New blog cites book's claims on Saudi oil facility doomsday plan

New York (Platts)--9May2005

Arianna Huffington, an American syndicated columnist, and socialite, on Monday
launched her much-anticipated weblog with an exclusive report that Saudi
Arabia has put together a plan to protect itself from a possible invasion or
internal attack that includes "the use of a series of explosives, including
radioactive 'dirty bombs.'" The report said the Saudi plan would cripple the
kingdom's oil production and distribution systems "for decades." 

The report, appearing in the inaugural edition of her "Huffington Post" blog,
is taken from a forthcoming book by Gerald Posner, an investigative writer.
The blog said that Posner's book, "Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of
the Saudi-US Connection," asserts that, based on US National Security Agency
electronic intercepts, "the Saudi government has in place a nationwide,
self-destruction explosive system composed of conventional explosives and
dirty bombs strategically placed at the Kingdom's key oil ports, pipelines,
pumping stations, storage tanks, offshore platforms, and backup facilities."

According to the blog's description of the book, the bombs, if they were
activated, "would destroy the infrastructure of the world's largest oil
supplier, and leave the country a contaminated nuclear wasteland ensuring that
the Kingdom's oil would be unusable to anyone." The blog said the alleged
Armageddon program has been built covertly over several years, and that the
dirty bombs "are in place at--among other locations--all eight of the
Kingdom's refineries" as well as with portions of the giant Ghawar oil field.

The blog cites claims in the book that the plan was devised because of the
Saudis' "overriding fear that if an internal revolt or external attack
threatened the survival of the House of Saud, the US and other Western powers
might abandon them as the Shah of Iran was abandoned in 1979." The blog cites
unnamed US and Israeli officials as saying privately they believe the Saudis,
aware that their conversations are monitored, have greatly exaggerated
the plan in order to garner unswerving support.

This story was originally published in Platts Global Alert
http://www.globalalert.platts.com

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