November 15-2013
Saudi Arabia feels confident it can get complete nuclear weapons from Pakistan if Iran ever decides to build nuclear weapons on its own, the BBC reported last Wednesday.
The BBC itself expressed some doubts Pakistan would ever do that, given the international uproar that would likely result.
But BBC reporter Mark Urban said multiple sources told it the Saudis believe they can get the weapons. One source even said that Pakistan has already built weapons for the Saudis that are available for delivery when and if the Saudis ask.
The Saudis are widely believed to have provided Pakistan with substantial capital to pay for its nuclear weapons program and thus to have effectively bought stock in the program.
If this were true, it would mean Saudi Arabia could become nuclear-armed even before Iran, since the Saudis would order up the weapons on the first word that Iran had diverted any nuclear materials and could be building a bomb.
Saudi Arabia already has missiles—bought from China in the 1980s—that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching Iran. Those missiles are big and can carry a heavy warhead. But they are not very accurate and thus next-to-useless if they just carry conventional explosives.
`The BBC’s Urban reported, “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.”
And last month, Amos Yadlin, a retired head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They have already paid for the bomb; they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”
Gary Samore, until March President Obama’s counter-proliferation aide, has told the BBC, “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.”
Allegations of a Saudi-Pakistani nuclear deal have circulated since the 1990s, but have been denied by Saudi officials.
Significantly, handing over atom bombs to a foreign government could create huge political difficulties for Pakistan. The United States and Russia would likely jointly express their fury. And the World Bank and other donors, crucial to Pakistan’s economic well-being, could very well shut off the money tap.
In the book “Eating the Grass,” a history of the Pakistani nuclear program, Major General Feroz Hassan Khan wrote that Saudi Prince Sultan’s visits to Pakistan’s atomic labs were not proof of an agreement between the two countries. But he wrote, “Saudi Arabia provided generous financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue.”
Samore said that after 2003, following the US invasion of Iraq, serious strains in the US/Saudi relationship began to appear. The Saudis resented the removal of Saddam Hussein, had long been unhappy about US policy on Israel, and were growing increasingly concerned about Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2007, the US mission in Riyadh reported 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.
The BBC notes that by the end of that decade Saudi princes and officials were giving explicit warnings of their intention to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did. Last year, a Saudi official in Riyadh told a journalist from The Times of London, “It would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom.”
But the BBC said these statements could well have been bluster, aimed simply at urging a stronger US line on Iran.
However, an unnamed senior Pakistani official talking to the BBC said:
“What did we think the Saudis were giving us all that money for? It wasn’t charity.”
And a retired Pakistani intelligence officer said he believes Pakistan maintains “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.”
Samore said, “I think just giving Saudi Arabia a handful of nuclear weapons would be a very provocative action. I’ve always thought … the most likely option, if Pakistan were to honor any agreement, would 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 both counties would need to agree for the missiles to be launched.
But the BBC said others it spoke with thought that was not credible, since Saudi Arabia would want complete control of its nuclear deterrent.