Saudi Arabia Special Weapons

"Saudi Arabia wants to build the entire nuclear fuel cycle. They want plants to make the fuel for the reactors, then reprocess the spent fuel rods when they are used up. The same centrifuges that spin uranium gas to enrich it to the low levels required for nuclear fuel can spin it to the high-levels for the cores of nuclear bombs. The same reprocessing plants that can break down used fuel rods for waste disposal can separate out the reactor-produced plutonium in those rods for use in nuclear bombs. With these plants, Saudi Arabia would have both pathways to the Bomb. The Hiroshima bomb was made of uranium; the Nagasaki bomb, plutonium." Joe Cirincione noted 29 August 2023.

If Iran were to obtain nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia would be forced to do the same, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in an interview with Fox News, extracts of which were published on 20 September 2023. “Any country getting a nuclear weapon – that’s a bad move,” the Crown Prince, widely referred to as MBS, replied when was asked how Riyadh would respond if Tehran became a nuclear power. “Even if Iran gets a nuclear weapon... any country using a nuclear weapon, that means they’re having a war with the rest of the world,” he said.

Global powers will come up with a joint response because “the world can’t see another Hiroshima. If the world sees 100,000 people dead – you are in a war with the rest of the world,” the Crown Prince explained. The Fox News journalist pressed MBS for a more direct answer on nuclear arms, asking: “If Iran get one, will you?” Prince bin Salman responded “If they get one, we have to get one”.

Saudi Arabia’s crown prince warned in a US television interview on 15 March 2018 that if Tehran got a nuclear weapon, his country would follow suit. “Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in an interview that aired on “CBS This Morning.”

In November 2018 MBS announced a project to build the first nuclear research reactor in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia had announced plans for a massive program to become “self-sufficient” in producing nuclear fuel. Preliminary plans suggested the Saudis may be looking to build as many as 17 light water power reactors in all.

The "New York Times" reported on 02 March 2019 that the Trump administration planned to sell Saudi Arabia a nuclear reactor that can be used in the production of nuclear weapons. The newspaper added that the senior adviser to US President Jared Kushner discussed with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the nuclear program of the Kingdom and the role of the United States to provide assistance in this area. The plan was to initially build two nuclear power stations, and to build 40 reactors in the end. The idea of selling nuclear reactor to Saudi Arabia involved a group of officials, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The Oversight Committee of the US House of Representatives issued a report about the existence of a secret plan by Trump, Saudi Arabia to provide details of sensitive technologies. The report pointed out that Trump personally oversaw the secret plan accelerates the transfer of sensitive nuclear energy technology to Saudi Arabia. According to the report, Trump's presidential team found a number of companies for the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, useful to Trump's efforts to transfer the nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia is still ongoing.

IP3 International, a private company, assembled a consortium of U.S. companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia. According to media reports, IP3’s only project to date is the Saudi nuclear plan. A key proponent of this nuclear effort was General Michael Flynn, who described himself in filings as an “advisor” to a subsidiary of IP3, IronBridge Group Inc., from June 2016 to December 2016—at the same time he was serving as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during the presidential campaign and the presidential transition. According to the whistleblowers, General Flynn continued to advocate for the adoption of the IP3 plan not only during the transition, but even after he joined the White House as President Trump’s National Security Advisor. General Flynn failed to report in his security clearance renewal application a trip he took to Saudi Arabia in June 2015 on behalf of IP3 and its predecessor company.

Saudi Arabia first opened a nuclear research center in the desert military complex at Al-Suleiyel, near Al-Kharj, in 1975. The Saudis also appear to be cultivating other options. In March 2015, Riyadh signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with South Korea to look into the possibility of building two nuclear reactors at a cost of about $2 billion.

Some concern remains that Saudi Arabia, like its neighbors, may be seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, apparently by purchase rather than indigenous development. While there is no direct evidence that Saudi Arabia has chosen a nuclear option, the Saudis had in place a foundation for building a nuclear deterrent.

It was reported in mid-September 2003 that Saudi Arabia had launched a strategic review that included acquiring nuclear weapons. A strategy paper being considered at the highest levels in Riyadh set out three options:

• To acquire a nuclear capability as a deterrent;
• To maintain or enter into an alliance with an existing nuclear power that would offer protection;
• To try to reach a regional agreement on having a nuclear-free Middle East.

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not considering acquiring a nuclear bomb or nuclear weapons of any kind," the Saudi Embassy in London said in a statement issued on 19 September 2003. "There is no atomic energy programme in any part of the kingdom and neither is one being considered," the statement said.

Since 2008, when the United States and Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding on nuclear energy cooperation, the U.S. administrations engaged in discussions and negotiations about nuclear cooperation with the Saudi government. However, these negotiations are stalled; the two countries have not been able to resolve disagreements on several nonproliferation conditions, including Saudi Arabia agreeing to enrichment and reprocessing restrictions and signing an Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which would allow IAEA to obtain additional information about and access to Saudi nuclear activities. Saudi Arabia may trigger a new kind of arms race in the Middle East, as leaders insist the Gulf state wants to match Iran's newly established nuclear enrichment capabilities. The nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran may allow Tehran to keep up to 5,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium. Saudi delegates to a rare summit of Gulf leaders with President Obama made it clear that the deal means they feel they must match Iran's level of enrichment. "We can’t sit back and be nowhere as Iran is allowed to retain much of its capability and amass its research," one Saudi delegate who wished to remain anonymous told the New York Times before the meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) began on 14 May 2015.

The former Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, also told a conference in South Korea, "Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too." Ironically, the avoidance of just such an arms race was a central argument of the Obama administration in favor of a deal that would include the ability to monitor Iran's program. "It is almost certain that other players in the region would feel it necessary to get their own nuclear weapons," Obama said in 2012.

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister refused to rule out that it will seek a nuclear weapon if archrival Iran becomes a threat. In an interview January 19, 2016, Reuters news agency asked Adel al-Jubeir whether Saudi Arabia would try to get a nuclear bomb if Iran obtained one, despite its agreement with six world powers. He responded that his country would do "whatever we need to do in order to protect our people."

Jubeir said the end of Western sanctions on Iran as part of the nuclear agreement would be welcome if Iran uses unfrozen funds to improve the living standards of its people. But he said if the funds "go to support the nefarious activities of the Iranian regime, this will be a negative and it will generate a pushback."

US Secretary of State John Kerry brushed off concerns the Saudis may try to get their hands on a nuclear weapon to counter a perceived Iranian threat. "You just can't buy a bomb and transfer it," Kerry told CNN television Jan 18, 2016, noting that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and international inspections would make such a thing very difficult. He also said possessing a nuclear bomb would not make Saudi Arabia safer.

In an interview aired on CBS News 15 Mrch 2018, crown prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia stated, "Saudi Arabia does not want to acquire any nuclear bomb, but without a doubt, if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we would follow suit as soon as possible.... Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened, happened. I don’t want to see the same events happening in the Middle East.”/p>

The US House Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa held a hearng on 21 March 2018, at which Subcomittee Chairman Ros-Lehtinen statedd " what should alarm us all is Saudi Arabia's insistence that it be allowed to have enrichment and reprocessing capabilities and statements about acquiring a nuclear weapon. The crown prince's interview just last week is reason enough to have the administration pump the brakes on the negotiations and insist that there will be no 123 Agreement that includes enriching and reprocessing.... the idea of Saudi Arabia having a nuclear program with the ability to enrich is a major national security concern. There are security risks to consider. As we all know, the Middle East is a region that's constantly ensnared in conflict and instability or on the verge of conflict and instability.... There are too many concerns. There is no justification for our friends in Saudi Arabia to have enrichment and reprocessing capabilities." /p>

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times broke stories on 4 and 5 August 2020, about the two suspect Saudi sites, seemingly based on a US intelligence agency report leak. The Wall Street Journal report focused on a facility, located in a remote desert near the Saudi city of al-Ula, for the production of yellowcake uranium ore (U3O8) concentrate. The New York Times article focused on a facility, near the town of al-Uyaynah near a solar-panel production area, which the Institute for Science and International Security reported appeared to have signatures of a uranium conversion plant. The two square buildings that ISIS analysts thought could be a Saudi nuclear facility are located near the Solar Village.

Confidential documents prepared for the kingdom by Chinese geologists were seen by the Guardian. Uranium reserves could produce over 90,000 tonnes of uranium from three major deposits in the center and northwest of the country. The report was compiled by the Beijing Research Institute of Uranium Geology (BRIUG) and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), working with the Saudi Geological Survey.

“If you are considering nuclear weapons development, the more indigenous your nuclear program is, the better. In some cases, foreign suppliers of uranium will require peaceful-use commitments from end users, so if your uranium is indigenous, you don’t have to be concerned about that constraint,” Mark Hibbs, senior fellow in the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, told the Guardian.

In 2019, a document, titled "Updates on Saudi National Atomic Energy Project” and posted by the Vienne-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), detailed a plan for building nuclear reactors as well as fueling them through the "localization” of uranium production. The kingdom was looking for uranium deposits in more than 10,000 square miles of its territory and had teamed up with Jordan to make yellowcake, according to the report. "The IAEA is unhappy with Saudi Arabia because they refuse to communicate about their existing program and where it is going,” said Robert Kelley, a former inspector for the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran's permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) called on the international organization on 09 August 2020 to probe into the "covert" nuclear program run by Saudi Arabia. Kazem Gharibabadi made the remarks after reports emerged about suspected attempts by the Riyadh regime to process uranium and move toward the development of atomic bombs.

"Although Saudi Arabia is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has a comprehensive bilateral safeguard agreement in place with the IAEA, it still refuses to abide by its commitments to the agency's inspections," he said, adding that the kingdom is developing and implementing “a very non-transparent” nuclear program. Gharibabadi also noted that Saudi Arabia has no active research reactor to make it capable of producing yellowcake - a semi-processed form of uranium that is the crucial ingredient for both nuclear power reactors and atomic bombs.

"This issue, along with covert Saudi measures in the nuclear field, its denial of access to IAEA inspectors, and destabilizing activities in the region, raises concerns about a secret nuclear weapons program in the country,” he pointed out.

The Iranian envoy said governments and the IAEA should make it clear to Saudi Arabia that the international community will not accept any “deviation” from a peaceful nuclear program and will confront it. "If Saudi Arabia seeks the peaceful use of nuclear energy, it must accept relevant IAEA commitments and act in full transparency," he said, urging the UN nuclear agency to deliver a report to its member states regarding the kingdom’s “secret” nuclear program.