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00:00Music
00:18Not long ago, manufacturing was the pride of this country.
00:22British firms built wonderful machines of high quality.
00:25Ships, tools, radios, TV sets, cars, motorcycles and trucks.
00:31In fact, the motor industry was once our biggest single manufacturing industry.
00:36Not anymore.
00:37This is part of what's left of the mighty Leyland Company
00:41in the town of Leyland in Lancashire after it collapsed.
00:45Twenty-five years ago, Leyland produced 500 commercial vehicles every day.
00:51Today, like most of British industry, tens of thousands of jobs have gone forever.
00:57Of course, industrial deserts like this are not hard to find,
01:01with the exception of one industry, in which Britain is still a world leader.
01:06Indeed, it has 20% of a world market, second only to the United States.
01:11And this industry is considered so important by the government
01:14that it consumes almost half of all research and development funds.
01:20Strangely, it produces not consumer goods that people want,
01:24but machines that hardly any of us use or want to use.
01:28Moreover, for all its pre-eminence, its future is uncertain
01:32and depends to a large degree on secret deals
01:35with some of the most corrupt and brutal regimes on Earth.
01:40One of the biggest manufacturing industries in Britain
01:43at the close of the 20th century is arms.
02:01If we don't do it, somebody else will.
02:15We are, as a nation, extremely responsible in the way we export lethal weapons.
02:24This is the weapon of the 90s.
02:41Last year, for the first time, we achieved 20% of the world market for orders.
03:04We've got an order for this one.
03:16This is the Manchester warehouse of the largest dealer in small arms in the world.
03:21Sam Cummings has made a fortune from selling guns to everybody and anybody.
03:26Always, of course, with government approval.
03:29The military arms business, as opposed to the sporting,
03:33is based on human folly, which means simply two things.
03:39Number one, its depths have yet to be plumbed.
03:44And number two, it will go on forever.
03:50Here is the famous Kalashnikov.
03:54I would say, conservatively,
03:57that over 30 million Kalashnikovs have been made.
04:03That's a lot of rivals.
04:04Now, who would you sell this to?
04:07Now, we have offered Kalashnikovs to the Gulf states,
04:11the Arab states of the Gulf, as those are licensable.
04:16We sell it under HMG licence only to any government which qualifies for HMG licensing.
04:26But time and again, politicians stand up in the House of Commons and say,
04:32our criteria for selling weapons to so and so regime, of course, is based on human rights.
04:39Look, as I've said before, if the governments abided by their own weapons control laws,
04:49world peace could truly be at hand.
04:53But they won't.
04:54They never have.
04:55And I respectfully submit, they never will.
05:01During the Thatcher years, the British economy was effectively militarized.
05:07One in ten workers in industry now work on military material.
05:12The Ministry of Defence is industry's biggest customer, spending more than £23 billion a year.
05:20In order to pay for this, Britain sells arms to almost anyone who will buy them.
05:27The biggest and best arms deals often end up here at the Ministry of Defence.
05:32The MOD runs the Defence Services Organisation, or DESO.
05:37The word sales was dropped a few years ago, and the front office moved to the West End.
05:43DESO is a sort of hard-sell international arms broker, overseeing 80% of British arms exports
05:50to developing countries, many of them run by unsavoury dictatorships.
05:56It wasn't the Tories that boosted the modern arms trade, it was labour.
06:01In 1966, Dennis Healey, then Defence Secretary, set up the Defence Sales Organisation with these words.
06:08While the Government attached the highest importance to making progress in the field of arms control and disarmament,
06:15we must also take what practical steps we can to ensure that this country
06:20does not fail to secure its rightful share of this valuable market.
06:27How do you feel about that statement today?
06:30I don't feel all that happy about it, but remember this was the time when the Cold War was really
06:35at its height.
06:37There was an enormous amount of arms sales by the Soviet Union all over the world in the hope, mainly,
06:45of getting political advantage.
06:47But for me, the main thing was to reduce the unit cost of British weapons by selling some of them
06:54abroad.
06:55I'll be quite frank with you about that.
06:57But there is, I mean, there is a real contradiction in that because, I mean, how can you attach the
07:03highest importance, as you said, to arms control,
07:07while at the same time really putting Britain into the competitive arms market?
07:12I don't think you can show that the setting up of this organisation greatly increased or even significantly increased our
07:20share of the world arms trade.
07:22If you want to control the arms trade...
07:24It certainly didn't control it.
07:26What you did by setting this up was to help organise it a little better, surely.
07:30Yes.
07:30It certainly didn't control it and it certainly didn't give the highest importance to making the field of arms control.
07:36No, we had, we had, we didn't...
07:38You set up shop.
07:39Listen, you might just as well say that because we had military forces, we were contributing to the arms race.
07:45No, that's quite different.
07:46No, but you could say that, a lot of people did say that.
07:49Well, I'm not saying that and that's quite different, having military forces.
07:52But the sale of weapons abroad, what country which bought British weapons would not have bought the equivalent if they
08:03hadn't bought British weapons?
08:05Robert Jarman is a former government arms salesman and one of the few prepared to speak out.
08:12When Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister, there was a definite rallying to sort of say,
08:18yes, you should be proud of what you're doing, you're exporting for the United Kingdom, you're doing a good job.
08:24And her very public appearances at, for instance, the first Farnborough she went to, she made it quite obvious from
08:32the moment she became Prime Minister,
08:34that she was personally thought that defence exporting was good for the United Kingdom.
08:43If you're a favoured regime, you can pick up anything from a high-tech Challenger tank for £2.5 million
08:51each, plus VAT, to missiles to the very latest in cluster bombs.
08:57And the easiest terms are available, such as the sale to Indonesia of 24 of these Hawk fighter aircraft.
09:05The deal worked like this. Foreign Secretary Douglas Heard flew to Jakarta and offered the regime so-called aid for
09:13trade.
09:14Within a few weeks, the Indonesians said yes to the Hawks.
09:17Shortly afterwards, the government announced massive financial aid to Indonesia, a total of £81 million in taxpayers' money.
09:46This is the Cabinet Office in Whitehall.
09:49Every Thursday morning, the Joint Intelligence Committee, or JIC, meets here to discuss the latest wizard,
09:56that's Whitehall jargon for the weekly intelligence reports from around the world.
10:01Among them are highly classified reports on international arms deals, some the work of MI6 agents.
10:08They describe who is buying from whom, the terms offered, the commissions demanded, and above all, the potential for the
10:16British arms trade.
10:17The arms trade, and indeed the trade in technology, were two of the principal things that were followed by the
10:28Joint Intelligence Committee.
10:29I mean, the intelligence that came in on technology and arms was pretty vast.
10:36Robin Robison was a clerk in the Cabinet Office working for the Joint Intelligence Committee.
10:43And what was the Prime Minister's interest in, particular interest in this?
10:48I was told she was the only Prime Minister ever to attend Joint Intelligence Committee meetings.
10:55So that she was obviously deeply interested in intelligence agencies.
11:00And was she especially interested in intelligence of arms deal?
11:04Because she's taken quite a leading role in promoting arms deals.
11:09Inasmuch as the reports mentioned the arms trade, certainly she would have known everything that the Joint Intelligence Committee knew.
11:18In 1985, Margaret Thatcher negotiated what was called the arms deal of the century.
11:25The customer was Saudi Arabia, the medieval keeper of much of the world's oil.
11:31The deal was known as al-Yamama, the dove, and was said to be worth up to £30 billion in
11:37exports of fighter aircraft, missiles and ships.
11:42But as Saudi dissidents have told us, so-called commissions could run into millions of pounds.
11:51A watchdog public accounts committee is chaired by the Labour MP, Robert Sheldon.
11:57Two years ago, Mr Sheldon's committee was worried about reports of huge bribes paid to middlemen as part of the
12:04al-Yamama arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
12:07They called for a full report from the National Audit Office, which they got, and then kept secret.
12:13Why? Mr Sheldon won't say.
12:16He's seen the report, which he says contains not a shred of evidence of improper practice.
12:22So if there's no stink, why the cover-up? Mr Sheldon won't say.
12:27And he won't be interviewed about why he won't say.
12:31And the secrecy goes on. There's to be a new investigation into the Saudi deal.
12:37But Parliament won't be told the results until 1997, if at all.
12:43In the meantime, Mark Thatcher stands accused of making £12 million in commissions from this deal,
12:50as a direct result of the connection with his mother.
12:53Mrs Thatcher has made no comment, but Mark Thatcher has vigorously denied the charge.
13:04Howard Teicher was the Middle East analyst on America's National Security Council during the 1980s.
13:10He studied top-secret intelligence and diplomatic messages from Saudi Arabia, in which Mark Thatcher's name appeared.
13:17On a number of occasions in the mid-'80s, I saw intelligence reports from the Central Intelligence Agency,
13:25from the Defense Intelligence Agency, and also sourced to other countries' intelligence agencies.
13:31Separately, I saw diplomatic reports from the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia,
13:37which also stated that Mr Thatcher was reported to be involved in these arms transactions.
13:43There was no doubt in my mind that Mark Thatcher was a principal in the group of individuals promoting the
13:53UK arms transaction,
13:58and that he undoubtedly would benefit economically.
14:02What was your own reaction at seeing this?
14:05I was quite surprised to read about the involvement of the son of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
14:13making himself a player in an arms transaction for the obvious reason that it would create the appearance of a
14:23direct relationship between the family of the Prime Minister and the transaction.
14:29Did Mark Thatcher's name appear over a period of time?
14:34I'd say beginning sometime in 84 through 86, end of 86.
14:41I can't state how many times I saw his name, but I would categorise it as the frequent, many, tens
14:51of times, different sources,
14:54that he was clearly involved. There's no question about it.
14:58Could I just...
15:00I showed Mr Teicher a document whose disclosures he verified as authentic.
15:05It concerns the intense competition between the US and Britain for the Saudi deal.
15:10It says,
15:12$4 billion was mentioned in connection with M Thatcher's son.
15:18What kind of commission would that represent, do you think?
15:22On $4 billion? Well, do the math.
15:265% of $4 billion. It's a pretty hefty commission.
15:30So the reference in connection with Mark Thatcher is clearly a reference to his group of middlemen.
15:38Is that what you're saying?
15:39What I'm stating is that the reference to $4 billion in connection with Mark Thatcher relates to the amount of
15:48money,
15:50or the share of the transaction that would have an impact on Thatcher's group were it subtracted from the total
16:00sale.
16:00What would happen if this was happening in the US?
16:03It would be the type of circumstance that could bring about the impeachment of an elected official.
16:11There's no question about it.
16:14Unlike the United States, commissions on arms deals are not illegal under British law.
16:20But the Saudi deal raises other vital questions.
16:23Saudi Arabia is a country with almost no basic freedoms.
16:27Torture is commonplace.
16:29Women are executed for adultery.
16:32Others are publicly beheaded for changing their religion.
16:35Thousands of British jobs depend on a single arms deal with this regime,
16:39whose viciousness the British government has worked hard to disguise.
16:46Was there ever any discussion at Joint Intelligence Committee meetings,
16:50or in the Cabinet Office, about human rights in these countries where British arms were being sold?
16:56It wasn't a point of interest.
16:59I never remember discussions about human rights.
17:02What do you feel now about being privy to all this?
17:05I ended up feeling worried and angry that arms were going to regimes that were quite clearly behaving in the
17:22most disgusting way towards their own people.
17:24And yet, it seemed that the intelligence information that should have been stopping the arms trade was possibly helping it.
17:37In fact, British arms have been supplied to some of the worst human rights violators in the world.
17:43A British-made torture chamber was supplied to Dubai.
17:47British armoured cars took part in the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa.
17:52British communications equipment helped the Ugandan tyrant Idi Amin.
17:57Today, Britain is arming Turkey, where MPs are jailed for speaking out and journalists murdered.
18:04Nigeria, where there are public executions and torture.
18:08Chile.
18:09The list is too long for inclusion in this film.
18:14According to Amnesty International, few regimes are so casual about mass murder as the Suharto military dictatorship in Indonesia.
18:23Britain is Indonesia's biggest arms supplier, selling them almost everything from rapier missiles to hawk fighter aircraft.
18:32Following our film, Death of a Nation, about East Timor, where 200,000 people have died under Indonesia's military occupation,
18:41thousands of people wrote to their MPs and to the government to voice their concern.
18:47Some of them got these replies from the Foreign Office, replies that are models of deception.
18:56For example, the Foreign Office claim Indonesia's hawks are only trainers.
19:03But new evidence has come to light that the principal function of the hawks is counterinsurgency, identified here as coin.
19:11In other words, their main use is attacking the people of East Timor.
19:16The same kind of letters about hawk aircraft to Indonesia and saying that they had no military usage would have
19:29been sent over different items to Iraq.
19:36And more to the point, to virtually any country you want to name.
19:44Everyone knows that the hawk aircraft can be utilised in an offensive way.
19:52And when the Foreign Office writes to people saying they have assurances from, in this case, the Sahato regime,
20:02that the hawks will not and are not being used in East Timor,
20:10how do those assurances compare with other assurances that you would have had direct knowledge of?
20:18They're about as worthless as a piece of paper that they're written on.
20:25People need to be well aware that at times they are being lied to.
20:30This is where Lord Justice Scott conducted his inquiry into the scandal of British arms that went illegally to Saddam
20:37Hussein.
20:37The Scott inquiry sat for 400 hours and gathered evidence from more than 200 witnesses,
20:44including the government's chief arms salesman, Ian MacDonald, who said,
20:49truth is a very difficult concept.
20:52And the ambassador to Saudi Arabia, David Gore Booth, who explained that half the picture can be accurate.
21:00Well, half the picture is what the Scott report may well produce,
21:05because perhaps half the important questions were not asked
21:09and half the people who could answer them were not called.
21:13Throughout the 1980s, billions of pounds of arms were being exported from this country
21:19to both Iran and Iraq by British companies, with full knowledge of the British government,
21:25in defiance of the government's guidelines and in defiance, of course, of the UN.
21:30That is a far more significant issue.
21:32And if Scott was serious about it, he ought to interview the key businessmen
21:37who know about the deals because they were responsible for them,
21:41men like Sir James Blythe, Sir Colin Chandler, who were past heads of the Defence Export Sales Organisation,
21:48Sir Peter Levine, Sir John Cockney, and high-ranking MI5 officers,
21:54who also played a major role in all of Thatcherite arms deals in the 1980s.
22:03Margaret Thatcher's appearance was a star turn.
22:07She blamed everyone else, but was forced to admit that she had seen official papers
22:12that had made clear that arms sales to Iraq should be subject to more flexible interpretation.
22:19These were words she underlined in her own hand.
22:23Yet on April the 21st, 1989, she told the House of Commons,
22:28the government have not changed their policy on defence sales to Iraq.
22:33As the chief arms salesman said, truth is a very difficult concept.
22:39The truth is that as soon as Thatcher took power, her ministers courted Saddam Hussein.
22:44A procession of them went to Baghdad.
22:47Lord Carrington, Cecil Parkinson, John Knott, John Biffen, Paul Channon, William Waldegrave.
22:53In 1981, Douglas Heard tried to sell Saddam Hussein an entire air defence system.
23:00And when in 1985 Britain banned the sale of arms to Iraq,
23:04the flow of British arms and money did not stop.
23:09In 1986, Alan Clarke, then Trade Minister, led the way back to Baghdad.
23:14In 1988, David Mellor, then a Foreign Office Minister,
23:18joined Saddam Hussein on his famous visitor's couch.
23:21While Mellor was being entertained in Baghdad,
23:24Saddam ordered the gassing of 5,000 Kurds in the town of Elabja.
23:39It would look very cynical, said Geoffrey Howe.
23:43If so soon after expressing outrage over the Kurds,
23:47we adopted a more flexible approach to arms sales.
23:55After this atrocity, Trade Minister Tony Newton flew to Baghdad
24:00and offered Saddam Hussein 340 million pounds in export credits.
24:08We had files full of things about the gassing of the Kurds at Elabja,
24:14and we used to draft awfully polite letters to people saying,
24:21you know, well, I understand your concern,
24:24but Britain can't afford to lose out on its exports and trade.
24:33There must be, said Margaret Thatcher recently,
24:36a moral basis to foreign policy.
24:46The story of the arms trade under Margaret Thatcher
24:49is exemplified by the extraordinary downfall of the Astra Company.
24:55Astra was formed in the early 1980s,
24:58and throughout the 1980s grew by a series of acquisitions,
25:02and the last of which was a company in Belgium called PRB,
25:06which Astra bought in late 1989.
25:09It subsequently transpired that that company was involved
25:12in a whole series of contracts which were going to countries
25:15other than that which was stated on all the documentation,
25:18and in particular that company was involved in making parts for the Supergun.
25:23So the PRB was involved with sending the Supergun secretly to Iraq?
25:30Via Jordan, yes.
25:32The PRB had a contract on its books
25:34which was involved in the propellant for the Supergun,
25:37and that was going via Jordan.
25:39Now, the new chief executive of Astra
25:42began to investigate this, didn't he?
25:45Could you tell us what happened there?
25:47Once Chris Gumbly found out about the Supergun propellant contract,
25:51both he and the former chairman, Gerald James,
25:54initiated an investigation of a whole series of PRB contracts,
25:57and in particular I believe the management
25:59were trying to find out where the substantial commission payments
26:02or bribes on those contracts were going,
26:05and to whom they were going.
26:06We were in receipt of two letters from Gerald Bull,
26:10and those letters spelt out very clearly
26:15that there were strange government activities going on.
26:19And of course Gerald Bull himself, known as the inventor of the Supergun,
26:24he was murdered.
26:26He was killed an hour after Gumbly had left him,
26:30but he had made it quite clear to us
26:32not only that we were being used extensively for covert purposes,
26:42but he also made it clear that there was a vast network of corruption involved as well.
26:52In 1984, Britain and Jordan agreed an arms deal worth 207 million pounds.
26:59Once again, a huge and secretive arms deal bore the personal stamp of Margaret Thatcher.
27:07When did your suspicions about the Jordanian deal really start to worry you?
27:14Well quite early on, because I knew that one of our acquisitions was involved in a,
27:20I thought a relatively minor way, but the magnitude of our involvement in the Jordan package,
27:26which was reported to me, was a hundred million pounds of propellant,
27:31which I think at the time exceeded our, our group turnover.
27:38And you weren't aware of this?
27:39Absolutely not, no.
27:41How could you not be aware of it?
27:43Here was a hundred million if you say that was greater than the group's turnover.
27:47That's staggering, isn't it?
27:49Well I wasn't aware of it because our, our names were being used, our note paper and our name was
27:55being used for contracts
27:57which were really being operated by other people.
28:01And who were these other people?
28:02I think it was IMS, a company owned by the, or what it was owned by the Ministry of Defence.
28:09It was a separate organisation from Defence Sales, which handled what I would term perhaps the more covert activities of
28:20the government.
28:20Alright, so IMS was manipulating Astra to the tune of a hundred million pounds?
28:28Yes, that's the only conclusion I could draw from, from what happened and the people I spoke to were in
28:35a very good position to know what was going on.
28:37Could, could you just give me an idea of where the, the equipment was ending up?
28:41Well a high proportion of it ended up in Iraq.
28:45There are photographs showing ammunition boxes clearly with the lettering ROs to Royal Ordnance
28:52and Iraq and the date of the letters of credit which, um, would seem to confirm that position.
29:00Used in the Gulf War?
29:02I would think almost certainly used in the Gulf War, yes.
29:12This is the carnage of the Gulf War.
29:17A shop window for the arms trade.
29:20The official truth of the war was that thanks to high-tech weapons, few people had been killed.
29:32As you saw in the Gulf War, er, there is now an expectation that significant conflicts can be fought with
29:41minimal casualties.
29:42Yeah.
29:43And therefore, the general public, understandably, looks for greater use of selective, terminally guided weapons, etc.
29:52It looks for better surveillance, it looks for better target acquisition.
29:56All of which are means of pinpointing the enemy and, and, and knocking him out with the minimal amount of
30:05peripheral damage to the civilian population and indeed hopefully to the rest of the armed forces on either side.
30:12Well, that's an expensive way.
30:14Hmm.
30:14You said with minimal casualties that some of the more authoritative estimates are that, er, the, er, the numbers killed,
30:22er, in and as a result of the Gulf War, ran up to 200,000 people.
30:27Well, er, certainly people died and every death is thoroughly regrettable, obviously.
30:31But it could have been a long protracted slogging match in which the United Kingdom and indeed the, the, the,
30:39the allied forces could have taken considerable casualties.
30:42Now that, fortunately, didn't happen.
30:45Because we have a greater regard for life, I think, than some other nations do.
30:51And that may be historical, it may be, er, all sorts of things that cause.
30:55Where, where, where, how, how do you justify such a statement, which seems quite an important one, that we have
31:01a greater regard for life than other nations do?
31:06I think I, I, I merely deduce that from the fact that we are moving down the path of more
31:15intelligent weaponry, as I say, that can pinpoint the enemy,
31:20rather than having masses of infantry and, er, going into combat on a, on a, on a sort of, er,
31:28even exchange basis.
31:29In spite of the fact that perhaps 200,000 people did die in the Gulf War?
31:34Not on our side.
31:43Selling arms is really no different from selling cars or kitchenware.
31:47Welcome to the Ideal Arms exhibition in Paris.
31:51Everyone's here.
31:53How is the beat?
31:54What?
31:55How is the beat?
31:57How is the beat?
32:01How is the beat?
32:03How is the beat?
32:04How is the beat?
32:04They like a tough game, no rules, some you win, some you lose.
32:09Competition good for you.
32:11A day to be free.
32:14How is the beat?
32:16They like a bomb-proof Cadillac
32:19Egg-conditioned old-time backseat
32:21Gunwreck, Platinum hogcaps
32:24They pick horses for courses
32:26They're the market forces
32:29They like order, makeup, limelight power
32:33Game shows, rodeo, Star Wars TV
32:37They're the powers that be
32:39If you see them come
32:41You better run
32:43You better run
32:47You better run
32:51You better run
32:53You better run
32:55Run
32:56Can I ask you what you've got here?
32:59What you're offering?
33:00It's a Mark 19 grenade machine gun
33:03This is the latest version
33:05What does it actually do?
33:07Can you describe that to a layman?
33:09It throws a grenade
33:102,000 meters
33:12And there's fragments on impact
33:14And this particular one will penetrate armor plate
33:17So that comes in
33:20That bursts into a lot of shrapnel
33:22Right
33:22It's the infantry's artillery
33:24So what can it actually do against an army?
33:28To stop it
33:29Because you're taking a limited amount of high explosive
33:33And spreading it like a shower
33:36All you want to do is wet the surface
33:40What is the different effect of this grenade when it strikes the enemy from an old fashioned grenade?
33:46This fires out this hot copper dust
33:48Whereas the old fashioned one put shrapnel everywhere
33:51That's correct
33:52Depending upon the nature and the thickness of the copper sheet
33:58The energy of the grenade will extend to a given range
34:03And beyond that range there is no risk for the people
34:05So you can use the grenade as a defensive grenade
34:08On display here is the ERIN
34:11The Extended Range Interceptor
34:13Which is an anti-tactical ballistic missile
34:18It utilizes a whole different technology in that this is a hit-to-kill weapon
34:24There is no warhead in this missile
34:28Birmingham barbe tape manufactures a range of security fencing products
34:32Razor wire is our core product
34:34Which has really replaced barbed wire internationally
34:38It rips and grabs
34:40Whereas barbed wire just pokes holes through
34:44So it's a more effective product
34:46So it's more of a cutting wire
34:47Yes
34:48So you could just tear yourself on barbed wire
34:50But you can cut yourself on razor wire
34:52Is that it?
34:53Yeah
34:53That's it
34:54Yeah
34:54There's more points with razor wire as well
34:58There is a camera in it
35:01You have all the means to transmit the picture
35:05Yes
35:06Inside
35:06From your head
35:08Yes
35:08From your helmet
35:09Yes
35:10So it's a secret
35:11A secret camera for demonstrations
35:14It depends on the buyer
35:16Yeah
35:17You can use in your garden
35:19Oh of course
35:20Yes
35:20And just frighten the children
35:21For the grass
35:22You could do grass
35:24Yes
35:25The spikes fence
35:26What is that meant to do?
35:27What does
35:27We believed
35:28And that's in fact shown with our sales
35:30That there is a niche market
35:32For a more aesthetically pleasing fence topping
35:36And that's where the spikes come into their own
35:38They
35:40Spikes being more aesthetically pleasing
35:41That's exactly
35:42Than razor wire
35:43Yeah
35:43So it would hit scuds would it
35:45In another case
35:46Oh certainly
35:47Yes
35:47But it hits them at such
35:49At such a level of impact
35:51The megajoules
35:54The megajoules are in the hundreds of megajoules
35:58There's a lot of interest in these products
36:01From particularly the Middle East and the Far East
36:03In the present time in Kuwait
36:05And in the UAE
36:07And also by the Indonesian armed forces
36:10Oh essentially we sell to armies which are
36:13The French army are connected with the French army
36:16Can you tell me which armies those are?
36:18No
36:18No
36:23It's difficult for me to
36:24Yeah
36:25And what countries apart from the US are using it?
36:29We normally don't give out our success stories
36:34No
36:35We've made several demonstrations I can't name the customers
36:38Will you sell to anyone?
36:40We're not in the business of deciding who should be buying our product
36:44Yeah
36:46Business is business
36:52This is Cambodia
36:54Where up to 500 amputations are performed every month
36:58The result of landmines
37:01Throughout the world there are more than a hundred million of them
37:04Waiting to explode
37:06And yet the British government has planned a military strategy
37:10Of scattering mines from the air
37:12This is often known as minks
37:15Or mines into the next century
37:18It's called area denial
37:20The humanitarian effect that that has is when the war is finished
37:24Those areas remain uninhabitable
37:28But of course returning refugees, farmers, people like that
37:33They don't have a choice, they have to go there
37:35The official UN figures are that 2,000 people are maimed and killed by mines every month
37:43When at the UN Security Council there was an American sponsored vote to get an international moratorium on the export
37:54of landmines
37:57The British government initially was going to oppose it
38:01Because it became clear that this would put them in an impossible situation politically
38:10And in an embarrassing situation
38:12In the end they voted for the moratorium
38:17The international moratorium
38:19But with a rider to their vote
38:21With a note added
38:23That this didn't apply to British mines
38:29What we don't agree with is the complete and absolute ban on the use, let alone manufacture, of mines
38:38Mines are part of the weaponry of the United Kingdom that we need for our own self-defence as a
38:45nation
38:45And that must remain
38:47You don't think they fall into the category of chemical weapons, nerve gas, that sort of thing
38:52A lot of people are suggesting they are in that category
38:55I'm answering for the United Kingdom
38:57And I'm quite clear that we need to retain in our capacity, in our national arsenal, mines
39:06But they've got to be used properly, so that the civilian population is not endangered
39:12And they've got to have the capacity in the future, the new technology of mines, that they self-destruct
39:17But I'm not going to be party
39:19What if that doesn't work?
39:20I'm not going to be party to any policy
39:23Which says you must abolish all mines in stock
39:28You must not produce, you mustn't manufacture any more in the future
39:31We need that capability, devastating though that use can be, for the defence of this island
39:42Politicians don't examine the real cost of anti-personnel mines
39:47I'm not interested in disarmament for a political reason
39:52I'm interested in stopping things like this
39:56This little boy, little Afghan boy, was born in the refugee camps
40:02Had lived all his short life dreaming of going home
40:05His mother and father and aunties and uncles had told him about Afghanistan
40:10And finally he was going home, to his home in Ghazni
40:16And the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees provided the transport
40:21He was repatriated
40:22From the camps in Pakistan to his home
40:25Within minutes of climbing out of the truck that he returned home in
40:31He ran in the fields to look at his country for the first time in his life
40:35And he was blown to pieces
40:38Quite literally, he died a minute or two after this photograph was taken
40:43Because somebody somewhere wanted to make a profit
40:51This is Gairlock in Scotland
40:53Behind me is the Trident nuclear submarine base
40:56Neither the government nor the opposition hardly ever mention it
41:00It's one of those gentlemen's agreements that are a feature of British democracy
41:04The government claims that Trident cost 10 billion pounds
41:08Greenpeace says the real figure is more like 30 billion over 20 years
41:13Last year the National Audit Office revealed that 800 million pounds had been wasted
41:19Building facilities for Trident
41:22That's more than the entire cost of the cuts in Britain's conventional forces announced this year
41:28Certain items have gone up, you're absolutely right
41:31And the works programme at Fas Lane and Coolport was not completed satisfactorily
41:39In terms of the total cost overruns
41:41And there are parliamentary reports on that
41:45And doubtless I will be having to answer questions about that
41:48But for the submarine itself
41:50The missile and the warhead
41:52The cost of that is less than was forecast
41:55So overall the Trident programme has cost the nation less in real resources than was forecast
42:02Trident was built for the Cold War
42:04So what's it for now?
42:06Well it's said to have a new role about which the government says very little
42:09This is known as sub-strategic capability
42:14What does that mean?
42:16It means that a new threat has been found
42:19It was best encapsulated by the new head of the CIA last year
42:23Who said that we have slain the dragon
42:25That's the Cold War, Soviet Union dragon
42:28But we now live in a jungle inhabited by poisonous snakes
42:31That's all the threats from the south
42:33Whether it be the Middle East, Latin America or elsewhere
42:36And the clear indications now that Trident could have a single Trident missile
42:41Fitted not with four or six large nuclear warheads
42:44But just one relatively small nuclear warhead
42:47Say ten to twenty kilotons instead of a hundred or so kilotons
42:50And one single missile in a crisis could for example
42:54Be fired as a demonstration shot at some sort of putative Middle East aggressor state
43:01To show it that Britain meant business
43:03Is this a real possibility?
43:05This is talked about quite seriously in military circles in Britain
43:08Virtually never in public but in private this is the line of thinking
43:14There is no political debate on any of this
43:16Because the government and the Labour Party have effectively the same policy
43:21It seems to us, if you look at the real world
43:25There are countries in the world
43:27Which do not have the stability even of the Soviet Union
43:30Where you've got dictators in power
43:33Who could actually cause damage on what we call our civilised West
43:38And there are countries in the Middle East and in parts of Africa
43:42That already have missiles which can reach halfway up Europe
43:46Can reach up halfway up France
43:48Who are they?
43:51Well I mean it's quite clear
43:53I mean there are countries, Iraq had this sort of capability
43:56There are countries like Libya had this sort of capability
44:00But are you seriously suggesting that we keep Trident
44:05With its intercontinental ballistic missiles
44:09To deter scuds from Iraq and Libya or...
44:16Yeah, but you're not only talking about scuds
44:18You're talking about missiles which are becoming more advanced than that
44:22But are they likely to fire them at Britain?
44:24I mean is this a serious proposition?
44:26Well we don't know
44:30This is the real cost
44:32It has been estimated that the money spent over the years on nuclear submarines
44:37Would restore a national housing programme
44:40And virtually end homelessness
44:43It would also restore the transport system
44:46And stop the hemorrhage of teachers from schools
44:49By raising salaries to a decent level
44:52And it would pay every outstanding bill in the health service
44:56And ensure that no one died waiting for an operation
45:01It would also allow non-military research and development
45:04To catch up with the best in Europe
45:07And what was left over could be invested in converting industry
45:11To peaceful production
45:18In my 22 years in the defence industry
45:22I never met one worker who said they only wanted to work on weapons
45:28Professor Michael Cooley was a leading design engineer
45:31For the defence contractor Lucas Aerospace
45:34In the 1970s he helped to form a shop floor committee at Lucas
45:39Which devised a strategy to convert the arms industry to peacetime production
45:45We did demonstrate that you could convert to peace
45:49We certainly didn't say or pretend that it would be easy
45:53But we did show it could be done
45:55That required the commitment of the management
45:59The commitment of the staff
46:01And also I would guess the commitment of the government
46:05To support the transition
46:07In our view it would have to be in a phase fashion
46:10We did not see that it would be possible
46:12Suddenly to cease work in arms products
46:15And then go over to civil production
46:18But rather one would have a phase transition
46:21From the 60% of the company's products
46:24Which at that time were military products
46:26To something like 50%
46:30And gradually down to perhaps 30%
46:32In what period of time?
46:33Well we envisage that in about a 10 year period
46:37What is the answer to those who say
46:39There are so many jobs involved
46:42And if we take on board conversion
46:46There will be so many jobs lost in the process
46:51They attempt to demonstrate
46:53That the problem of conversion
46:55Is so massive that one can't even begin to address it
46:58I simply reject that
47:00I am not saying that conversion is easy
47:02I am saying it is possible
47:05I think the great thing is to be utopian
47:08In a long term sense
47:09And be practical in the short term
47:11And I think it is very, very important
47:13That all human beings understand and believe
47:16That the future is not out there
47:19In the sense in which a coastline might be out there
47:21And somebody goes out to discover it
47:23The future has yet got to be built by people like you and I
47:27And we do real choices
47:29And the choices are becoming stark
47:31And one of the choices is to use the skill and ability we now have
47:35Large amounts of it concentrated in the defence industries
47:39To produce products and services
47:41Which would be caring for humanity and the environment
47:44And I don't think that is really very utopian
47:47That seems to me to be very practical
47:49In a long term view of what our society is now facing
47:55This film hasn't just been about the arms business
47:58It's the story of the Thatcher years
48:01Of the dismantling of whole industries such as mining
48:05In favour of a military economy
48:07Of the contempt shown for parliament and the people
48:11Of an obsession with secrecy and corruption
48:14All of it conducted in our name with our money
48:18The questions are now urgent
48:21Who authorised the illegal sale of arms to Saddam Hussein?
48:26Who has made a fortune out of deals with other murderous dictators?
48:31And what exactly was the role of super saleswoman Thatcher
48:35And her family?
48:37Of course for people in other countries
48:39The issue is one of life and death
48:42Death from British cluster bombs
48:45Life denied by money squandered on British arms
48:49They don't need
48:51Is the end of this century
48:53Going to mark the British as a people
48:55Whose great manufacturing reputation
48:58Has been reduced to that of making
49:01Magnificent tools of death?
49:15So that you could find a
49:21Within a period of 20 minutes
49:23That was written in probably martyrdom
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