House Opens Inquiry Into Proposed US Nuclear Venture In Saudi Arabia (nytimes.com) 155
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: President Trump's former national security adviser and other White House officials pushed a venture to bring nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia over repeated legal and ethical warnings that potential conflicts of interest around the plan could put American security at risk, concluded a new report from House Democrats released on Tuesday. The 24-page report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee outlined actions taken in the early weeks of the Trump administration to secure government backing to have American companies build dozens of nuclear power plants across Saudi Arabia, potentially at the risk of spreading nuclear weapons technology. But House Democrats said there was evidence that as recently as last week, the White House was still considering the proposal.
Claims presented by whistle-blowers and White House documents obtained by the committee show that the company backing the nuclear plan, IP3 International, and its allies in the White House were working so closely that the company sent a draft memo to the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, to circulate just days after the inauguration. Mr. Flynn had worked on the plan for IP3 during the Trump campaign and transition, the Democrats said, and continued to advocate for it in the White House. Even after Mr. Flynn left the White House in February 2017, officials on the National Security Council pushed ahead, the Democrats said, ignoring advice from the N.S.C.'s ethics counsel and other lawyers to cease all work on the plan because of potentially illegal conflicts. At a March 2017 meeting, a National Security Council aide tried to revive the IP3 plan "so that Jared Kushner can present it to the President for approval," the Democratic report said, a reference to Mr. Trump's son-in-law and top adviser. The draft memo also referenced another close Trump associate, Thomas J. Barrack, who served as chairman of the president's inaugural committee. It said that Mr. Trump had appointed Mr. Barrack as a special representative to implement the plan, which it called "the Middle East Marshall Plan." The memo also directed agencies to support Mr. Barrack's efforts.
Claims presented by whistle-blowers and White House documents obtained by the committee show that the company backing the nuclear plan, IP3 International, and its allies in the White House were working so closely that the company sent a draft memo to the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, to circulate just days after the inauguration. Mr. Flynn had worked on the plan for IP3 during the Trump campaign and transition, the Democrats said, and continued to advocate for it in the White House. Even after Mr. Flynn left the White House in February 2017, officials on the National Security Council pushed ahead, the Democrats said, ignoring advice from the N.S.C.'s ethics counsel and other lawyers to cease all work on the plan because of potentially illegal conflicts. At a March 2017 meeting, a National Security Council aide tried to revive the IP3 plan "so that Jared Kushner can present it to the President for approval," the Democratic report said, a reference to Mr. Trump's son-in-law and top adviser. The draft memo also referenced another close Trump associate, Thomas J. Barrack, who served as chairman of the president's inaugural committee. It said that Mr. Trump had appointed Mr. Barrack as a special representative to implement the plan, which it called "the Middle East Marshall Plan." The memo also directed agencies to support Mr. Barrack's efforts.
Post the same on Uranium One for credibility (Score:1, Informative)
Pretty damn sure Jussie Smollett pretty much made a mockery of the claim that the media isn't biased
Why are Democrats so racist? (Score:1)
Are they implying that Arabs cannot be trusted with nuclear materials? So intolerant and hateful...
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Iranians are Persian, not Arabic. Why are you so racist if you care about how racist other people are? Is it possible you're more racist than you yourself find acceptable, but are somehow completely unaware of your bullshit double-standard?
So let me get this straight (Score:1)
The US is freaking out about Iran and their nuclear ambitions (and rightly so), but they will build nukes all over saudi arabia, the perpetrators of 911?
How does that make any sense what so ever?
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The US is freaking out about Iran and their nuclear ambitions (and rightly so), but they will build nukes all over saudi arabia, the perpetrators of 911?
How does that make any sense what so ever?
That fact you don't have the capacity to distinguish between Saudi Arabia and AL Qaeda makes you a great target for the left. You'll just eat up whatever they feed you.
Have fun in your blissfulness. Here's a snack!
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Lots of US weapons sales. Lots of US tech exported and staff in Saudi Arabia.
The USA cant get past the optics of the US embassy and the Iran hostage crisis. The image of the C130 tanker aircraft.
Saudi Arabia as a friend of the USA for many decades gets turn key nuclear power.
Trump the traitor lies, so his idiots follow suit (Score:1)
Your assertion that Obama "gave Iran the bomb" by getting them to agree to halt production and open themselves to inspections.... is beyond dishonest, you're actually a lying traitor faggot propagandist at that point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal_framework
Learn to read, Trump traitors. - Or prison is going to be that much less enlightening for you.
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Your assertion that Obama "gave Iran the bomb" by getting them to agree to halt production and open themselves to inspections.... is beyond dishonest, you're actually a lying traitor faggot propagandist at that point.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal_framework
Learn to read, Trump traitors. - Or prison is going to be that much less enlightening for you.
You're a fucking idiot. Yeah, you are.
Obama was a FOOL over Middle East policy. Literally, a FOOL:
Syrian regime linked to over 300 chemical attacks – report [timesofisrael.com]
The Syrian regime and government-backed militias have carried out over 300 chemical attacks in the war-torn country, according to a report published Sunday.
The research, published by the Global Public Policy Institute [gppi.net], shows there were at least 336 chemical attacks over the course of the civil war in Syria, with 98 percent of them carried out by President Bashar Assad’s regime. The remaining 2% of attacks could be attributed to the Islamic State terrorist group.
Your boy Obumbles created a "red line" and said that if Syria used chemical and crossed that red line, the US would do something.
So, tell us, bright boy. What did Obumbles do about Syrian use of chemical weapons?
Yeah, nothing.
And now you want to believe Obumble's claims about what Iran would do are credible?
Grow a brain. You need to.
Gee, let
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Obama de facto giving Iran - and the crazy medieval trolls that run it - a path to nuclear weapons
Note: Believing this statement requires ignoring:
1) The laws of physics - you can't remove the radioactive evidence in 20 days.
2) The inspection system that was successful up until Trump stopped it.
3) That the Iranians built their facilities under a few different mountains, so no one can actually stop them using military force. Leaving diplomatic agreements as the only possible way to get Iran to not build a nuke.
4) That Iraq was a totally wonderful achievement for the US, and invading Iran would be even b
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That this is moderated as "Troll" speaks volumes about slashdot. Oh my how the times have changed.
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Reality has a well-known liberal bias, so it's perfectly understandable that pointing out reality must be trolling.
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Obama delivered at least $33 billion dollars to Iran, much of it in unmarked cargo planes in the middle of the night.
No, actually it was a wire transfer. The Shah's government put some money in US banks, and we impounded it when the revolution happened in 1979. Part of the deal was to return the money to the current government of Iran.
It turns out when you're making a diplomatic agreement, you have to give the other side a reason to agree.
You have to be an absolute fucking evil piece of shit to hand-wave that, and the subsequent death of thousands which it paid for.
You seem to be under the illusion that Iran does not make a shitload of money selling oil on the open market. You also seem to be unaware that religious fanatics will kill for a very
Drain the swamp, right kids? (Score:1)
A violation of the Atomics Act, completely rejected and rebuffed by the Security Council, and yet still being pushed despite secretly set to enrich Trump's cronies. #Drain the swamp and sell the country to the Saudis.
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Done and done. They are leaving them in Pakistan, for now. Politics.
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Nuclear is for more always on energy to grow trade, business, 24/7 production lines.
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Saudi Arabia gets 90%+ of their electricity from oil and natural gas. To make a profit on oil they have to export it, not burn it locally. To stop burning it for electricity they need something to replace it. They may be building lots of solar but they are also building nuclear. It seems they plan to build far more nuclear than solar. If solar power cannot support Saudi Arabia then it's not likely to work anywhere else either. Their lack of faith in solar power should concern us all.
A citation:
https:/ [wikipedia.org]
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Export the oil and use nuclear for domestic energy production.
Perception (Score:5, Insightful)
Aluminium and Steel from Canada? National Security Risk.
Wahhabi Nuclear? Potential profit!
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Aluminium and Steel from Canada? National Security Risk.
Know one of the reasons why we won WWII? Manufacturing capacity.
You were saying?
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Well, if you keep electing presidents like Trump, we just might be, along with the rest of your allies. /s
Re:Perception (Score:4, Informative)
German cars....that are built in South Carolina.
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You are a complete fucking partisan idiot. You wouldn't be able to see reality if it slapped you across the face and kicked you in the nuts. The next time you want to post what someone else thinks, remember: you're a fucking idiot and don't actually know. Why is it you lie so fucking much?
Jesus, just get off the fence please.
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I actually thought giving the Saudis access to non-weaponizable forms of nuclear power was a decent idea for this reason. However it would still be illegal, counter to all of US foreign policy, and massively hypocritical after Trump's harping on the fact-free Uranium One conspiracy theory.
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Cool. You picked up on the ruse.
Iran said that before you did, though.
Learn to read what I wrote (Score:2, Interesting)
Learn to read yourself. This is about (A) nuclear power, as the summary notes, and (B) my own personal observation that everyone complaining now was very, very quiet when we were giving money to Iron to help support a much more direct nuclear power -> nuclear weapons route.
It's fine if you want to complain now about Saudi Arabia getting nuclear weapons - as long as you were complaining then.
Personally I am on the fence about SA getting nuclear weapons, but I still support helping them obtain nuclear pow
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There is nothing Trump supporters won't defend. (Score:5, Insightful)
Literally nothing. He's giving nuclear technology to a nation that hates Israel and funds and supplies terrorists.
They still 100% support him unconditionally.
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Litmus test:
Is locking up innocent children in cages wrong? Or is it okay if they are brown?
99.995% of Trump voters fail this test.
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Yeah. It's a pretty simple test. The answers are:
"No." and "No."
You failed.
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The answers are:
"No." and "No."
You failed.
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I don't know why this is so difficult. It's actually very simple.
The answers are:
"No." and "No."
You failed.
Re: There is nothing Trump supporters won't defend (Score:2)
The answer is no and no.
You failed
I do defend this (Score:2)
I don't defend this
I was disappointed in Trump also when I read a headline saying he was giving them nuclear weapons.
But when I read the actual details, as per usual the fact is Trump is doing nothing wrong and giving someone access to clean nuclear power is quite a lot different from giving them nuclear weapons. Especially Saudi Arabia which is one of the more responsible nations in the region (yes even AFTER assassinating a kind-of journalist, they are one of the better ones!).
I think Trump has pretty pi
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Your justification on why Saudi Arabia can have nuclear power (with safeguards) also apply to Iran
Must be nice to live in such ignorance, of the thousands of enrichment machines Iran has expressly for building nuclear weapons, an effort which by the way they have been engaged in before and after the nuclear deal, while allowing no inspection of most facilities.
Vastly different cases.
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It doesn't produce plutonium in useful quantities, nor does it teach you much, if anything, about designing the equipment that does produce Pu in useful quantities.
They don't want to produce Plutonium . . . they want to produce Polonium. Very useful for getting rid of pests like Jamal Khashoggi. The butchering in the Istanbul was very messy. Polonium poisoning would have been much cleaner.
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You used to be able to buy polonium brushes, used in film photography to get rid of static charges.
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As I said. Literally nothing they won't defend.
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More like literally nothing you will not misunderstand.
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But we were told it was when Iraq wanted to build nuclear power plants so that they could use them to replace oil fired electricity generators and export the oil instead. The US government wouldn't have lied to us, would they?
Saudia Arabia Supports israel now (Score:2)
He's giving nuclear technology to a nation that hates Israel
I guess you are kind of behind the times, Saudi Arabia has had a bit of a leadership turnover and now at the prompting of the U.S. supports Israel [bbc.com].
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He's giving nuclear technology to a nation that hates Israel
They hate Israel, too. You know, the supposed jewish media conspiracy? And no small number of them want to imminentize the eschaton.
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I detect some unhappiness among Trump supporters of late, because they are busy filing their taxes right now. That promised tax cut, the one that the 1% had a year ago and was due to reach them around now, hasn't materialized. In fact they are paying more tax now, and the realization that they have screwed is finally having an effect.
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Business as usual (Score:2, Insightful)
Bush gave the Saudis weapons, Obama gave the Saudis a TON of weapons. After all that some power plants seem pretty tame.
Not that I support this nonsense. We shouldn't be doing ANY business with the Saudis while they're carrying out a genocide in Yemen.
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It's how you run them.
To get pure plutonium suitable for bombs you run them balls out for a short period, then reprocess the fuel.
When run for power, you end up with a mix of plutonium isotopes. Which puts you back where you started with Uranium. Doing isotope separation.
This was about countering Iran. Machiavellian trick to get a concession from them, or alternatively maintain the Shia/Sunni stalemate in the face of Iran's inevitable nuke.
This is of course applicable to 'conventional' enriched ura
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Not the traditional domestic ones with a door on the side for nuclear weapons production lines.
Not exactly the type of nuclear transfer to SA (Score:2)
that I want to see.
A few Kt or Mt worth? OK
Too late.. (Score:2)
The Saudi's do not need Nuclear Power plants to produce nuclear weapons - they already have them. The Pakistan weapons program and inventory has been paid for by the Saudi's with the tacit agreement that if Iran comes calling with ground forces, then it's instant sunshine time.
The House of Saud will have absoutely zero regret on sending all those Shia's to paradise a bit earlier than planned and it will be cheered in the streets [well not in the East perhaps] if it does.
Ironically the Israeli's are involved
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We get it: You know every Democrat.
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I'm sorry you're ill.
Get better soon, OK?
I mean that.
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We didn't give Iran their nuclear capability, but Trump is wanting to give it to the Saudi.
Fuel for power plants is not even close to weapons grade, and the power plant deal includes extra safeguards. It actually lowers the chance of the Saudis building a bomb.
TFA contains implications of guilt-by-associate and innuendo about "potential conflicts of interest" but it didn't mention a single concrete problem with the deal. It means jobs for Americans, and lower CO2 emissions in Saudi Arabia.
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Yessir. Here is an example of the innuendo about "potential conflicts of interest":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/top-trump-appointees-promoted-selling-nuclear-power-plants-to-saudi-arabia-over-objections-from-national-security-officials-house-democratic-report-says/2019/02/19/6a719762-3456-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
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That's every nuclear reactor ...
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The fact they confuse nuclear power plants with nuclear weapons risk tell us just how ignorant they are. The only part that matters in that regard is the fuel processing technology, and Trump wanted us to do that and sell it to them.
Just another meaningless wolf call from the left.
Re:Uranium 1 was worse (Score:5, Informative)
Fake news doesn't want to talk about the Uranium One deal though. I wonder why?
Hey Anonymous Coward, the mainstream media discussed it extensively at the time.
For example:
https://www.latimes.com/nation... [latimes.com]
Problem was their fact-based analysis didn't reinforce your lies, so you decried it as "FAKE NEWS!"
Re:Uranium 1 was worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the truth: the current logic of Trump and company is to accuse very loudly "the other side" of precisely the crimes they're engaged in. This is intended to later muddy the waters, to issue call backs to "why weren't *they* investigated?", and generally underplay the outrage by making it something the public has felt for years and felt frustrated because nothing was done against "those" people. Having said all that, I wonder how pizza-gate will turn out.
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Applicable Ferengi rules of acquisition: #177, #189, #261, #292