[THS] !!!!! Johann Hari: Oil, Blood Money, and Blair`s Last Scandal

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26006.htm

Oil, Blood Money, and Blair's Last Scandal

There is no question there was a plot. The question is whether the plot worked,or
whether it got what it wanted by a remarkable coincidence

By Johann Hari

July 23, 2010 "The Independent" -- Is your life worth more to your government than
a few pence added to BP's share price? At first, this will sound like a strange
question. But sometimes there is a news story that lays out the priorities that drive
our governments once the doors are closed and the cameras are switched off. The
story of the attempt to trade the Lockerbie bomber for oil is one of those moments.

Let's start in the deserts of Iraq – because the Lockerbie deal might just reveal what
really happened there. Many people were perplexed by Tony Blair's decision to back
George W Bush's invasion, which has led to the deaths of 1.2 million people. Blair
said he was motivated by opposition to two things – terrorism and tyranny. First off,
he said Saddam Hussein might give weapons of mass destruction to jihadis. When it
was proven in the rubble after the invasion that Saddam had no WMD and no links to
jihadis – as many critics of the war had said all along – Blair declared he would do it
all again anyway, because Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, and all tyrants should be
opposed.

Most critics of the war said the real reason was a desire for Western access to Iraq's
vast supplies of oil. This debate has gone on for years. Now it has emerged that Tony
Blair plotted to hand a convicted terrorist – the worst in modern British history – to a
vicious tyrant in exchange for access to oil for British corporations. It seems to settle
the argument about his priorities in the darkest possible way.

Here's how it happened. Just before Christmas in 1988, a flight from London to New
York City was blasted out of the sky above Scotland by a bomb in the cargo. All 259
people on board were killed, along with 11 on the ground. One man was convicted
for the mass murder at a Scottish trial in 2000: Abdelbasset al-Megrahi, a former
Libyan intelligence officer. Following the bombing, most Western governments
imposed sanctions on Libya that forbade companies from investing there. If you are
opposed to terrorism and tyranny, it was a happy ending: an alleged terrorist was
tried in open court and convicted, and a tyrant was shunned.

But, within a few short years, Tony Blair was not happy. Why? The oil company BP
wanted to be able to drill down into Libya's oil, and tap the profits that would gush
forth. Their then-CEO, John Browne, flew to Tripoli in the company of MI6 agents to
find out what the dictatorship wanted in return for opening the country's wells. It
was, of course, clear that they wanted Megrahi back.

BP has admitted it lobbied Tony Blair to exchange prisoners with Libya. They say they
didn't specifically mention Megrahi – but there was no need to: there were no other
Libyan prisoners of particular note in Britain.

Blair's administration was so intertwined with the oil company by this point that it was
often dubbed "Blair's Petroleum". There was a revolving door between BP and
Downing Street: BP execs sat on more government taskforces than all other oil
companies combined, while many of Blair's closest confidantes went to work for the
corporation. He gave two of its CEOs peerages, and slashed taxes on North Sea oil
production. By 2005, he was talking to Lord Browne at Downing Street dinners about
what he would do after he left office, with rumours circulating of a move to BP.

Blair responded to BP's lobbying with apparent pleasure. His Foreign Office Minister,
Bill Rammell, assured Libyan officials that Blair did not "want Megrahi to pass away in
prison". His Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said a desire for Libya's oil was "an
essential part" of this decision. So Straw began negotiating a prisoner swap
agreement, and urged the Scottish authorities to release the convict. He told the
Scottish Government in a leaked letter that it was "in the overwhelming interests of
the United Kingdom" to let Megrahi go.

The chief negotiator for the Libyans was Mousa Kousa, a thug who had been
expelled from Britain after bragging about plots to murder democratic dissidents here
on British soil. These supposed opponents of tyranny didn't blush.

There are, of course, some serious commentators who argue that Megrahi was
framed. It's a legitimate debate. [hardly a doubt, see links below] But if he was, it should have been settled in court, [pfffff] at an appeal – not in a dodgy deal with a dictator to benefit BP.

Both sides now admit what was happening: they were trying to trade a convicted
mass murderer for oil. Saif Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator's son and second in
command, said it was "obvious" that attempts to free Megrahi were linked to oil
contracts, adding: "We all knew what we were talking about."

There is no question there was a plot. The question is whether the plot worked, or
whether it got what it wanted anyway by a remarkable coincidence. It was,
ultimately, up to the Scottish politicians whether to release Megrahi, and they publicly
refused a prisoner swap. We know that Straw lobbied them to do it, but they insist
they made the decision independently on "compassionate grounds". A year ago,
Megrahi was sent home to Tripoli after serving 11 days for each person he was
convicted of killing. Officially, the Scots had assessed him to have only three months
left to live.

There are several facts that batter these claims with question marks. The most
obvious is that, 11 months later, Megrahi isn't dead. It's the most amazing medical
recovery since Lazarus. Or is it? It turns out the doctors who declared him sick were
paid for by the Libyan government, and one of them says he was put under pressure
by Libya to offer the most pessimistic estimate of life expectancy. Susan Cohen,
whose only daughter died in Lockerbie, asks: "Why didn't the Scottish Government
pay for the doctors?"

Indeed, a detailed investigation by the Sunday Telegraph reported that "the Scottish
and British Governments actively assisted Megrahi and his legal team to seek a
release on compassionate grounds". The Libyan dictatorship certainly took it as a gift
from the British government. The tyranny's chief spokesman, Abdul Majeed al-Dursi,
said: "This is a brave and courageous decision by the British... Britain will find it is
rewarded." BP has indeed been rewarded: it is now drilling in Libya.

This affair seems to reopen the Iraq debate, in a way that vindicates Blair's most
severe critics. Tony Blair's remaining defenders say he was motivated in Iraq by a
hatred of terrorism and tyranny and had no regard whatsoever for getting access to
oil. Yet at the very same time the Labour government was plotting in Libya to hand
the worst terrorist in British history to a tyrant in exchange for oil. It's proof that oil
and corporate power were a much bigger factor in driving foreign policy than the
public rhetoric of opposing tyranny or terror.

David Cameron refuses to open an investigation. He says he will release all the
relevant documents – but the Cabinet Office has quietly declared that Blair's
permission will be needed before any records are shown to the public. For the
families of all the innocent people slaughtered in Lockerbie, this has been a cold-
water education in what their governments really value. Cohen, remembering her
murdered 20 year-old daughter Theodora, says: "Western governments seem to be
run by one thing now – the great God money."

There's a revealing little postscript to this tale. Last month, Blair went to Libya on
behalf of the many mega-corporations who now employ him. He was greeted by
Gaddaffi himself – who tortures dissidents and terrorises his population – "like a
brother", according to the Libyan press. There has even been speculation that, now
they need a CEO, Tony Blair will go to work for BP. In so many ways, it seems, he
always has.

j.hari at independent.co.uk

©independent.co.uk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lockerbie - for the full story see also
http://www.psychedelic-library.org/lockerbie.htm

and uyesterday's THS item:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23425.htm
September 04, 2009
Lockerbie: Megrahi Was Framed
By John Pilger