“Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear program, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reported in its latest edition [..] Cicero, which will appear on newstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons ‘because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear program.’” AFX
Indeed. As Gal Luft and Anne Korin wrote in March 2004:
“If the Saudis opted to acquire their own bomb, they would likely become the first nuclear power to have bought one off the shelf. Were this to happen, it would represent the culmination of a Sino- Saudi-Pakistani nuclear project that began in May 1974 when, following India’s ascension to the nuclear club, China sent scientists to assist Pakistan in developing that country’s own nuclear program. By the early 1980′s, China had supplied the Pakistanis with enough enriched uranium to build a few weapons. In 2001, the CIA reported that China was continuing to lend “extensive support” to Pakistan’s program. Today, Pakistan is estimated to have an arsenal of between 35 and 60 nuclear weapons.
“How did Pakistan, with its grinding poverty, pay for this expensive project? Some of the costs were undoubtedly carried by the Chinese in pursuit of their own interests, including their rivalry with India. But considerable evidence suggests that Saudi Arabia played a part as well. In May 1999, a year after Pakistan’s first nuclear test, Prince Sultan, escorted by then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif, toured the country’s uranium-enrichment and missile-production facilities at Kahuta – the only foreign dignitary allowed into a facility that was off-limits even to then-president Benazir Bhutto. There he was briefed by Abdul Qader Khan, the controversial father of Pakistan’s “Islamic bomb.” In 2002, Khan, in turn, led a delegation of Pakistanis to Saudi Arabia as personal guests of Prince Sultan. All told, according to Robert Baer, Saudi Arabia has poured over $1 billion into Pakistan’s nuclear program. ”