[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211495/No-10-turns-Obama-Clinton-criticising-decision-release-Lockerbie-bomber.html]No.10 turns on Obama and Clinton for criticising decision to release Lockerbie bomber | Mail Online[/url] Downing Street has hit back at Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for attacking the decision to release the Lockerbie bomber. President Obama and the US Secretary of State fuelled a fierce American backlash against Britain, claiming Abdelbaset Al Megrahi should have been forced to serve out his jail sentence in Scotland ? but a senior Whitehall aide said their reaction was ?disingenuous?. British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi?s return. The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi?s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen. ?The US was kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard to Britain?s discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi,? said the Whitehall aide. ?We would never do anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the US. It is disingenuous of them to act as though Megrahi?s return was out of the blue. 'They knew about our prisoner transfer agreement with Libya and they knew that the Scots were considering Megrahi?s case.? Mr Obama said Megrahi?s release on compassionate grounds was a ?mistake? while Mrs Clinton phoned the Scottish administration to complain in person. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband are said to have been ?disappointed? by the force of Washington?s response. American politicians claimed the Anglo-US ?special relationship? had been damaged ?for years to come? because the UK had gone back on a joint pledge that Megrahi would stay behind bars in Scotland. Former US Justice Department official David Rivkin said it was ?duplicitous behaviour? Read more: [URL="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211495/No-10-turns-Obama-Clinton-criticising-decision-release-Lockerbie-bomber.html#ixzz0QWYXlQbu"][COLOR=#003580]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211495/No-10-turns-Obama-Clinton-criticising-decision-release-Lockerbie-bomber.html#ixzz0QWYXlQbu[/COLOR][/URL] [url=http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090905/D9AH5GL00.html]My Way News - UK official says oil was part of Lockerbie talks[/url] LONDON (AP) - Trade and oil considerations played a major role in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya, a senior British official said in an interview published Saturday. Justice Secretary Jack Straw said trade, particularly a deal for oil company BP PLC ([URL="http://research.scottrade.com/public/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?id=1&symbol=BP."][U][COLOR=#0000ff]BP.[/COLOR][/U][/URL]), was "a very big part" of the 2007 negotiations that led to the prisoner deal. The agreement was part of a wider warming of relations between London and Tripoli. "Libya was a rogue state," Straw was quoted as saying by The Daily Telegraph newspaper. "We wanted to bring it back into the fold and trade is an essential part of it - and subsequently there was the BP deal." The British government has faced intense criticism over the release of Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. The attack killed 259 people aboard the plane, most of them American, and 11 on the ground. Last month Scottish officials freed al-Megrahi, 57, on compassionate grounds because he is dying of prostate cancer. Although he was not released under the prisoner transfer agreement, opposition politicians, and many victims' families, claim business considerations influenced the decision to free him. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted there was "no conspiracy, no cover up, no double dealing, no deal on oil" over the bomber's release. But officials admit the prisoner transfer agreement was part of a wider set of negotiations aimed at bringing Libya in from the international cold, and improving British trade prospects with the oil-rich nation. David Lidington, foreign affairs spokesman for the main opposition Conservatives, said it was "very hard to square what Jack Straw says today with Gordon Brown's repeated denials of any kind of deal." "That's why we need an independent inquiry to get to the truth." Documents released by the government show Straw had originally tried to ensure that al-Megrahi was exempted from any prisoner deal with Libya, but in December 2007 he changed his mind. He wrote in a letter to his Scottish counterpart that "wider negotiations with the Libyans are reaching a critical stage" and a blanket agreement was in "the overwhelming interests for the United Kingdom." Soon after, Libya ratified a $900 million oil exploration deal with BP. The oil company acknowledged Friday that it had urged the government to sign the prisoner transfer deal, but insisted it had not singled out al-Megrahi as part of the discussion. Straw said Brown had not been involved in negotiations over the prisoner agreement. "I certainly didn't talk to the PM," he was quoted as saying. "There is no paper trail to suggest he was involved at all." Can you imagine if Bush were in Obama's shoes on this one??? Funny thing is I bet this doesn't even bother the left. Expected next posts will be, "spammer please go away" etc.
