By Henry Sokolski
Earlier this month, the House introduced a resolution of disapproval to the U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperative agreement. The resolution might fail but it’s likely only the opening round of a longer fight. Next year, the House and Senate may condition the deal’s implementation. This requires legislation, but the legislative door is largely open.
Under the Atomic Energy Act, Section 123a, the Kingdom can’t enrich U.S.-supplied material without prior consent. Such approvals were supposed to be given on a case-by-case basis, not with a one-time, long-term, programmatic authorization. Each of these “subsequent arrangements” also must sit for review before Congress for 15 legislative days.
Section 131 of the Act adds one more condition. It stipulates that the Executive must certify that it can assure “timely warning” of any military diversions for nuclear materials subject to U.S. consent. This is a technical determination that one can detect military diversions early enough to prevent them from resulting in a bomb.
These early diversion tip offs are not to be confused with the “timely detection“ alarms International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections must provide. To meet the timely detection criteria, the IAEA only has to detect a diversion before a bomb’s been built, which could be minutes before. In contrast, timely warnings must come early enough to allow sufficient time to intervene to prevent any bombs from being built — i.e., months to a year or more of warning.
For nearly a half century, the U.S. government fudged this. After Congress passed Section 131, the Energy and State Departments skipped defining the technical requirements of timely warning and instead focused on how politically “trustworthy” a country might be, granting programmatic advance consent to reprocess to countries, like Japan, almost entirely based on their assessment of the country’s political dependability. The White House is poised to do the same for nuclear fuel making in Saudi Arabia. That’s a mistake.
Mohammed Bin Salman and his lieutenants have repeatedly warned that the Kingdom must get a bomb if Iran does. Enrichment would allow it to become nuclear weapons-ready, much like Iran.
Section 131 doesn’t mention uranium enrichment, but its procedures must be followed for enrichment approvals. Under the Saudi agreement, a two-year study is to be conducted to examine the merits of enriching uranium but it doesn’t mention the requirement of timely warning.
Congress should correct this. Before any U.S.-supported enrichment in the Kingdom can begin, Congress should stipulate that the Executive must certify how it will assure timely warning. Congress should legislate that the United States cannot help the Kingdom make nuclear fuel before both houses of Congress vote by a majority to approve this certification.
Clearing this hurdle won’t be easy. Making nuclear fuel entails the processing of gases, liquids, and powders. Tracking these materials requires measuring particles and molecules instead of counting large multi-ton fresh and spent nuclear fuel assemblies. The latter can be done with a high accuracy. The former cannot. In fact, past monitoring of British and Japanese nuclear fuel making lost track of hundreds of kilograms of nuclear weapons usable materials. Only several kilograms are needed to make a bomb.
Then, there is abrupt diversion — the time between seizing a “peaceful” nuclear plant and diverting it to building a complete bomb. This can be measured in days or weeks. Timely warning requires at least several months.
Unfortunately, the Saudi nuclear deal is silent on these matters. Some suggest they can technically “black box” nuclear fuel making to prevent the Saudis from hijacking these processes to make bombs. They should know better. The Biden Administration and Israeli government tested that proposition. The red teams’ verdict: It won’t work.
Some accept this. They insist if Washington doesn’t back Saudi nuclear fuel making, the Chinese and Russians will. But neither Beijing nor Moscow currently offer fuel making to any nation and would only start if the United States did.
Others claim building an illicit weapons program can’t be hidden. But it has. Israel’s, India’s, and South Africa’s nuclear weapons programs caught Washington off guard. We haven’t done much better with Riyadh. Washington failed to detect Saudi importation of Chinese nuclear weapons-capable missiles and the factories to make them, as well as secret Chinese uranium mining and milling assistance. By the time Washington officials confirmed these transactions, it was too late to block them.
Bottom line: When it comes to Saudi nuclear fuel making, Congress should distrust and verify. At the very least, Congress should demand the Energy Department explain how it intends to get timely warning of a nuclear-armed Saudi Arabia. Then, it should vote if it’s convinced. If it isn’t, no U.S. nuclear fuel making assistance to the Kingdom should be allowed.
Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. He was deputy for nonproliferation policy in the Department of Defense (1989–1993), and is the author of China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War (2024). This commentary first appeared in The National Interest. This article first appeared in RealClearDefense.