Tony Blair sought Kuwait military sales in wake of Gulf War restoration

Former UK prime minister lobbied the nation to buy latest British artillery

Former British prime minister Tony Blair on a visit to Kuwait in 2003. PA

The UK's former prime minister Tony Blair urged Kuwait to buy the latest British artillery as compensation for the support the Middle Eastern nation received during the Gulf War, previously classified records suggest.

He repeatedly lobbied Crown Prince Sheikh Sa’ad between 1998 and 1999, even calling in on him during a brief stopover on a flight home from South Africa to press the point.

Internal briefing notes from the time show the UK government believed it was “due the award of a significant defence equipment contract in recognition of its defence of Kuwait” after the invasion by Iraqi forces under Saddam Hussein in 1990.

Minutes of the hastily arranged Kuwait bilateral talks, in January 1999, reveal Mr Blair heeded Foreign Office officials’ request to talk up the AS90 howitzer, amid concerns that the arms contract would go to the US and its M109.

A restricted memo from Downing Street private secretary Philip Barton to his Foreign Office colleague Tim Barrow covering the meeting between the prime minister and the Crown Prince, said: “The Prime Minister raised the AS90. It was an effective weapon, although he knew the US had offered the M109.

“He hoped very much that all the support we had given Kuwait would be remembered.

“The Crown Prince said that the price of the AS90 was very high. The Prime Minister pointed out that it would do the job properly.

“The Defence Minister said that they would take the state of relations with the UK into account.”

Internal briefing notes the day before the visit, contained in files now released by the National Archives in Kew, show Mr Blair was told the government was “frankly disappointed” to have “won so little Kuwaiti defence business since end of Gulf War”, saying it had been a “loyal friend to Kuwait over many years”.

Mr Barton reported that Kuwait “would keep [the UK] in mind” before making a decision.

It was the latest in several attempts to woo Kuwait, which included a grovelling letter from Mr Blair to the Crown Prince three months earlier, in which he described the AS90 as “the best 155mm gun in the world today”, stating its specification superiority to the US equivalent.

“This order from Kuwait is very important to the UK and to our industry at a difficult time. We will await your decision eagerly," Mr Blair wrote.

The efforts did not immediately reap rewards, however, as Kuwait announced its intention to buy US artillery two months after Mr Blair’s visit.

The government papers, released on Tuesday, reveal that plans to tackle immigration were partly thwarted by a UN protocol that meant the UK was fundamentally deemed an “attractive destination” for asylum seekers.

The classified Cabinet papers also show that Mr Blair feared his government would face a backlash over its failure to remove extremists from the UK in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.