Saudis looking to go nuclear?

WorldNetDaily/GeoStrategyDirect ^ | 19 June 2003 | Robert Morton and Bill Gertz

[LSUfan]

Editor's note: WorldNetDaily brings readers exclusive, up-to-the-minute global intelligence news and analysis from Geostrategy-Direct, a new online newsletter edited by veteran journalist Robert Morton and featuring the "Backgrounder" column compiled by Bill Gertz. Geostrategy-Direct is a subscription-based service produced by the publishers of WorldTribune.com, a free news service frequently linked by the editors of WorldNetDaily.

For those with a benign view of Iran's nuclear program, consider this: Saudi Arabia is already thinking nuclear, reports intelligence newsletter Geostrategy-Direct.

The Saudi royal family is alarmed by the prospect of its next-door neighbor having a nuclear bomb, U.S. intelligence analysts say. The Saudis were spooked enough by Iraq's nuclear program. But Iran is a Shiite state and has long fomented the large Shia minority in the eastern part of the Saudi kingdom. In addition, most of Saudi Arabia's oil and natural gas reserves are in its Shiite-populated Eastern Province.

Saudi Arabia has been secretly obtaining help from Pakistan for its missile and nuclear program, the analysts report. Riyadh helped finance Pakistan's nuclear program precisely to ensure that the royal family will have a bomb in case of an emergency.

The Saudis have already obtained the perfect delivery system for nuclear warheads – the CSS-2 missile from China. Pakistan helped arrange the purchase of up to 60 CSS-2 missiles during the late 1980s. The missiles have a range of more than 1,500 kilometers – with some reports asserting that they can reach 3,000 kilometers.

More important, the payload capacity is large enough for a nuclear weapon.

Outwardly, the Saudis might be kissing their Iranian neighbors. But the royal family has always sought to balance the ambitions of Tehran. As late as 1999, Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz was seen touring Pakistani nuclear-weapons sites.

Saudi Arabia has neither the time nor the expertise for a nuclear program. The Saudis saw how Israel knocked out the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and set back Baghdad's program by a decade. Instead, the Saudis are expected to merely buy complete warheads and obtain Pakistani experts to maintain and operate the systems.

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[LSUfan]

I subscribe to GeoStrategyDirect, Stratfor and Jane's Inner Circle and GeoStrat is by far the best product and best value for the money. They uncover stories like this all the time that no one else seems to get. If you look in their archives, it is amazing the stuff that Morton and Gertz uncovered years ago that the so-called mainstream media is just reporting as new today.

I wonder, if the Saudis only have the Iranians in mind for their weapons ambitions. I am sure Israel is on their list and, with some of the radicals in the royal family itself, the West as well.

[stboz]

I suggest we help them with a few, pre-assembled kilograms of lithium-6 deuteride properly positioned with a few kilos of plutonium-239, some octol and of course all properly fused.....and timely detonated in their underwear.

[DannyTN]

"I wonder, if the Saudis only have the Iranians in mind for their weapons ambitions. I am sure Israel is on their list and, with some of the radicals in the royal family itself, the West as well."

1500km to 3000km is a lot more than they need if they are just worried about their neighbors.

Part of me says this is just game theory. Wouldn't every country say to itself, I need nukes or some big guy can come take everything I have?

The other part of me says there is one religion in the world that values domination over human life. Islam. And the worst fear is for an Islamic nation to have nukes, because they won't hesitate to use them.

[Orangedog]

I suggest we help them with a few, pre-assembled kilograms of lithium-6 deuteride properly positioned with a few kilos of plutonium-239, some octol and of course all properly fused.....and timely detonated in their underwear.

Damn!...going completely around atomic and straight to thermo-nuclear, for when you absolutely, positively have to blast chunks of the house of Saud all the way to Diego Garcia! ;)