In case you haven't seen this one...

[mrph]

Two chartered Airbus A310 cargo planes filled with GBU 28 laser-guided bombs landed at Prestwick Airport en-route to Israel from the US

It's no secret that Israel has asked the USA to expedite some weapons shipments, as the current conflict is draining their resources.

On the other hand, it seems that this particular shipment didn't follow the proper procedures. For a start, countries shipping arms via UK airports are supposed to tell the UK government what they're doing.

Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett stated that "I have already notified the United States that we are not happy about it" and "We have already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, and we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened".

Channel 4 news interviewed her this evening. Aside from those quotes, we had a vaguely startled looking State Department spokesman answering questions from C4's man in Washington - and their man in Westminster mentioning that some branches of the UK government would very much like to bury this story...

Comments

[sheepthief.livejournal.com]

It's been on at least one of the evening news programs, so it's not as though it's being hushed up.

[kittentikka.livejournal.com]

Correction. It's not as though it's being /successfully/ hushed up. That may be pedantry on my part, but the stories I've read on it (So far only the Beeb and the Grauniad) have missed out on whether it was known about/hushed up/ignored/entirely usual. The assumption seems to be that it was terrible and wrong, without any mention at all of whether it was given the OK.

[zotz]

According to the Beeb, Beckett says that the US didn't follow procedure. Seems fairly clear to me.

If that is right, then the question is why the flight was allowed in and out without the right authorisation.

[kittentikka.livejournal.com]

My language wasn't clear there. By 'it' I was assuming the fact of non-followed procedure. So 'it', 'the problem', would hinge on at what level the procedure was allowed to break down or assumed to be put aside. That is, was there conspiracy, or was there merely a fuck-up?

[zotz]

Ah, I see. Thank you.

I suppose, given that this shipment seems to have been arranged at very short notice, that it could be an oversight. It would be very convenient, though, to have overlooked something that would probably have held things up for several days - it looks rather like someone taking the view that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission.

I'd be interested in hearing something a bit more detailed from Prestwick. And I'd like to know whether the cargo manifest would normally be seen by the airport operators or customs when a flight wasn't stopping to do anything but refuel. I have a vague feeling that when the rendering flights came out one of the newspapers said that actually it's not normal practice, but I'm not entirely sure.