13 juillet<\/a>).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00abOn Nov. 30, 2006, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, then the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, warned the SFO that Riyadh’s cooperation on counter-terrorism was being put at risk by the probe.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe SFO investigation closed on Dec. 14 last year, with then prime minister Tony Blair citing counter-terrorism grounds and its potential to harm Britain’s interests.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbCowper-Coles’s warning to SFO director Robert Wardle came to light in confidential papers obtained by the Daily Mail newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThe papers were drawn up on Wardle’s behalf by the Treasury Solicitor’s Department, which provides legal services to government departments and public bodies.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbThey disclose a meeting between Wardle and Cowper-Coles. During this meeting [Wardle] received direct confirmation from the ambassador that the threats to national and international security were very grave indeed, the papers said.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbAs he put it, British lives on British streets were at risk. The pair had two further meetings, at which Cowper-Coles described the danger of Saudi Arabia withdrawing its cooperation on counter-terrorism as real and acute.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n\t\u00bbHe expressed the view that the Saudi Arabians were not bluffing and there was a real threat to U.K. lives, the papers said.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tCes r\u00e9v\u00e9lations confirment l’interview d’un Robert Wardle (directeur du SFO) fort embarrass\u00e9, le 11 juin \u00e0 la BBC, dans l’\u00e9mission Panorama<\/em> qui impliquait Prince Bandar. Wardle parlait des menaces saoudiennes de cesser la collaboration anti-terroriste avec Londres si l’enqu\u00eate sur Yamamah<\/em> n’\u00e9tait pas interrompue, dans des termes aussi ambigus que ceux qu’on rapporte ci-dessus. Wardle parlait aussi de circonstances telles que \u00abBritish lives on British streets were at risk<\/em>\u00bb. Est-ce une simple image d\u00e9crivant des cons\u00e9quences indirectes possibles (absence de renseignement en raison de la cessation de la coop\u00e9ration saoudienne rendant impossible d’emp\u00eacher de possibles attentats au Royaume-Uni), ou est-ce une hypoth\u00e8se plus directe?<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tEn des termes plus nets, cette hypoth\u00e8se serait : les services de renseignement saoudiens ont-ils aussi<\/strong> les moyens de laisser faire ou de faciliter\/de commanditer des attentats terroristes, et alors la menace aurait \u00e9t\u00e9 beaucoup plus significative puisqu’il se serait agi de celle de l’organisation d’attentats terroristes \u00e0 Londres et non plus de leur possibilit\u00e9 par absence de renseignement? On retrouve toute l’ambigu\u00eft\u00e9 de la politique saoudienne, qui est assez proche de la position pakistanaise: \u00e0 la fois engag\u00e9e dans la lutte anti-terroriste aux c\u00f4t\u00e9s des Occidentaux (des Anglo-Saxons) mais, par d’autres canaux tr\u00e8s proches \u00e0 l’int\u00e9rieur de leurs services, alimentant certains r\u00e9seaux terroristes<\/p>\n<\/p>\n\tIl s’agit du tribut d’une histoire tr\u00e8s complexe du terrorisme, o\u00f9 Saoudiens et Am\u00e9ricains furent \u00e0 l’origine de la formation des groupes islamistes, notamment de celui de Ben Laden (en Afghanistan, contre les Sovi\u00e9tiques dans les ann\u00e9es 1980) ; o\u00f9 les m\u00eames soutinrent des groupes islamistes en Bosnie-Herz\u00e9govine dans les ann\u00e9es 1990 Tout cela, jusqu’au 11 septembre 2001, o\u00f9 l’alli\u00e9 (terroriste) d’hier devient officiellement l’ennemi maudit d’aujourd’hui, alors que la plupart des auteurs de l’attaque du 11 septembre s’av\u00e9raient \u00eatre citoyens saoudiens. Les rapports avec l’Arabie sont marqu\u00e9s de ces contradictions particuli\u00e8rement difficiles \u00e0 assumer. Les questions qu’on se pose sur les v\u00e9ritables menaces adress\u00e9es aux Britanniques pour faire cesser l’enqu\u00eate sur Yamamah<\/em> sont compl\u00e8tement justifi\u00e9es.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\tMis en ligne le 16 juillet 2007 \u00e0 09H13<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Un des aspects les plus myst\u00e9rieux de l’affaire BAE est la question des repr\u00e9sailles saoudiennes, agit\u00e9es par Prince Bandar au cours d’une visite \u00e0 Tony Blair le 5 d\u00e9cembre 2006 au 10 Downing Street, au cas o\u00f9 le Premier ministre britannique aurait refus\u00e9 de faire cesser l’enqu\u00eate du Serious Fraud Office (SFO) sur les contrats… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3259,3792,5667,5084,6864,6219,1267],"class_list":["post-69022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-arabie","tag-bae","tag-bandar","tag-menaces","tag-represailles","tag-sfo","tag-terrorisme"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}