Posted on 10/20/2003 12:42:26 PM PDT by milestogo
Pakistan-Saudi trade nuke tech for oil By Arnaud de Borchgrave ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have concluded a secret agreement on nuclear cooperation, an unimpeachable source said Monday. "It will be vehemently denied by both countries," added this ranking Pakistani source known to this correspondent for more than a decade as a knowledgeable insider, "but future events will confirm that Pakistan has agreed to provide KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) with the wherewithal for a nuclear deterrent." In a lightning, hastily arranged, 26-hour "state visit" in Islamabad, Crown Prince Abdullah Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, flew across the Arabian Sea with an entourage of 200, including Foreign Minister Prince Saud and several Cabinet ministers. The pro-American Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan, who is next in line to succeed to the throne after Abdullah, was not part of the delegation. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf met Abdullah at the airport and saw him off Sunday night with a 21-gun salute. The CIA believes that Pakistan already exported nuclear know-how to North Korea in exchange for missile technology. Last year, a Pakistani C-130 was spotted by satellite loading North Korean missiles at Pyongyang airport. Pakistan said this was a straight purchase for cash and denied a nuclear quid pro quo. This correspondent and the chief of staff of the North Korean Air Force stayed at the same Islamabad hotel in May 2001. "Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia," the Pakistani source explained, "see a world that is moving from non-proliferation to proliferation of nuclear weapons." Pakistan, under the late dictator Gen. Zia ul-Haq decided to pursue the nuclear option following India's first nuclear test in 1974. Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is now estimated at between 35 and 60 weapons. The Sunni Saudis have concluded that nothing will deter Shiite Iran from continuing its quest for nuclear weapons. Pakistan, on the other hand, is openly concerned about the recent armaments agreement between India, its nuclear rival, and Israel, a long-time nuclear power whose inventory is estimated at between 200 and 400 weapons. Iran and India, located on either side of Pakistan, have also signed a strategic agreement whose aim is regarded with suspicion in Islamabad. Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafrullah Jamali is scheduled to fly to Tehran later this week to sound out Iranian leaders on the reasons for the defense deal with New Delhi. To counter what Pakistani and Saudi leaders regard as a multiregional threats, they have decided quietly to move ahead with a two-way exchange - free or cheap oil for nuclear know-how and expertise. Pakistani pilots have been employed as contract pilots for the Royal Saudi Air Force for the past 30 years. Several hundred thousand Pakistani workers are employed by the Gulf states, both as skilled and unskilled workers, and their remittances are a hard currency boon for the Pakistani Treasury. In their private talks, according to the United Press International source, Abdullah and Musharraf also discussed the possibility of Pakistan supplying troops, not to Iraq, but to the kingdom. Abdullah can see that the world's largest oil reserves look increasingly vulnerable over the next 10 years. By mutual agreement, U.S. forces withdrew from Saudi Arabia earlier this year to relocate across the border in the tiny oil sheikhdom of Qatar. Saudi officials also remind their interlocutors that a closed meeting -- later well publicized -- of the U.S. Defense Policy Board in 2002 listened to an expert explain, with a 16-slide presentation, why and how the United States should seize and occupy Saudi oilfields in the country's eastern province. Richard Perle was then the chairman of the Pentagon-funded Defense Policy Board. Later in 2002, he resigned the chairmanship following a conflict with his business interests, but he remains a member of the influential panel. Perle is also known throughout the Middle East as one of the key architects of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a former strategic adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu while the latter was Israel's prime minister. The denials of any secret nuclear agreement between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the source said, "must be seen in the same context as Iranian denials about its own nuclear weapons plans." Prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with the United Arab Emirates, were the only countries that recognized and aided Afghanistan's Taliban regime that had been educated in Pakistan's madrasas (Koranic schools). Taliban is now resurgent along the mountainous regions that straddle the Pakistan-Afghan border. Pakistani and U.S. Special Forces have been working the area in tandem since last summer to flush out Taliban and al-Qaida high altitude hideouts. Pakistani officials are also fearful that the Bush admin will leave them in the lurch after al-Qaida leader Osama bin laden has been killed or captured. They also speculate about what the policy would be in the event of a Democratic Party victory in the 2004 U.S. elections. To this day, the Saudi clergy continues to fund Pakistan's madrasas that are a substitute for the country's non-existent national education system. The only schools outside madrasas are expensive private institutions. Pakistan, with a crushing defense burden, only spends 1.7 percent of GDP on education (vs. 8 percent in India and 16.5 percent in the United States). Some 12,000 Koranic schools provide free room and board to some 700,000 Pakistani boys (ages 6 to 16) where they are taught to read and write in Urdu and Arabic and recite the Koran by heart. No other disciplines are practiced, but students are proselytized with anti-American, anti-Israeli and anti-Indian propaganda. By the time they graduate, the majority is convinced that becoming a jihadi, or holy warrior, is the only way to block America's alleged plans to destroy Islam. Musharraf, in a milestone speech three months before Sept. 11, 2001, denounced the danger of these schools and urged syllabus reform. "We are producing terrorists," he warned at the time. But all attempts at reform have been blocked by the mullahs with the support of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal -- a coalition of the six major politico-religious parties -- that now governs two of Pakistan's four provinces. Musharraf has opted for appeasement of the MMA rather than confrontation. At the state banquet for Saudi Arabia's Abdullah, the principal MMA chieftains were invited and attended. The two traditional mainstream parties were not present. They were pointedly left off the guest list. Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
UPI Editor in Chief
Published 10/20/2003 12:20 PM
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Yup. The Saudis funded "The Muslim Bomb" through the the old BCCI bank.
SLBM Bump.
Pakistan's dependence on China grew as Western export controls and enforcement mechanisms have grown more stringent. China's nuclear assistance predates the 1986 Sino-Pakistani atomic cooperation agreement, with some of the most critical transfers occurring from 1980 through 1985. China is reported to have provided Pakistan with the design of one of its warheads, as well as sufficient HEU for a few weapons. The 25-kiloton design was the one used in China's fourth nuclear test, which was an atmospheric test using a ballistic missile launch. This configuration is said to be a fairly sophisticated design, with each warhead weighing considerably less than the unwieldy, first-generation US and Soviet weapons which weighed several thousand kilograms. Pakistan Foreign Minister Yakub Khan was present at the Chinese Lop Nor test site to witness the test of a small nuclear device in May 1983, giving rise to speculation that a Pakistani-assembled device was detonated in this test.
Evidently, however, the jump-start provided by A.Q. Khan's trove of documents was an insufficient basis for a dependable Uranium program. Chinese assistance in the development of gas centrifuges at Kahuta was indicated by the presence of Chinese technicians at the facility in the early 1980s. The uranium enrichment facility began operating in the early 1980s, but suffered serious start up problems. In early 1996 it was reported that the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratory had received 5,000 ring magnets, which can be used in gas centrifuges, from a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation.
But you're right about the cloudsgatheringtippingpoint.
By 1973..Israel was said to have 25+ nukes.
Pakistan makes claims after tests..tests which cannot be confirmed...which afford Pakistan spin room to make claims that they are masters of "Boosted Fission" weapons.
There are Hugo nukes...and their are *Cadillac nukes.
Israel has been playing with lazers to refine their core devices...doing this for decades.
Janes Intel and others can only guess at what Israels nuclear arsenal is..est at 400+ 1997.
Islamic nations have low yeild nukes..and can only offer each other..low yield nukes,...this set against Israels Arrow 2 and other intercept options.
Unless Islam can physically transport a nuke to Israel..say a container ship..they are not likley to get one over Israel.
They reliability of Islamic missiles is low...the distance abilities are low..the missile is limited in what it can loft as per warhead size.
It may seem like they are a threat..but they are not.,that is..unless thye can get one into Haifa on a container ship.
Cuz their not likely to fly one over..not even succeed via missile launch,...not from Sinai,Syria,or Saudiland.
To succeed..they would have to fire more than 10.
Israel would respond by sending them to oblivion.
Tents of Islam may crow.....but they would wet themselves in the Mosque if a nuke was really launched at Israel.
Never give nukes to terrorists and those who advocate and sponsor it...
"From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."
President GW Bush
Well......almost......any nation.....
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