Grave Concerns Over White House Efforts to Transfer Nuclear Tech to Saudi Arabia | Hacker News Reader

Grave Concerns Over White House Efforts to Transfer Nuclear Tech to Saudi Arabia

oversight.house.gov

130 pointsjonathanjaeger55 comments

Try to imagine the list of countries that you LEAST want to have nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has got to be up there along with North Korea, Iran and Syria. Who ever is trying to share this nuclear tech is taking a huge risk with everyones safety.

Who ever? It's the Trump administration, says so right at the top.

> taking a huge risk with everyones safety

You presume they have any interests that aren't self-serving. It's not a risk if you don't care about the consequence.

Pakistan - a nearly bankrupt, terrorism-infested, Islamic country - has had nuclear tech for decades. I'm pretty sure if Saudi Arabia wanted to buy nuclear tech from them it would only be a phone call and a few billion $ away.

Can someone explain how this would work? I'm rather certain that noone in the White House doesn't actually know how to construct a bomb... So, they'll have to order someone else (presumably someone in the military) to transfer those secrets. Why would that person listen to the executive branch, if what they would do would be illegal?

Things get very complicated when someone who has authority over you tells you to do something illegal. The president is commander-in-chief, and it's not the first time a president has given a command that's not strictly legal.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia don't have the agreements with the IAEA required for a party to the non-proliferation treaty to sell them regulated technology as they currently don't have any nuclear facilities.

But you know how Trump is with international treaties; I'd guess this is mostly about letting nuclear tech companies sell regulated tech in violation of the conditions of the NTP.

Here’s a link I found googling for the “Marshal Plan for the Middle East”. It’s from April 2018, and it goes in quite a lot of the details of this affair.

https://themoscowproject.org/explainers/seychelles-uae-georg...

And here’s the copy-paste of the section “Rationale”

“The Rationale

The deal had three main rationales motivating the various parties.

The Middle East Marshall Plan would have provided an excuse to remove sanctions against Russia. US businesses would need to work with sanctioned Russian entities. Striking a deal that the Administration could sell as bringing power and economic development to the Middle East, as well as bolstering the struggling US civilian nuclear industry, might have softened Congressional support for sanctions, particularly among Republicans. The deal would involve potentially hundreds of billions of dollars in profit. Why Erik Prince would care: Corporate documents projected the plan would generate “$250 billion in revenue for US companies.” Billions of dollars from a project requiring a lot of private security would pique the interest of Prince, head of a private security company. Why Tom Barrack would care: Tom Barrack was reportedly looking to invest in the US nuclear industry, which would have received a huge windfall. Why Russia would care: This deal could also involve massive investment in Russian state-owned companies, which could explain why the CEO of RDIF, Kirill Dmitriev was at the Seychelles meeting. Dmitriev is close to Putin and is charged with shepherding foreign investment into Russia. There was an economic policy and geopolitical incentive. Middle Eastern countries are legitimately seeking nuclear power to support their growing populations. The Gulf states’ participation would have supported regional economic development. More fundamentally, this would also serve a broader geostrategic objective for the Gulf. As part of this deal, Russia would likely need to shift or soften its approach toward Iran and Syria. In exchange, they would not only receive a huge economic windfall, but would become more closely aligned with the US and the wealthy Gulf states. For the UAE, a deal like this would cement a relationship with the new Trump administration. MbZ’s attendance – even though the other attendees were far lower ranking – could be explained by the huge investment required and the potential geopolitical stakes. “

This seems like a misunderstanding more than anything else. The cofounder of IP3 is a four star general in the US Army.

http://ip3international.com/member/general-ret-john-m-jack-k...

Uh, no. Pretty textbook nuclear proliferation, the KSA doesn't have the required treaties with the IAEA to buy a nuclear power plant from responsible parties of the NPT.

This doesn't matter to Bolton of course, because he simply hates international treaties on pure principle.

The best we can hope for is to weather the next two years without suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable, and that the brazen cronyism on display will be a reality-check for all who would otherwise dip their toes into casual corruption. God help us all.

> the next two years

By which, you surely mean, the next six.

> suffering damage to our nation that's truly irreparable

I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement (Who is left out of such agreements is an exercise for the reader.) The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage, that the political system is not at all designed (Or has the will) to deal with.

> By which, you surely mean, the next six.

I think we have a very good chance of un-electing him. He's alienated all but his most dedicated core base, and there's a huge list of Democratic primary candidates from which to whittle down the very strongest. Lots of people who voted for him did it with the mentality of "The establishment's bad; let's try something different. Drain the swamp. Things couldn't get any worse." Now those people are saying, "Oh."

> I think the past dozen presidential administrations have made it clear that good governance only happens by gentleman's agreement. The executive has no shortage of knobs, dials, and levers that it can pull on, to inflict 'irreperable' damage.

This is definitely true, unfortunately. A government is made of people, and no government system can withstand being populated by bad (or at least shortsighted) people. Most of those before Trump weren't massively better people than him, morally speaking. Even Obama quietly did some really shady things.

What they did have was tact, and intelligence, and self-control. They didn't take Putin's word over their own intelligence agencies (https://www.npr.org/2019/02/19/695646320/andrew-mccabe-fbi-i...). They didn't display such erratic behavior that their own white-house staff called psychiatrists to ask if they should be worried (https://splinternews.com/white-house-staffers-reportedly-tol...). They didn't have a nuclear football installed in their personal residence (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/06/pentagon-nuc...).

Whatever objectives his predecessors had, they knew those couldn't happen if they literally endangered the society underpinning them.

That's the root of the problem, though. You're bringing up symptoms of the problem, not the root causes.

The problem isn't that he has a nuclear football installed in his summer dacha.

The problem is that the nuclear football exists, and that there exist two men that can, at a whim, end the world.

Okay, but pragmatism dictates that we don't get a do-over with the governing structure of the most powerful nation on earth. We can work to make it better, but that's a long and slow process, and in the meantime we need to get the various buttons and dials out of the hands of a literal crazy person.

I'll put it this way: I disagree with Mike Pence politically on virtually every issue. But it would still be a massive relief for me if he finished up Trump's presidential term.

I'm curious why you think his re-election chances are so high?

Comparing to the post-WWII Presidents who failed to get a second term, Ford, Carter, and the first Bush, they all had much higher net approval ratings at almost all comparable times through their terms.

Carter and Ford both had approval ratings almost as low Trump's at this point, but they had much lower disapproval ratings, giving them much better nets.

Scroll down here for post-WWII President approval/disapproval/net rating charges over time compared to the current President over time [1].

[1] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/...

My reasoning is, that Democrats seem to be playing the same notes as for previous election (mainly social justice), except with more "socialism" (higher taxes). It seems unlikely that this time they succeed... unless they change strategy before the election, of course!

Your reasoning is not backed up by evidence.

In the 2016 election, "Social Justice" barely made the top ten issues people voted on[1] (#1, It's the economy, stupid!) The independents that swung for Trump were worried about their jobs (or lack thereof). His base was more concerned with social justice issues, but they would've voted for him anyway.

The democratic candidate, nor her running mate were widely known, or even running on social justice issues. [2]

Lastly a higher tax on the wealthy is highly popular, even in republican circles. As are some "socialist" type policies like medicare for all. [3]

[1] http://www.people-press.org/2016/07/07/4-top-voting-issues-i...

[2] https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jul/22...

[3] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/425422-a-m...

I don't understand how [1] makes your argument... Sure economy is important, but the question is, do the policies differ? Like, it's probably 99% important to voters that they elect a "natural-born American" but if both candidates fulfill this condition, it makes 0% of the decision to whom they will vote for.

I perceived (and I thought many other people did also) as Sanders running more on economic issues (equality, taxes, etc) and Hillary running more on social justice issues (deplorables, "woman card", equal pay, immigration, racial justice, etc)

> I perceived (and I thought many other people did also) as Sanders running more on economic issues (equality, taxes, etc) and Hillary running more on social justice issues (deplorables, "woman card", equal pay, immigration, racial justice, etc)

Most of the notable Democratic candidates are running far more heavily on economic issues than Clinton was, and even the more centrist ones like Gillibrand are campaigning on things that in 2016 were Sanders-exclusive signatures, like Medicare for All. Clinton may have won the 2016 nomination, but Sanders was a lot more influential on the trajectory of the party.

This seems to me to be a very pessimistic view.

I think that we the best we can hope for is that the government is rendered unusable, and that the world is able to proceed into the information age free from the constant malice of the hegemonic state.

Unfortunately large portions of our society rely on having a functioning government. If things fall apart, I doubt the masses rising in revolt will magically end up with a libertarian government. Something authoritarian is much more likely.

Better the devil you know.

I would say with two supreme Court justices appointed we're past the point of irreparable

The Constitution specifies a method for arresting damage by problematic Supreme Court justices.

Care to elaborate?

I think that an important principle of the American organization of power is accountability (that one which is "something left when responsibility is subtracted", according to a Scandinavian). I think that Supreme Court almost exclusively (meaningfully) interacts with the rest of the country via its decisions. I think that may mean that Supreme Court can be judged - and e.g. a justice impeached - solely on the basis of their decisions, as it's the only thing they do. Without this, I see a contradiction with the principle.

That means that if e.g. Congress finds some decisions of Supreme Court distorting Constitution, the Congress is justified in removing a justice solely on the basis of the decisions made by them.

Lol. Two supreme court justices. Permanent losses of billions in taxes. Russia meddling in our government. It's way too fucking late for hope that lasting damage doesn't occur. Even if this administration ended tomorrow, the damage is done for decades. Some can be reversed. Much can't. God didn't fucking help us.

I think Americans in most of their political discourse continue to miss the point. There's a significant portion of the country who voted for the guy and will vote for him again. He's just a symptom. Whatever it is that's making those people vote for him is where everyone's attention needs to be.

I think that some problems which caused voting for Trump are much harder to fix with Trump in the White House.

Some other problems can, unfortunately, be fixed (only) over a long run - e.g. an opinion that "America is primarily for whites".

For the most part, the lives of people who live in cities has gotten better over the last generation. They voted for the status quo.

For the most part, the lives of people who don't live in cities has not gotten better over the last generation, and they voted for change.

These differences are structural, and I don't think anybody knows how to make them better. You can tell people to give up their current lifestyle and move somewhere else with more opportunity and a completely different lifestyle, but that's a really hard sell.

I find it perplexing that the parent comment so confidently assumes that Trump will not be re-elected at the same time.

I mean, if I voted for Trump comments like these would make me want to vote for him again even more.

The Times submission around this was flagged. Considering this particular issue actually does have a few overlaps with tech, given the nature of Saudi investment/Softbank and the tech transfer (which often stays on the front page when it’s China), as well as nuclear (which also tends to stay on the front page) - it would be nice if this isn’t flagged and there could be a substantial discussion on it.

I've seen lots of unflagged articles on here about world events which aren't necessarily related to tech, and given that this is a .gov website, there shouldn't be (as much) concern about it being politically charged.

It's a news release from a representative's office. Surely a news article from a reputable outlet would be less "politically charged" (whatever that means)?

This is from the House Oversight committee, a group made up of a bipartisan group of congressmen whose job is to oversee, investigate and report on the actions of the executive branch.

Yes, it is from the committee, but after watching GOP-controlled House committees operate for the past eight years, it's hard to claim that they can't be partisan. I'm not claiming that it's not accurate (I'd expect it to be much more factual than anything the GOP would put out), but I'd expect a well-researched news article (with actual competent journalism—not just both-sides he-said-she-said garbage) to be less "political".

> given that this is a .gov website, there shouldn't be (as much) concern about it being politically charged.

Because government (in this case, a committee of the House of Representatives) is apolitical?

If Times is the NYTimes, I'd have flagged it had I seen it. It has a paywall, and I don't want inflammatory off-topic political stories on HN that I can't read.

As for substantial discussion, it'll take a few days before anything can really be considered. As scandals go, 'generals sell nuclear tech to countries enemies' doesn't scan as very believable, even for corrupt officials. Give 'em a chance to respond and see what gets said.

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