In a highly unusual move, a senior US official said Washington opted to keep details of the deal from London until the last minute to enable Britain to deny all knowledge of the deal and thus avoid China's anger, says the BBC's Washington correspondent Kim Ghattas.
"We didn't tell them what we were doing so that we could protect them" Yeah, right. You didn't want to give them the opportunity to say "No, we don't want your bloody terrorists on our soil".
When you start lying to and withholding information from your allies, how long will an alliance last before irreperable harm is done?