British Security Sales to Mideast Under Scrutiny

February 23, 2011

Bahraini protester runs away after riot police fired tear gas at protesters at the Pearl roundabout soon after the military pulled out in Manama, Bahrain, February 19, 2011 (file photo)

Speaking in Qatar, Mr. Cameron described the force used by the Libyan government to crack down on its opponents as "appalling."

On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the use of force against civilians in Libya.

Cameron said more should be done.

"Would I like us to go further and have a full United Nations Security Council resolution? Yes, I would, I think that would be good," said Cameron.

Mr. Cameron is in the Gulf along with a team of senior defense manufacturers.

The 10th International Defense Exhibition, or IDEX, is taking place in Abu Dhabi with more than 1,000 companies showing their military equipment and services.

Among them are a number of major British companies.

Wyn Rees is an international security expert at Britain's Durham University. He says Britain's defense manufacturers are some of the top globally and are keen to make sales.

"We're currently in times of financial austerity and arms companies earn this country large overseas balance of payments, so with the amount of money we spend domestically on defense squeezed very hard, there's going to be continued pressure from big defense manufacturers to continue selling items of equipment, the argument being you can only develop these sorts of high ticket price items domestically if you have also got overseas markets in which to sell them to," said Rees.