Source:
MSN MoneyU.S. and British leaders have clinched a defence-trade pact designed to stitch long-standing bilateral military and security ties even tighter, the State Department said on Thursday.
-snip-
The pact would carve out a kind of "license-free zone" for certain exports within a community of government and trusted contractors on both sides that meet certain requirements.
-snip-
Republicans who controlled the House of Representatives until this year had blocked the move for fear that Britain had not done enough to strengthen laws governing re-exports to third countries such as China.
"In effect, this is an effort to do the same thing without seeking House approval," said Bialos, now a Washington lawyer specializing in Defence. "The calculus apparently is that it is easier to get Senate approval of a treaty than House approval" of a waiver of rules that control arms traffic.
Read more:
http://news.money.msn.co.uk/article.aspx?as=article&f=uk_-_olgbbus&t=3581&id=5768998&d=20070629&do=http://news.money.msn.co.uk&i=http://news.money.msn.co.uk/mediaexportlive&ks=0&mc=10&ml=ma&lc=en&ae=windows-1252
Apparently Bush & Blair worked it all out on the 26th, the day before Blair "stepped aside" and became our new Iraq envoy