Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan

effetti della debolezza americana in medioriente, una alleanza si regge 
sulla reciproca convenienza, i Sauditi evidentemente non trovano piï¿œ 
convenienza nel sostenere la politica di inazione totale del presidente 
Obama in un medioriente sconvolto dalle rivolte interne e 
dall'incertezza politica, preferiscono iniziare a pensare a fare da se 
visto che altri 'aiuti' non arrivano se non addirittura arrivano 'aiuti' 
contrari al loro interesse come accaduto in Egitto...
 
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846
 
 
Saudi nuclear weapons 'on order' from Pakistan
 
Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and 
believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have 
told BBC Newsnight.
 
While the kingdom's quest has often been set in the context of 
countering Iran's atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis 
might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.
 
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.
 
Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, 
told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, "the Saudis will 
not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to 
Pakistan and bring what they need to bring."
 
Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US 
special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the 
threshold, "we will get nuclear weapons", the kingdom has sent the 
Americans numerous signals of its intentions.
 
Gary Samore, until March 2013 President Barack Obama's 
counter-proliferation adviser, has told Newsnight:
 
"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."
 
The story of Saudi Arabia's project - including the acquisition of 
missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads over long ranges - goes 
back decades.
 
In the late 1980s they secretly bought dozens of CSS-2 ballistic 
missiles from China.
 
These rockets, considered by many experts too inaccurate for use as 
conventional weapons, were deployed 20 years ago.
 
This summer experts at defence publishers Jane's reported the completion 
of a new Saudi CSS-2 base with missile launch rails aligned with Israel 
and Iran.
 
It has also been clear for many years that Saudi Arabia has given 
generous financial assistance to Pakistan's defence sector, including, 
western experts allege, to its missile and nuclear labs.
 
Visits by the then Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al 
Saud to the Pakistani nuclear research centre in 1999 and 2002 
underlined the closeness of the defence relationship.
 
In its quest for a strategic deterrent against India, Pakistan 
co-operated closely with China which sold them missiles and provided the 
design for a nuclear warhead.
 
The Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan was accused by western 
intelligence agencies of selling atomic know-how and uranium enrichment 
centrifuges to Libya and North Korea.
 
AQ Khan is also believed to have passed the Chinese nuclear weapon 
design to those countries. This blueprint was for a device engineered to 
fit on the CSS-2 missile, i.e the same type sold to Saudi Arabia.
 
Because of this circumstantial evidence, allegations of a 
Saudi-Pakistani nuclear deal started to circulate even in the 1990s, but 
were denied by Saudi officials.
 
They noted that their country had signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, 
and called for a nuclear-free Middle East, pointing to Israel's 
possession of such weapons.
 
The fact that handing over atom bombs to a foreign government could 
create huge political difficulties for Pakistan, not least with the 
World Bank and other donors, added to scepticism about those early claims.
 
In Eating the Grass, his semi-official history of the Pakistani nuclear 
program, Major General Feroz Hassan Khan wrote that Prince Sultan's 
visits to Pakistan's atomic labs were not proof of an agreement between 
the two countries. But he acknowledged, "Saudi Arabia provided generous 
financial support to Pakistan that enabled the nuclear program to continue."
 
Whatever understandings did or did not exist between the two countries 
in the 1990s, it was around 2003 that the kingdom started serious 
strategic thinking about its changing security environment and the 
prospect of nuclear proliferation.
 
A paper leaked that year by senior Saudi officials mapped out three 
possible responses - to acquire their own nuclear weapons, to enter into 
an arrangement with another nuclear power to protect the kingdom, or to 
rely on the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
 
It was around the same time, following the US invasion of Iraq, that 
serious strains in the US/Saudi relationship began to show themselves, 
says Gary Samore.
 
The Saudis resented the removal of Saddam Hussein, had long been unhappy 
about US policy on Israel, and were growing increasingly concerned about 
the Iranian nuclear program.
 
In the years that followed, diplomatic chatter about Saudi-Pakistani 
nuclear cooperation began to increase.
 
In 2007, the US mission in Riyadh noted 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.
 
By the end of that decade Saudi princes and officials were giving 
explicit warnings of their intention to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran did.
 
Having warned the Americans in private for years, last year Saudi 
officials in Riyadh escalated it to a public warning, telling a 
journalist from the Times "it would be completely unacceptable to have 
Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom".
 
But were these statements bluster, aimed at forcing a stronger US line 
on Iran, or were they evidence of a deliberate, long-term plan for a 
Saudi bomb? Both, is the answer I have received from former key officials.
 
One senior Pakistani, speaking on background terms, confirmed the broad 
nature of the deal - probably unwritten - his country had reached with 
the kingdom and asked rhetorically "what did we think the Saudis were 
giving us all that money for? It wasn't charity."
 
Another, a one-time intelligence officer from the same country, said he 
believed "the Pakistanis certainly maintain 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."
 
As for the seriousness of the Saudi threat to make good on the deal, 
Simon Henderson, Director of the Global Gulf and Energy Policy Program 
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told BBC Newsnight 
"the Saudis speak about Iran and nuclear matters very seriously. They 
don't bluff on this issue."
 
Talking to many serving and former officials about this over the past 
few months, the only real debate I have found is about how exactly the 
Saudi Arabians would redeem the bargain with Pakistan.
 
Some think it is a cash-and-carry deal for warheads, the first of those 
options sketched out by the Saudis back in 2003; others that it is the 
second, an arrangement under which Pakistani nuclear forces could be 
deployed in the kingdom.
 
Gary Samore, considering these questions at the centre of the US 
intelligence and policy web, at the White House until earlier this year, 
thinks that what he calls, "the Nato model", is more likely.
 
However ,"I think just giving Saudi Arabia a handful of nuclear weapons 
would be a very provocative action", says Gary Samore.
 
He adds: "I've always thought it was much more likely - the most likely 
option if Pakistan were to honour any agreement would be for 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 they would need to agree in order for 
'Saudi Arabian' "nukes" to be launched.
 
Others I have spoken to think this is not credible, since Saudi Arabia, 
which regards itself as the leader of the broader Sunni Islamic 'ummah' 
or community, would want complete control of its nuclear deterrent, 
particularly at this time of worsening sectarian confrontation with Shia 
Iran.
 
Map of Saudi Arabia
And it is Israeli information - that Saudi Arabia is now ready to take 
delivery of finished warheads for its long-range missiles - that informs 
some recent US and Nato intelligence reporting. Israel of course shares 
Saudi Arabia's motive in wanting to worry the US into containing Iran.
 
Amos Yadlin declined to be interviewed for our BBC Newsnight report, but 
told me by email that "unlike other potential regional threats, the 
Saudi one is very credible and imminent."
 
Even if this view is accurate there are many good reasons for Saudi 
Arabia to leave its nuclear warheads in Pakistan for the time being.
 
Doing so allows the kingdom to deny there are any on its soil. It avoids 
challenging Iran to cross the nuclear threshold in response, and it 
insulates Pakistan from the international opprobrium of being seen to 
operate an atomic cash-and-carry.
 
These assumptions though may not be safe for much longer. The US 
diplomatic thaw with Iran has touched deep insecurities in Riyadh, which 
fears that any deal to constrain the Islamic republic's nuclear program 
would be ineffective.
 
Earlier this month the Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to 
Washington Prince Bandar announced that the kingdom would be distancing 
itself more from the US.
 
While investigating this, I have heard rumours on the diplomatic 
grapevine, that Pakistan has recently actually delivered Shaheen mobile 
ballistic missiles to Saudi Arabia, minus warheads.
 
These reports, still unconfirmed, would suggest an ability to deploy 
nuclear weapons in the kingdom, and mount them on an effective, modern, 
missile system more quickly than some analysts had previously imagined.
 
In Egypt, Saudi Arabia showed itself ready to step in with large-scale 
backing following the military overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi's 
government.
 
There is a message here for Pakistan, of Riyadh being ready to replace 
US military assistance or World Bank loans, if standing with Saudi 
Arabia causes a country to lose them.
 
Newsnight contacted both the Pakistani and Saudi governments. The 
Pakistan Foreign Ministry has described our story as "speculative, 
mischievous and baseless".
 
It adds: "Pakistan is a responsible nuclear weapon state with robust 
command and control structures and comprehensive export controls."
 
The Saudi embassy in London has also issued a statement pointing out 
that the Kingdom is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and has 
worked for a nuclear free Middle East.
 
But it also points out that the UN's "failure to make the Middle East a 
nuclear free zone is one of the reasons the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 
rejected the offer of a seat on the UN Security Council".
 
It says the Saudi Foreign Minister has stressed that this lack of 
international action "has put the region under the threat of a time bomb 
that cannot easily be defused by manoeuvring around it".

 dall'incertezza politica
 
se le rivolte sono finanziate e armate dai sauditi, sono cazzi loro gestirsele. Prima o poi al bambino saudita va fatto capire che chi rompe paga e si tiene i cocci.
In ogni caso l'atomica pakistana non è mai stata monopolio pakistano, è nata e cresciuta in joint venture tra Arabia, Iran, Libia e Pakistan, con l'accordo che chi la costruiva metteva a disposizione degli altri tutte le tecnologie per farsi un'atomica propria
http://mazzetta.iobloggo.com/962/libero-kahn-liberi-tutti-libere-le-atomiche/&cid=312166
 
Ma l'accordo è di 40 anni fa, non di oggi.

 Ma l'accordo č di 40 anni fa, non di oggi.
 
bene cosě allora, che la proliferazione nucleare continui, speriamo che 
un giorno Iran e Arabia Saudita non si nuclearizzino fra di loro e con 
essi le maggiori riserve petrolifere mondiali...