What would be the American technology in question in the Eurofighter anyway? The aircraft’s display systems, or navigation systems made by an American company that purchased bits of a British company that was already contracted to supply bits a long time ago, or US companies based elsewhere in Europe that are supplying. On that basis, I wonder whether the US has any authority to block the sale. It could also loose out on potential weapons contracts from the Saudis to arm the Typhoons. How would they also explain their decision to the likes of EADS, Alenia and other companies involved in Eurofighter. This is not a British defence project or contract, other than the UK negotiating the contract and helping to give the Saudis training and the capability to self-assemble their order. And funny enough, as soon as the Department of Justice started its investigation, no attempts were made to block the sale of Armor Aerospace & Defence to BAE Systems. Neither has the US Dept of Defence stopped awarding defence contracts to the company. I think this is just a few American politicians jumping on a bandwagon fuelled by media coverage over here with a court case partly brought by an anti-arms campaign group that wants to eradicate all international arms trade, not just those to dodgy regimes.
The original article is here:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041720081912569429
Even if the Dept of Justice does find BAE Systems in the wrong (or that they did anything), I always wonder whether Al-Yamamah falls within US jurisdiction anyway given that BAE had little business in the States at the time that the Saudis awarded the contract.
Sign In
