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Tony Blair urged Kuwait to purchase the UK’s newest artillery as payback for supporting the nation throughout the Gulf struggle, newly launched papers reveal.
Blair lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’advert between 1998 and 1999, together with calling in on him throughout a short stopover on a flight dwelling from South Africa.
Inner briefing notes from the time present the UK authorities believed it was “due the award of a major defence tools contract in recognition of its defence of Kuwait” after the invasion by Saddam Hussein in 1990.
Minutes of the rapidly organized Kuwait assembly in January 1999 reveal that Blair heeded Overseas Workplace officers’ request to speak up the AS90 howitzer, amid issues that the arms contract would go to the US and its M109.
A restricted memo from the No 10 personal secretary Philip Barton to his Overseas Workplace colleague Tim Barrow, masking the assembly between the prime minister and the crown prince, mentioned: “The prime minister raised the AS90. It was an efficient weapon, though he knew the US had supplied the M109. He hoped very a lot that every one the help we had given Kuwait could be remembered.
“The crown prince mentioned that the value of the AS90 was very excessive. The prime minister identified that it might do the job correctly. The defence minister mentioned that they’d take the state of relations with the UK under consideration.”
Inner briefing notes from the day earlier than the go to, contained in recordsdata now launched by the Nationwide Archives in Kew, present Blair was advised that the federal government was “frankly disillusioned” to have “received so little Kuwaiti defence enterprise since finish of Gulf struggle”, including that it had been a “loyal pal to Kuwait over a few years”.
Barton reported that Kuwait “would hold [the UK] in thoughts” earlier than making a agency determination.
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It was the newest in plenty of makes an attempt to woo the Kuwaitis, which included a letter from Blair to the crown prince three months earlier wherein he described the AS90 as “the most effective 155mm gun on the planet at present”, stating its specification superiority to the US equal.
Blair wrote: “This order from Kuwait is essential to the UK and to our business at a troublesome time. We are going to await your determination eagerly.”
The efforts didn’t instantly reap rewards, nonetheless, as Kuwait introduced its intention to purchase US artillery two months after Blair’s go to.
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