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The British Prime Minister has held consultations with former Labour premier, at least twice in the past fortnight, seeking his advice about how to convince the Libyan despot to quit, senior officials said
This is while that Cameron, also, called on the then officials working for the ex-UK government under Tony Blair including Lord Mandelson, Baroness Symons and former defense minister Adam Ingram to refer themselves to the independent Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets jobs of former ministers.
Lord Mandelson has twice met Qaddafi’s son Saif, while, Baroness Symons resigned this week as an adviser to the National Economic Development Board of Libya, and Ingram works for a defense firm, which has sought contracts in Libya.
It emerged that Cameron has also consulted Blair since the former prime minister spoke to Qaddafi twice last Friday in what he claimed was a last attempt to convince Colonel Qaddafi to stop bloodshed.
Tony Blair flew to Libya in 2004, and held talks with Qaddafi inside a Bedouin tent. He lauded the despot for ending Libya’s nuclear and chemical weapons program and stressed the need for new security alliances in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US soil.
Blair’s role in Qaddafi’s international rehabilitation was particularly vital.
A previously unpublished document shows that Blair’s government agreed to supply military hardware and expertise to the despotic regime.
And, there were also plans for Britain to train Libyan military officers at ‘its prestigious military colleges and institutions’ such as the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.
The SAS did train Libyan special forces and Britain approved export licenses for military kit, including rifles, ammunition and riot control equipment to Libya.
The document detailing the UK-Libya defense deal under Tony Blair summarizes a defense co-operation agreement signed by Blair and Qaddafi in the Libyan town of Sirte on May 29, 2007.
It mentions ‘the conduct of joint exercises’, ‘training in operational planning processes, staff training, and command and control’, and the ‘acquisition of equipment and defense systems’.
It spells out how the SAS would train Libyan special forces, which are now keeping Qaddafi in power, and called for ‘co-operation in the training of specialized military units, special forces and border security units.’
Other assistance included ‘exchanges of information on current and developing military concepts, principles and best practice’, as well as ‘training co-operation relating to software, communications security, technology and the function of equipment and systems’.
The agreement also called for Britain to help Libya with ‘defence industrial, technological and equipment matters’, including ‘various military vehicles, ships and offshore patrol vessels and air defense systems’.
As Tony Blair claims, the document had been designed “to contribute to the strengthening of security and stability in their two countries and the enhancement of peace and security in the Mediterranean region”.
Instead, it is now understood that sniper rifles and riot control ammunition supplied by Britain have been used to kill Libyan people.
The 2007 deal was signed three years after Blair’s original ‘Deal in the Desert’, which brought Qaddafi in from the cold once he agreed to abandon his nuclear weapons program.
Meanwhile, the Libyan despot’s son has described Blair as a ‘personal family friend’ of his father and said he had visited the country ‘many, many times’ since leaving Downing Street three years ago.
Saif al-Islam Qaddafi said the former prime minister has secured a consultancy role with a state fund that manages the country’s £۶۵ billion of oil wealth.