Saudi
nuclear weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan, BBC Report.
Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and
believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told
BBC Newsnight.
While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of
countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be
able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.
Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen
intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi
Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.
Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence,
told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will
not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan
and bring what they need to bring."
Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US
special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the
threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the
Americans numerous signals of its intentions.
Gary Samore, until March 2013 President Barack Obama's
counter-proliferation adviser, has told Newsnight:
Gary Samore served
as President Barack Obama's WMD tsar
"I do think that the Saudis believe that they have some
understanding with Pakistan that, in extremis, they would have claim to acquire
nuclear weapons from Pakistan."
“Start Quote
What did we think the Saudis were giving us all that money for? It
wasn't charity”
Senior Pakistani
official
The story of Saudi Arabia's project - including the acquisition of
missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads over long ranges - goes back
decades.
In the late 1980s they secretly bought dozens of CSS-2 ballistic missiles
from China.
These rockets, considered by many experts too inaccurate for use as
conventional weapons, were deployed 20 years ago.
This summer experts at defence publishers Jane's reported the completion of
a new Saudi CSS-2 base with missile launch rails aligned with Israel and Iran.
It has also been clear for many years that Saudi Arabia has given
generous financial assistance to Pakistan's defence sector, including, western
experts allege, to its missile and nuclear labs.
Visits by the then Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al
Saud to the Pakistani nuclear research centre in 1999 and 2002 underlined the
closeness of the defence relationship.
Defence publisher
Jane’s revealed the existence of Saudi Arabia’s third and undisclosed
intermediate-range ballistic missile site, approximately 200 km southwest of
Riyadh
In its quest for a strategic deterrent against India, Pakistan
co-operated closely with China which sold them missiles and provided the design
for a nuclear warhead.
The Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer
Khan was accused by western intelligence agencies of
selling atomic know-how and uranium enrichment centrifuges to Libya and North
Korea.
AQ Khan is also believed to have passed the Chinese nuclear weapon
design to those countries. This blueprint was for a device engineered to fit on
the CSS-2 missile, i.e the same type sold to Saudi Arabia.
Because of this circumstantial evidence, allegations of a
Saudi-Pakistani nuclear deal started to circulate even in the 1990s, but were
denied by Saudi officials.
They noted that their country had signed the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and called for a nuclear-free Middle East, pointing to
Israel's possession of such weapons.
The fact that handing over atom bombs to a foreign government could
create huge political difficulties for Pakistan, not least with the World Bank
and other donors, added to scepticism about those early claims.
“Start Quote
The Saudis speak about Iran and nuclear matters very seriously. They
don't bluff on this issue”
Simon HendersonDirector
of Global Gulf and Energy Policy Program, Washington Institute
In Eating the Grass,
his semi-official history of the Pakistani nuclear program, Major General Feroz
Hassan Khan wrote that Prince Sultan's visits to Pakistan's atomic labs were
not proof of an agreement between the two countries. But he acknowledged,
"Saudi Arabia provided generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled
the nuclear program to continue."
Whatever understandings did or did not exist between the two countries
in the 1990s, it was around 2003 that the kingdom started serious strategic
thinking about its changing security environment and the prospect of nuclear
proliferation.
A paper leaked that year by senior Saudi officials mapped out three
possible responses - to acquire their own nuclear weapons, to enter into an
arrangement with another nuclear power to protect the kingdom, or to rely on
the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
It was around the same time, following the US invasion of Iraq, that
serious strains in the US/Saudi relationship began to show themselves, says
Gary Samore.
The Saudis resented the removal of Saddam Hussein, had long been unhappy
about US policy on Israel, and were growing increasingly concerned about the
Iranian nuclear program.
In the years that followed, diplomatic chatter about Saudi-Pakistani
nuclear cooperation began to increase.
In 2007, the US mission in Riyadh noted they were being asked questions
by Pakistani diplomats about US knowledge of "Saudi-Pakistani nuclear
cooperation".
The unnamed Pakistanis opined that "it is logical for the Saudis to
step in as the physical 'protector'" of the Arab world by seeking nuclear
weapons, according to one of the State Department cables posted by Wikileaks.
By the end of that decade Saudi princes and officials were giving
explicit warnings of their intention to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did.
Having warned the Americans in private for years, last year Saudi
officials in Riyadh escalated it to a public warning, telling a journalist from
the Times "it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear
capability and not the kingdom".
But were these statements bluster, aimed at forcing a stronger US line
on Iran, or were they evidence of a deliberate, long-term plan for a Saudi
bomb? Both, is the answer I have received from former key officials.
One senior Pakistani, speaking on background terms, confirmed the broad
nature of the deal - probably unwritten - his country had reached with the
kingdom and asked rhetorically "what did we think the Saudis were giving
us all that money for? It wasn't charity."
Another, a one-time intelligence officer from the same country, said he
believed "the Pakistanis certainly maintain a certain number of warheads
on the basis that if the Saudis were to ask for them at any given time they
would immediately be transferred."
As for the seriousness of the Saudi threat to make good on the deal,
Simon Henderson, Director of the Global Gulf and Energy Policy Program at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy, told BBC Newsnight "the Saudis speak about Iran and
nuclear matters very seriously. They don't bluff on this issue."
Talking to many serving and former officials about this over the past
few months, the only real debate I have found is about how exactly the Saudi
Arabians would redeem the bargain with Pakistan.
Some think it is a cash-and-carry deal for warheads, the first of those
options sketched out by the Saudis back in 2003; others that it is the second,
an arrangement under which Pakistani nuclear forces could be deployed in the
kingdom.
Gary Samore, considering these questions at the centre of the US
intelligence and policy web, at the White House until earlier this year, thinks
that what he calls, "the Nato model", is more likely.
However ,"I think just giving Saudi Arabia a handful of nuclear
weapons would be a very provocative action", says Gary Samore.
He adds: "I've always thought it was much more likely - the most
likely option if Pakistan were to honour any agreement would be for be for
Pakistan to send its own forces, its own troops armed with nuclear weapons and
with delivery systems to be deployed in Saudi Arabia".
This would give a big political advantage to Pakistan since it would
allow them to deny that they had simply handed over the weapons, but implies a
dual key system in which they would need to agree in order for 'Saudi Arabian'
"nukes" to be launched.
Others I have spoken to think this is not credible, since Saudi Arabia,
which regards itself as the leader of the broader Sunni Islamic 'ummah' or
community, would want complete control of its nuclear deterrent, particularly
at this time of worsening sectarian confrontation with Shia Iran.
And it is Israeli information - that Saudi Arabia is now ready to take
delivery of finished warheads for its long-range missiles - that informs some
recent US and Nato intelligence reporting. Israel of course shares Saudi
Arabia's motive in wanting to worry the US into containing Iran.
Amos Yadlin declined to be interviewed for our BBC Newsnight report, but
told me by email that "unlike other potential regional threats, the Saudi
one is very credible and imminent."
Even if this view is accurate there are many good reasons for Saudi
Arabia to leave its nuclear warheads in Pakistan for the time being.
Doing so allows the kingdom to deny there are any on its soil. It avoids
challenging Iran to cross the nuclear threshold in response, and it insulates
Pakistan from the international opprobrium of being seen to operate an atomic
cash-and-carry.
These assumptions though may not be safe for much longer. The US
diplomatic thaw with Iran has touched deep insecurities in Riyadh, which fears
that any deal to constrain the Islamic republic's nuclear program would be
ineffective.
Earlier this month the Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to
Washington Prince Bandar announced that the kingdom would be distancing itself
more from the US.
While investigating this, I have heard rumours on the diplomatic
grapevine, that Pakistan has recently actually delivered Shaheen mobile
ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia, minus warheads.
These reports, still unconfirmed, would suggest an ability to deploy
nuclear weapons in the kingdom, and mount them on an effective, modern, missile
system more quickly than some analysts had previously imagined.
In Egypt, Saudi Arabia showed itself ready to step in with large-scale
backing following the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi's
government.
There is a message here for Pakistan, of Riyadh being ready to replace
US military assistance or World Bank loans, if standing with Saudi Arabia
causes a country to lose them.
Newsnight contacted both the Pakistani and Saudi governments. The
Pakistan Foreign Ministry has described our story as "speculative,
mischievous and baseless".
It adds: "Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapon state with
robust command and control structures and comprehensive export controls."
The Saudi embassy in London has also issued a statement pointing out
that the Kingdom is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has worked
for a nuclear free Middle East.
But it also points out that the UN's "failure to make the Middle
East a nuclear free zone is one of the reasons the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
rejected the offer of a seat on the UN Security Council".
It says the Saudi Foreign Minister has stressed that this lack of
international action "has put the region under the threat of a time bomb
that cannot easily be defused by manoeuvring around it".
Watch more from Mark Urban on Saudi Arabia on Newsnight on Wednesday 6
November 2013 at 2230 on BBC Two, and then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.
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