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| Saudi denies missile ties with China |
| 2004-02-17 |
| Saudi Arabia denied today that it was cooperating with China on missiles and might seek nuclear weapons from Pakistan. A day without a Saudi denial is a day without sunshine. A US official told Reuters in Washington that the Bush administration was "concerned about what the Saudis are getting from the Chinese in terms of missiles". One US official said there was no evidence Pakistan had helped Saudi Arabia with a nuclear programme, but another official said "there is always concern even if the information is flimsy". I think it’s a little more than "flimsy", and a little less than "smoking hole in the ground". The Saudi Press Agency said today that a responsible source at the defence ministry "denied the Reuters report, the substance of which was that US officials believe that China is cooperating with the Kingdom over access to Chinese missiles". A defence ministry official said the report was "fabricated and baseless, and reiterated that the kingdom continues to seek a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction," the agency said. AKA - The "Disarm the Jews" program. The Reuters report quoted US officials as saying senior US and Chinese officials meeting this week in Beijing were expected to discuss the US concerns about continuing Chinese cooperation with Saudi Arabia on missiles. The report said ballistic missiles’ ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction would be especially worrisome if Islamic radicals took control in Riyadh or if the current Saudi rulers felt threatened by an Iranian nuclear bomb. It said experts had speculated that Saudi Arabia had helped bankroll the Pakistani nuclear programme with the expectation that at some point it would gain access to a nuclear weapon. Well, it is known as the "Islamic Bomb", not the "Pak Bomb". The Reuters report quoted Richard Russell of Georgetown University as saying the Saudis "already have in place a foundation for building a nuclear weapons deterrent". In the mid-1980s, Riyadh secretly negotiated a US$3 billion ($4.29 billion) purchase of 50 to 60 Chinese CSS-2 missiles with a range of 4000km, US officials have said. Must be typo, CSS-2 "East Wind" has a reported range of 2,500km with a 2,000kg payload. Riyadh and Beijing said the missiles had conventional warheads and rebuffed US requests to inspect them, Russell said. Conventional warhead? Not with a 2.5km CEP, it don’t. That’s a nuclear warhead carrier, period. "It is well past time for Washington to renew calls for independent inspection of the Saudi missiles to ensure that they are armed as the Chinese and Saudis claim, and that ballistic missile modernisation efforts are not under way," he said. See if the Chinese technicians are still there as well. They were supposed to be doing installation and maintenance, which is the only reason I’d expect them to be able to fly. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Read the Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum! It is not a religious book. It's about treasure seekers attempt to find the gold of exodus and instead discover a top secret missle site at what they believe is the true Mt. Sinai (in Saudi - not Egypt). The US has known since the mid 1980's that the China has been working with the Saudi's Project Falcon, the King's project to build a nuclear bomb at any cost. I must have read that book 10 years ago, at least. But if we knew it then, why is it such a big surprise now? |
| Posted by: B 2004-2-17 1:18:03 PM |