Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?

Wall Street Journal:

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[RTIII]

The ONLY "good" thing about this:

Bush can negotiate treaties like this, but CONGRESS has to approve them...

[paulbikes]

I think at the bare realistic minimum, we need to reduce our nuclear capabilities to just enough to blow up the earth one time, i think 8+ times is overkill, but thats just me.

[demfriend]

The House Of Saud has long been close and dear friends of the bush family. That they majority of the 9/11 guys came from the country has meant little in the scheme of things with the administration so why should any nuke support shock us? OPEC has made record profits and we are paying record prices for gas/oil/fuel and how does that compute? Bush asked his oil buddies for a price and increase in oil production break and they said they could do nothing to help. It's all speculation that has fueled the increase they say. It is partly true but the speculation is also fueled by OPEC and what is expected of the oil producing countries. It all forms a circle which comes back to why the economy has exploded in the negative in the past few years and it all rests on the desk of the president who specializes in bankrupting businesses when left to his own.

[joebhed]

I think the deeper parallel between this Saudi insanity and our nuclear assistance to the Shah after the overthrow of Mossadegh by the CIA in Iran is this.

NUCLEAR IS FOREVER.
Regimes come and go.

So the bad guys who replaced the good guys can be replaced by some really bad guys, and then some total crazies.

Every nuclear plant built anywhere in the world ought to be considered on this basis.

Take a look at the global map of a hundred years ago.
Then 200 years ago.

The deadly 'by-ptroducts" of nuclear fission must be kept isolated from the environment and from any of those crazies for thousands of years.
Thousands of years.

We can't make nuclear power safe anywhere in the world.
We tried an Atoms For Peace Program.
Guess what?
It didn't work.

Markey is right that the Saudi's could be financing technological breakthroughs for solar energy development.
Hopefully Obama will negate these deals, if Mr. Exelon and the NEI allow him to do so.

[LivingStardust]

Because he's a treasonous traitor in bed with the country that DID attack us, Saudi Arabia. What? You not paying attention yet?

[LeaveArtieAlone]

What would be fitting is if Bush and Cheney were sent off to Gitmo for decades without a trail.

[macknn]

Soon they will help some african countries with nuclear program, since they are getting more oil in africa than anywhere else.

[macknn]

I don't know if i am getting this right or wrong. I believe that 9 of the 11 9/11 highjackers were from saudi Arabia. Now , what country do you think has a link of the terrorists Iraq or Saudi.

[drblack]

Bush believes what religious extremist Hagee tells him.
McClellan even said the Hagee could call Bush and talk whenever he wanted to.
Bush wants to start a nuclear war because that will bring back jesus.
THis is what the right wing christian extremists want.
I hope people are beginning to understand why it is so dangerous to allow religion to make public policy instead of reason.
The right wing christians want to start a nuclear war so that jesus will take them away.
These are dangerous people. The christian extremists are way more dangerous to the US than any foreign enemy.

[lisakaz2]

Guess Bu$hie doesn't mind if the hijackers next time have a nuke stolen from the Saudi govt. This is CRIMINALLY STOOOOPID.

[ddharder]

Ok, let me get this straight. An extremist, Muslim government in the ME has a nuke program and the US saber rattles and the neo cons, including their darling daughter aslo-ran is calling to turn them into a sea of glass. Meanwhile, an extremist Muslim government in the ME has a nuke program and we are helping them build it.

Double standard anyone?

[BadCompany]

Why not help them get nuclear power?
It seems likely that they bought nuclear bombs a long time ago.

[sawdustinhershoes]

Bushs have been buddies with the Saudi Royal Family forever.  The fact that we're getting reamed on the price of oil AND the Saudis have not always supported Bush in Iraq, speaks volumes.  They call the shots.
The US must become energy independent as fast as possible.A­nd, Bush needs to be shut down, NOW.  Our Congress is responsible for not stopping this man. He is not and never has been the president of this country. A­ll he and his cronies wanted was hegemony in the Middle East.Chene­y represents Haliburton. He has given them enough treasure to make them more powerful than most governments. This administration has simply been CEOs for the US oil companies. Oil company execs are by definition not good stewards of anything but their profits.  That's why we don't have our "leaders" asking us to cut down on our oil consumption or they didn't tell US car manufacturers to make more fuel efficient vehicles.  That's why Cheney wrote the US energy policy behind closed doors and gave billions in tax gifts to oil, and no support for alternative renewable energy. That's why everything is so fucked-up.­These guys decry government, yet they use our government to build their business to the point that it is untouchable by our government, and they use their business to suck our country's treasury dry.  I liked "government by the people" better than fascist control by Haliburton and EXXON.

[MessageForceMultiplier]

This is just the latest advance in the Bush non-proliferation policy: giving nuke technology to our "allies."

[robXdion]

Funny, when Michael Moorer said this in "Fahrenheit 9-11", everyone got mad. It was, "How dare you attack our nobel, gracious, and honest Dear Leader?!"

Bush isn't the only one getting brought down a notch. So are the American people who were 85% behind him in 2002.

[ibsteve2u]

This, in the WSJ? WTF? is this an "act of contrition", or more Murdoch camouflage?

Not that I can differ with the sentiments and implications that Rep. Markey outlines..­.