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Pakistan-Saudi trade nuke tech for oil
Should be read with salt firmly in hand, although frankly, I believe this report; especially since the Saudis partially funded the Paki nuclear program
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. In Washington, Mohammed Sadiq, Pakistan’s deputy chief of mission, said Monday the report about Pakistan and Saudi Arabia reaching agreement on nuclear cooperation was "totally wrong."
No, no! Certainly not!"
"This is against our policy. Pakistan would never proliferate its nuclear technology. It’s a very clear policy. This was not even discussed in the talks we held with the Saudis in Islamabad this week. It was not even on the agenda. It is out of the question."
"Unless they give us money, of course..."
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.
He’s lucky he wasn’t eaten.
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.
That would make for some interesting trilateral talks
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. In their private talks, 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.
And what army has a finer record that the Pakistanis? Apart from the infidel French, of course.
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."
Libya is also said to have a nuke program, things could get very interesting in the next few years if the Bush administration’s ’domino theory’ doesn’t work.
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 madrassas (Koranic schools). Pakistani officials are also fearful that the Bush administration 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.
I shudder to think...
To this day, the Saudi clergy continues to fund Pakistan’s madrassas that are a substitute for the country’s non-existent national education system. The only schools outside madrassas 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.
They make for cheap and willing cannon fodder while the Princes, Generals and Mullahs fantasise about their Khalifah.
Musharraf, in a milestone speech three months before Sept. 11, 2001, denounced the danger of these schools and urged syllabus reform. 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.
If the Pakistanis are very good, the Saudis just might let Qazi and Hafiz Saeed rule over the revived Mughal Empire, and let Hamid Gul and the Army serve as the Khalifah’s Imperial Guard. Of course the Al-Sauds will have to work out some sort of compromise with the ultra-radical Islamists like al-Hawali, but i’m sure they would be able to renew the Saud-Wahabi alliance. But just who gets to wear the bejewelled turban?
Posted by: Paul Moloney 2003-10-21
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=20154