or elipton bomb. The device, roughly suitcase size with a kiloton payload powered by nuclear material – either red mercury or osmium – was known to be immensely powerful.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“Chinese authorities coveted a powerful and accurate 120mm cannon produced by the huge German conglomerate Rheinmetall. Mertins acquired the plans of the cannon and provided them to NORINCO.67 Such are the morals of the arms dealer: developed and nurtured by German Intelligence as the arms dealer of choice for shadowy transactions, Mertins was willing, only a decade later, to undermine the military capacity of his fatherland so as to support communist China.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade

“The arms trade – an intricate web of networks between the formal and shadow worlds, between government, commerce and criminality – often makes us poorer, not richer, less not more safe, and governed not in our own interests but for the benefit of a small, self-serving elite, seemingly above the law, protected by the secrecy of national security and accountable to no one.”
― Andrew Feinstein, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade