Did Tony Blair Engineer BP Oil-for-Terrorist Scam?

In the coming days, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will hold hearing on the recent British Petroleum $1 billion oil deal with Libya, to determine whether there was a secret agreement between the Brits and Muammar Qaddafi, to free the convicted Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, as a precondition for the lucrative oil development contract. According to news accounts in The Independent and the Daily Mail, the broker for this oil-for-terrorist scheme was none other than former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Blair has been "consulting" for a number of British companies seeking business in Libya, and news reports from Britain indicate that Blair had secretly flown to Tripoli to meet personally with Qaddafi, to nail down the arrangement. Al-Megrahi was released from Scottish prison on "humanitarian" grounds, based on claims that he was dying. But, since his return to Libya, he has reportedly undergone a miraculous recovery—and BP signed the lucrative oil exploration deal with Libya. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton raised the issue of the BP-Libya deal, and the links to the al-Megrahi release in a phone conversation Friday with her British counterpart, William Hague. Al-Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am 103 in 1988, but he was freed to return to Libya last August, despite strong protests from the U.S.

Both Hague and British Prime Minister David Cameron, who comes to Washington this week to meet with President Obama, called the early release of al-Megrahi "a mistake," but the July 29 Senate hearings will probe the darker implications, and the personal role of Tony Blair, in yet one more typically sleazy deal, like the BAE "Al Yamamah" arrangements—this time involving BP.