[ALOCHONA] Re: Wikileaks on Boeing sale to Bangladesh

Nope - you are not complelled to give Hasina credit for simply linking the purchase of Amercian planes to landing rights in America. It is a simple, straight forward question that could be asked by any mid level bureaucrat.

As it is the deal went ahead with no clear commitment to landing rights in America. The deal went ahead. Any bribes that needed to be paid were paid. Any crazy maintenance contracts that needed to be signed were signed. Biman continues to make a loss. Air cargo still needs to released by bribes. The unions still strangle the sector. The Arabs do not reciprocate with equal landing rights. And the Aviation ministry is still a hotbed of nonsense.

And all you have brother, is a question asked by Prime Minister Hasina.

--- In alochona@yahoogroups.com, qrahman@... wrote:
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> Gotta give some credit to our current PM Sheikh Hasina. At least she demanded something for the country this time. Not focusing on Khaleda Zia or destroying BNP for a change.
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Isha Khan <bdmailer@...>
> Sent: Wed, Jan 19, 2011 11:20 pm
> Subject: [ALOCHONA] Wikileaks on Boeing sale to Bangladesh
>
>
> Diplomats Help Push Sales of Jetliners on the Global Market
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>
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> *Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wazed, was equally direct
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> in making a connection for the landing rights at Kennedy Airport, as a
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> condition of the airplane deal, which was then at risk of collapsing.
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>
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> “If there is no New York route, what is the point of buying Boeing?” a
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> November 2009 cable quotes Ms. Hasina as saying as she pressed
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> American officials. The deal with Boeing went through. So far, flights
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> by the country’s national carrier, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, to New
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> York have not been restored.*
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>
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> WASHINGTON â€"The king of Saudi Arabia wanted the United States to
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> outfit his personal jet with the same high-tech devices as Air Force
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> One. The president of Turkey wanted the Obama administration to let a
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> Turkish astronaut sit in on a NASA space flight. And in Bangladesh,
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> the prime minister pressed the State Department to re-establish
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> landing rights at Kennedy International Airport in New York.
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>
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> Each of these government leaders had one thing in common: they were
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> trying to decide whether to buy billions of dollars’ worth of
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> commercial jets from Boeing or its European competitor, Airbus. And
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> United States diplomats were acting like marketing agents, offering
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> deals to heads of state and airline executives whose decisions could
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> be influenced by price, performance and, as with all finicky customers
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> with plenty to spend, perks.
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>
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> This is the high-stakes, international bazaar for large commercial
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> jets, where tens of billions of dollars are on the line, along with
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> hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs. At its heart, it is a
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> wrestling match fought daily by executives at two giant companies,
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> Boeing and Airbus, in which each controls about half of the global
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> market for such planes.
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> To a greater degree than previously known, diplomats are a big part of
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> the sales force, according to hundreds of cables released by
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> WikiLeaks, which describe politicking and cajoling at the highest
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> levels.
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>
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> It is not surprising that the United States helps American companies
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> doing business abroad, given that each sale is worth thousands of jobs
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> and that their foreign competitors do the same. But like the other
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> WikiLeaks cables, these offer a remarkably detailed look at what had
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> previously been only glimpsed â€" in this case, the sales war between
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> American diplomats and their European counterparts.
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>
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> The cables describe letters from presidents, state visits as
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> bargaining chips and a number of leaders making big purchases based,
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> at least in part, on how much the companies will dress up private
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> planes.
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> The documents also suggest that demands for bribes, or at least
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> payment to suspicious intermediaries who offer to serve as “agents,”
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> still take place. Boeing says it is committed to avoiding any such
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> corrupt practices.
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> State Department and Boeing officials, in interviews last month,
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> acknowledged the important role the United States government plays in
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> helping them sell commercial airplanes, despite a trade agreement
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> signed by the United States and European leaders three decades ago
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> intended to remove international politics from the process.
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>
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> The United States economy, said Robert D. Hormats, under secretary for
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> economic affairs at the State Department, increasingly relies upon
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> exports to the fast-growing developing world â€" nations like China and
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> India, as well as those in Latin America and the Middle East.
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>
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> So pushing sales of big-ticket items like commercial jets,
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> earth-moving equipment or power plants (or stepping in to object if an
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> American company is not being given a fair chance to bid) is central
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> to the Obama administration’s strategy to help the nation recover from
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> the recession.
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> Boeing earns about 70 percent of its commercial plane sales from
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> foreign buyers, and is the single biggest exporter of manufactured
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> goods in the United States. Every $1 billion in sales â€" and some of
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> these deals carry a price tag of as high as $10 billion â€" translates
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> into an estimated 11,000 American jobs, according to the State
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> Department.
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>
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> The Equalizers
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> “That is the reality of the 21st century; governments are playing a
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> greater role in supporting their companies, and we need to do the same
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> thing,” Mr. Hormats, a former top executive at Goldman Sachs, said in
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> an interview.
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> Said Tim Neale, a Boeing spokesman, “The way I look at it, it levels
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> the playing field.”
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>
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> But Charles A. Hamilton, a former Defense Department official who is a
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> consultant to Airbus, said the government’s advocacy undermined
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> arguments by Boeing and the United States that Airbus had an unfair
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> advantage because of its subsidies from European governments.
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>
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> “The bottom line is anything goes to get the business,” said Mr.
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> Hamilton, adding that he was speaking for himself, and not for Airbus.
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> “If they feel like they are losing, they will do just about anything
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> to save a deal.”
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>
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> Airbus executives would not discuss details of their own sales
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> campaigns â€" and the WikiLeaks documents are mostly focused on American
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> efforts. But one Airbus official, who was not authorized to speak on
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> the record, conceded that, international agreements aside, “commercial
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> jet sales are not totally decoupled from political relationship
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> building.”
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> One example of the horse-trading involved Saudi Arabia, which in
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> November announced a deal with Boeing to buy 12 777-300ER airliners,
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> with options for 10 more, a transaction worth more than $3.3 billion
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> at list prices.
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> That announcement was preceded by years of intense lobbying by
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> American officials.
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> One pitch came from the highest levels, the cables show. In late 2006,
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> Israel Hernandez, a senior Commerce Department official,
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> hand-delivered a personal letter from President George W. Bush to the
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> Jeddah office of King Abdullah, urging the king to buy as many as 43
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> Boeing jets to modernize Saudi Arabian Airlines and 13 jets for the
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> Saudi royal fleet, which serves the extended royal family.
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>
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> The king read the letter from Mr. Bush, the State Department cable
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> says, and announced that Boeing jets were his favorites. He said he
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> had just turned down two new Airbus jets, opting instead for a
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> slightly used Boeing 747.
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>
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> But before he would commit to a mostly Boeing fleet, the king had a request.
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>
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> “I am instructing you,” he told Mr. Hernandez politely, according to
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> the State Department cable, “to speak to the president and all
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> concerned authorities,” as the king “wanted to have all the technology
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> that his friend, President Bush, had on Air Force One.” Once he had
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> his own high-tech plane, with the world’s most advanced
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> telecommunications and defense equipment â€" the king told Mr. Hernandez
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> that “ ‘God willing,’ he will make a decision that will ‘please you
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> very much.’ ”
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>
>
> A State Department spokesman confirmed last week that the United
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> States had authorized an “upgrade” to King Abdullah’s plane, adding
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> “for security reasons, we won’t discuss specifics.”
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>
>
> Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheik Hasina Wazed, was equally direct in
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> making a connection for the landing rights at Kennedy Airport, as a
>
> condition of the airplane deal, which was then at risk of collapsing.
>
>
>
> “If there is no New York route, what is the point of buying Boeing?” a
>
> November 2009 cable quotes Ms. Hasina as saying as she pressed
>
> American officials. The deal with Boeing went through. So far, flights
>
> by the country’s national carrier, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, to New
>
> York have not been restored.
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>
>
> The request from Turkey for a slot on a future NASA flight came early
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> last year, as Turkish Airlines was considering buying as many as 20
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> Boeing jets.
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> The government there owns slightly less than half of the airline, but
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> Turkey’s minister of transportation, Binali Yildirim, in a January
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> 2010 meeting with the United States ambassador to Turkey, made clear
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> that the country’s president wanted help with its fledgling space
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> program and perhaps assistance from the Federal Aviation
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> Administration to improve its aviation safety.
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> Requests for Favors
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> “Cooperation in this area will create the right environment for
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> commercial deals,” Mr. Yildirim told the United States ambassador, the
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> cable says.
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>
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> In a cable back to Washington, James F. Jeffrey, then the United
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> States ambassador to Turkey, called the effort by Turkish authorities
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> to link the Boeing deal to political requests an “unwelcome, but
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> unsurprising degree of political influence in this transaction.” But
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> he went on to say that authorizing the F.A.A. to help Turkey improve
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> its aviation safety and space exploration programs could benefit both
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> nations.
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> “We probably cannot put a Turkish astronaut in orbit, but there are
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> programs we could undertake to strengthen Turkey’s capacity in this
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> area that would meet our own goals for improved aviation safety,” he
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> wrote. “In any case, we must show some response to the minister’s
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> vague request if we want to maximize chances for the sale.”
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>
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> The deal was announced a month later, as Turkish Airlines ordered 20
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> Boeing planes.
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> Some sales come to Boeing in part because foreign political leaders
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> want to show friendship to the United States.
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> King Abdullah II of Jordan, a longtime ally and recipient of billions
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> of dollars in United States aid, told the ambassador in 2004 that
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> “even though the latest Airbus offer was better than Boeing’s he
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> intended to make a ‘political’ decision to have Royal Jordanian buy
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> Boeing aircraft,” a State Department cable said, although the United
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> States still had to help Boeing secure the deal.
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>
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> The cables show that the United States is willing to pull out all the
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> political stops if Boeing is in danger of losing a big deal to Airbus.
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> In late 2007, the board of Gulf Air, the national airline of the
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> oil-rich kingdom of Bahrain, picked Airbus for a huge sale.
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>
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> Boeing told the American government, which responded that there was
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> still a way to turn the deal around, even though Airbus had offered
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> the planes for about $400 million less than Boeing.
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>
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> ‘Far From Over’
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> “The contest remained far from over,” said the cable. “Gulf Air’s
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> selection still needed to be endorsed by the government.”
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>
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> The American ambassador at the time, Adam Ereli, and his chief
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> economic officer, went into action, “lobbying Gulf Air management,
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> board members, government officials and representatives of
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> parliament,” and appealing directly to the crown prince of Bahrain, in
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> an effort to line up a deal for Boeing that could be final in time for
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> a coming visit by President Bush, the first visit by a sitting United
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> States president.
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>
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> Within two weeks, the embassy alerted Boeing officials that the crown
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> prince and king of Bahrain had rejected Airbus’s offer and directed
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> Gulf Air’s chairman to make a deal with Boeing that could be signed
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> while Mr. Bush was in the country.
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>
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> Seeing that Airbus had been outmaneuvered, France’s president, Nicolas
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> Sarkozy, made a last-minute bid to save the deal, the State Department
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> cable says. He offered to visit Bahrain after Mr. Bush had left, but
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> that stop-over was canceled when the Boeing agreement was signed in
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> January 2008. None of the last-minute diplomacy was disclosed.
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>
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> The cables make clear that both Boeing and the government set limits
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> on their efforts, turning away requests in Turkey and Tanzania to hire
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> “agents” who charge steep commissions â€" or as some called them, bribes
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> â€" to gain access to top officials.
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>
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> Mr. Neale, the company spokesman, says that for Boeing, “it is not
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> just a matter of abiding by U.S. law and laws internationally but a
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> general sense of business ethics.” When such requests surfaced, Boeing
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> often reported them to the State Department.
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>
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> “ ‘Agents’ and steep ‘commissions’ have been at the heart of several
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> corruption scandals here,” says a 2007 State Department cable
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> recounting a demand that Boeing hire a mysterious hotel executive in
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> Tanzania to serve as a “go-between” with government officials.
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> Payments like that, the cable said, typically were bribes that “ended
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> up in Swiss bank accounts.”
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>
>
>
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> Eric Lipton reported from Washington, Nicola Clark from Paris and
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> Andrew W. Lehren from New York.
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> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/business/03wikileaks-boeing.html
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>
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>
> ------------------------------------
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