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| International |
| Soddies talking (nuclear) cooperation with Pakland? |
| 2002-08-03 |
| US officials have confirmed reports that senior Saudi officials have discussed the prospect of nuclear weapons co-operation with Pakistan, Washington DC based World Tribune.Com reports in Thursday issue. I saw the World Tribune article and passed on it â it's not the World's most reliable Tribune. Now Balochistan Post has picked it up â and it's not really reliable, either... The basis of World Tribune report is a US report published in the State Departmentâs strategic journal cited Saudi interest and stressed that the Saudi kingdom does not have nuclear weapons. The report appears in the latest issue of the State Departmentâs âUS Foreign Policy Agenda.â The journal was published on the departmentâs web site and focused on the topic âWeapons of Mass Destruction: The New Strategic Framework.â There's the link to the original, if you want it. The writer doesn't set out to make the case that the Soddies are going for WMD, and any evidence presented is pretty flimsy... âSaudi Arabia does not have weapons of mass destruction,â the report, authored by former Pentagon official Anthony Cordesman, said. âIt did, however, buy long-range CSS-2 ballistic missiles from China. Very senior Saudi officials have held conversations with officials involved in the Pakistani nuclear programme, and possibly with similar officials in other countries.âUS officials said Saudi leaders have also discussed the procurement of new Pakistani intermediate-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. They said Saudi officials were invited to tour Pakistanâs nuclear weapons facilities and that no sale has been concluded. The Arabians have been snuggling up with the Paks on the military front, mostly, I think, because the Paks have the prestige of having developed an "Islamic" nuclear weapon. I think they might see the Paks as protectors of the Protectors of the Holy Places. While they have the money and other resources to develop their own program, I think doing so would invite the wrong kind of attention from the wrong quarters; they'd have to produce them overnight and present a fait accompli, or risk having the project "disrupted" by the Americans or the Israelis, and possibly by a few other regional forces who wouldn't want to admit involvement. Friday prayers often include the Heathen Hindoos, remember. The Saudi military isn't very large â there aren't enough Saudis to sustain a large force; the population is about 22.7 million, and of these 5.3 million are "expats." That makes it rather smaller than Iraq, which has almost the same population but without the foreign labor. Total military manpower is about 162,000, which includes 105,500 regulars. Despite being one of the world's largest weapons importers, they have not historically been military adventurers. It's easier, more efficient, and in the long run cheaper to work behind the scenes and through proxies. That's what leads me to believe they'll prefer to contract out any nuclear adventurism, and have someone else take the hit. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |