Article in the Independent by Andrew McCorkell and Michael Gillard.

An Attorney General who suddenly switches his legal advice, a Prime Minister desperate to please a foreign power, Clare Short fuming on the sidelines, and the truth shrouded in mystery...

... critics claimed that it had, in effect, let the company off the hook. They pointed to comparisons with Tony Blair's handling of the decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003. In that case also, Mr Blair rejected the initial legal advice offered by Lord Goldsmith, this time on the legality of the planned invasion in 2003. The attorney general later amended his opinion into line with the former prime minister's intentions.

Guardian story.

The admissions in the US covered BAE's huge £43bn al-Yamamah fighter plane sales to Saudi Arabia, and smaller deals in the Czech Republic and elsewhere in central Europe.

In the UK, the admissions cover a highly controversial sale of a military radar to poverty-stricken Tanzania, which development secretary Clare Short said at the time "stank" of corruption, but which the then prime minister, Tony Blair, forced through the cabinet.