When in 1975, Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger
murkily threatened the Saudis with a double-negative: "I am not
saying that there's no circumstances where we would not use force"
against them, the Saudi monarchy – one of the most creative and
underestimated political forces in modern history – set out instead
to use indirection and deterrence. Rather than mount defenses of its
oil installations, it did just the opposite, inserting a clandestine
network of explosives designed to render the vast oil and gas
infrastructure inoperable – and not just temporarily but for a long
period.
Illustration credits: Tradition in Action
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When in 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger murkily
threatened the Saudis with a double-negative: "I am not saying that
there's no circumstances where we would not use force" against them,
Posner starts by recalling various hints that Americans dropped back
in the 1970s, that the high price and limited production of oil might
lead to a U.S. invasion of Saudi Arabia and a seizure of its oil
fields. For example, in 1975, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
murkily threatened the Saudis with a double-negative: "I am not
saying that there's no circumstances where we would not use force"
against them.
In response, Posner shows, the Saudi leadership began to think of
ways to prevent such an occurrence. They could not do so the usual
way, by building up their military, for that would be futile against
the much stronger U.S. forces. So the monarchy – one of the most
creative and underestimated political forces in modern history – set
out instead to use indirection and deterrence. Rather than mount
defenses of its oil installations, it did just the opposite,
inserting a clandestine network of explosives designed to render the
vast oil and gas infrastructure inoperable – and not just temporarily
but for a long period.
That is the finding that Posner, author of ten books (including Case
Closed, the definitive account of the John F. Kennedy assassination)
details in a chapter titled "Scorched Earth," based on intelligence
intercepts he gained access to. The Saudi planning began in earnest,
he reports, after the Kuwait war of 1990-91, when the Iraqis left
behind an inferno of oil-field fires … which, to everyone's
amazement, was extinguished within months, not years. In response,
the Saudis thought of ways to assure their oil would stay off the
market.
They began exploring the possibility of a single-button
self-destruct system, protected with a series of built-in fail-safes.
It was evidently their way to ensure that if someone else grabbed the
world's largest oil reserves and forced them to flee the country they
had founded, the House of Saud could at least make certain that what
they left behind was worthless.
This became a top-priority project for the kingdom. Posner provides
considerable detail about the mechanics of the sabotage system, how
it relied on unmarked Semtex from Czechoslovakia for explosives and
on radiation dispersal devices (RDDs) to contaminate the sites and
make the oil unusable for a generation. The latter possibilities
included one or more radioactive elements such as rubidium, cesium
137, and strontium 90.
Collecting the latter materials, Posner explains, was not difficult
for they are not useable in a nuclear weapon and no one had the
creativity to anticipate Saudi intentions:
It is almost impossible to imagine that anyone could have thought a
country might obtain such material … and then divert small amounts
internally into explosive devices that could render large swaths of
their own country uninhabitable for years.
Saudi engineers apparently then placed explosives and RDDs throughout
their oil and gas infrastructure, secretly, redundantly, and
exhaustively.
The oil fields themselves, the lifeline for future production, are
wired … to eliminate not only significant wells, but also trained
personnel, the computerized systems that seemingly rival NASA's at
times, the pipelines that carry the oil from the fields …, the state-
of-the-art water facilities (water is injected into the fields to
push out oil), power operations, and even power transmission in the
region.
Nor is that all; the Saudis also sabotaged their pipelines, pumping
stations, generators, refineries, storage containers, and export
facilities, including the ports and off-shore oil-loading facilities.
The sabotage was not finished at some date and left in place; rather,
Posner emphasizes, it is an ongoing operation, disguised as regular
upkeep or security enhancements. He recounts, for example, that the
Saudis were "particularly proud when in 2002 they were able to insert
a smaller, more sophisticated network of high-density explosives into
two gas-oil separation plants."
Posner raises the possibility that this entire scenario is a Saudi
piece of theater, meant to deter an outside force but without any
reality. Until someone can check for explosives, there is no way of
discerning if it is real or bluff. Another limiting factor: the
Semtex explosive only has a few more years of useful life in it,
expiring in about 2012-13.
That said, planners must operate on the assumption the sabotage
system is in place and prepare for the consequences. If this single-
button self-destruct system does exist and were used, what would be
its impact? The U.S. and other governments hold about 1.3 billion
barrels of oil and gas in strategic reserves, a stock that would last
about six months. Disaster would follow, Posner posits. "Once the
strategic reserves proved inadequate, a nuclear environment in Saudi
Arabia would create crippling oil price increases, political
instability, and economic recessions unrivaled since the 1930s."
If such a system is in place, two implications leap to mind.
Should the Saudi monarchy retain its grip on power (which is likely),
it has created for itself a unique deterrence against invasion. But,
should the monarchy be replaced by an Islamic emirate in the spirit
of Afghanistan's Taliban (its main challenger for power), then in
future that ferociously anti-Western Jihadi government would have at
its disposal a cataclysmic suicide-bomber capacity; with one push of
a button, conceivably, it could shake the world order. And it would
be highly inclined to do just that.
So Western intelligence services need urgently to do more than listen
in on Saudi conversations; they need to find the truth out about
those explosives. And more so, Western governments need profoundly to
reassess their relationships with the kingdom.
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