Posted on 05/11/2005 7:01:28 PM PDT by white trash redneck
Investigative writer Gerald Posner reveals something most extraordinary in Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection, his book to be published by Random House later this month: that the Saudi government may have rigged its oil and gas infrastructure with a self-destruct system that would keep it out of commission for decades. If true, this could undermine the world economy at any time.
Posner starts by recalling various hints that Americans dropped back in the 1970s, that the high price and limited production of oil might lead to a U.S. invasion of Saudi Arabia and a seizure of its oil fields. For example, in 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger murkily threatened the Saudis with a double-negative: “I am not saying that there’s no circumstances where we would not use force” against them.
In response, Posner shows, the Saudi leadership began to think of ways to prevent such an occurrence. They could not do so the usual way, by building up their military, for that would be futile against the much stronger U.S. forces. So the monarchy – one of the most creative and underestimated political forces in modern history – set out instead to use indirection and deterrence. Rather than mount defenses of its oil installations, it did just the opposite, inserting a clandestine network of explosives designed to render the vast oil and gas infrastructure inoperable – and not just temporarily but for a long period.
That is the finding that Posner, author of ten books (including Case Closed, the definitive account of the John F. Kennedy assassination) details in a chapter titled “Scorched Earth,” based on intelligence intercepts he gained access to. The Saudi planning began in earnest, he reports, after the Kuwait war of 1990-91, when the Iraqis left behind an inferno of oil-field fires … which, to everyone’s amazement, was extinguished within months, not years. In response, the Saudis thought of ways to assure their oil would stay off the market. They began:
exploring the possibility of a single-button self-destruct system, protected with a series of built-in fail-safes. It was evidently their way to ensure that if someone else grabbed the world’s largest oil reserves and forced them to flee the country they had founded, the House of Saud could at least make certain that what they left behind was worthless.
This became a top-priority project for the kingdom. Posner provides considerable detail about the mechanics of the sabotage system, how it relied on unmarked Semtex from Czechoslovakia for explosives and on radiation dispersal devices (RDDs) to contaminate the sites and make the oil unusable for a generation. The latter possibilities included one or more radioactive elements such as rubidium, cesium 137, and strontium 90.
Collecting the latter materials, Posner explains, was not difficult for they are not useable in a nuclear weapon and no one had the creativity to anticipate Saudi intentions:
It is almost impossible to imagine that anyone could have thought a country might obtain such material … and then divert small amounts internally into explosive devices that could render large swaths of their own country uninhabitable for years.
Saudi engineers apparently then placed explosives and RDDs throughout their oil and gas infrastructure, secretly, redundantly, and exhaustively.
The oil fields themselves, the lifeline for future production, are wired … to eliminate not only significant wells, but also trained personnel, the computerized systems that seemingly rival NASA’s at times, the pipelines that carry the oil from the fields …, the state-of-the-art water facilities (water is injected into the fields to push out oil), power operations, and even power transmission in the region.
Nor is that all; the Saudis also sabotaged their pipelines, pumping stations, generators, refineries, storage containers, and export facilities, including the ports and off-shore oil-loading facilities.
The sabotage was not finished at some date and left in place; rather, Posner emphasizes, it is an ongoing operation, disguised as regular upkeep or security enhancements. He recounts, for example, that the Saudis were “particularly proud when in 2002 they were able to insert a smaller, more sophisticated network of high-density explosives into two gas-oil separation plants.”
Posner raises the possibility that this entire scenario is a Saudi piece of theater, meant to deter an outside force but without any reality. Until someone can check for explosives, there is no way of discerning if it is real or bluff. Another limiting factor: the Semtex explosive only has a few more years of useful life in it, expiring in about 2012-13.
That said, planners must operate on the assumption the sabotage system is in place and prepare for the consequences. If this single-button self-destruct system does exist and were used, what would be its impact? The U.S. and other governments hold about 1.3 billion barrels of oil and gas in strategic reserves, a stock that would last about six months. Disaster would follow, Posner posits. “Once the strategic reserves proved inadequate, a nuclear environment in Saudi Arabia would create crippling oil price increases, political instability, and economic recessions unrivaled since the 1930s.”
If such a system is in place, two implications leap to mind. Should the Saudi monarchy retain its grip on power (which I consider likely), it has created for itself a unique deterrence against invasion. But, should the monarchy be replaced by an Islamic emirate in the spirit of Afghanistan’s Taliban (its main challenger for power), this ferociously anti-Western government would have at its disposal a cataclysmic suicide-bomber capacity; with one push of a button, conceivably, it could shake the world order. And it would be highly inclined to do just that.
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15814#c0077
#77 Kenneth 5/11/2005 01:13PM PDT
The alleged Saudi plot to booby-trap their oil industry with dirty bombs is an interesting theory, until you start to think about it. Here are a few reasons why it's nonsense.
Firstly, the threat is rather overblown. The isotopes cited all produce low energy beta radiation and are dangerous only if ingested or inhaled. Their presence might be hazardous and likely to cause panic in a city with a large population, but not at remote oil wells and pipeline installations, where the few workers required for service could easily be protected.
Secondly, the logistics don't make sense. Assume a small oil installation of 1 square kilometer. 1 tonne of material dispersed over that area would result in a concentration of only 10 micrograms per square centimeter, barely greater than background radiation levels. The entire Saudi oil infrastructure would require hundreds of thousands of tonnes of these isotopes. Is there any evidence such quantities have been obtained by the Saudis? I don't think so. In any event, the contamination would not stay in place due to wind errosion (it's a sandy desert out there!) I would be more worried about a getting a sun burn, than the effect of 10 micrograms of Sr 90 on my shoes.
Finally, petroleum is not chemically reactive to Sr, Cs or Rb. If the materials were introduced to the oil reservoirs, the isotopes could easily be removed during the normal refining processes. In fact, Sr & Cs both bind readily with sand, which is a rather effective filtering material especially plentiful in Arabia. On the other hand, Rb ignites in air and reacts violently with water, making it easily retrievable.
In short, the risk of such "dirty bombs" is minimal, the amount of material required is unrealistic, & the contamination will just blow away. Which is, I believe, what the author is trying to do: huff & puff and blow away at a junk-science political thriller.
It should be made quite clear to the Saudis that if they were to blow up their oil infrastructure, their country would never belong to them again (should any of them be left alive to live in it).
too far fetched. something this big, alot of people there would know about it and would have talked.
What a crock. Saudi Arabia needs our money more than we need their oil.
If the Saudis destroyed their oil production they would return to the dark ages of clan warfare fighting over precious drops of water and what little food they can scavenge.
They have 24,000,000 (by their count) today.
:-)
Frankly the thought of seeing the Arab world return to their half starved nomadic past makes me that much more anxious for alternative energy.
That is the real truth. People don't blow up their money even if they are crazed Muslims.
Yep, employees of the many Western (ie, American/European) oil field service companies that contract in Saudi Arabia would very quickly notice something like that.
My take on this: it's an author trying to drum up book sales by capitalizing on the mistrust of Arabs we've all been feeling the last couple of years.
ThreeTracks
the royal family could care less about that, they could jump on planes to Europe and live off their foreign investments - and let their people go down the tubes.
They'd be shot down flying to Europe.
The world (including Europe) wouldn't be real happy. After all there are plenty of European oil companies operating out of the mideast.
A three-word solution: "Haliburton Profits Nicely."
by who? the US? no way, the saudis provide the retirement plans for many beauracrats in our own government.
This was my conclusion, after reading this article. Besides, I'm not a fan of Posner, because he claims "Case Closed" about how Lee Harvey Oswald was "the lone gunman," when the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. I don't have any more confidence in Posner than I do in David Brock, as a research journalist.
Char :)
Doesn't worry me. If the Saudis are stupid enough to destroy their most valuable asset, then fair play to them and don't come looking to me for handouts.
If an AQ-type regime takes power and blows the oil, then what of it. A - They still have the right to since it is their commodity and B - I'd prefer an impoverishged regime of this type than a clever one which kept selling oil at high rates and using the money to fund their own plans.
Anna Huffington's failed blog was hyping this too. I visited her blog from a thread on FR here that described how bad it was.
Sounds like strait hogwash.
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