Saudi Missile Claims

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A former intelligence contractor is claiming that China finally got around to selling Saudi Arabia some new missiles to replace the ones it bought two decades ago. Jonathan Scherck decided he couldn’t wait for classification review and has been emailing a self-published manuscript to members of Congress and Jeff Stein, who runs the Washington Post’s Spy Talk blog:

“I believe the People’s Republic of China delivered a turn-key nuclear ballistic missile system to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia over the course of several years beginning no later than December 2003,” writes Jonathan Scherck in a self-published book, “Patriot Lost,” which he provided to SpyTalk on Monday.

[snip]

Scherck, who became convinced that the White House was covering up the China-Saudi nuclear connection so as not to damage relations with a major U.S. ally and oil supplier, said he formed his conclusions while reading intelligence reports from Riyadh during his 18 months on “the Saudi account” in the Near East Division between 2005 and 2007, as well as talking with other CIA personnel in contact with the Bush White House.

I’ve wasted the better part of a day on a long post (see below).

Apart from my annoyance at the phrase “nuclear ballistic missile” — this ain’t Timberwind, pal — the bottom line is, sure, the Saudis were eventually going to get around to buying a replacement system for the decrepit CSS-2 (DF-3) ballistic missiles they bought from China more than two decades ago. That doesn’t have anything to do with nuclear weapons, which I don’t believe for a second the Chinese sold Saudi Arabia."
Arms Control

Why not, the Russians sold them to Iran