# Saudi nuclear program > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Saudi nuclear program," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saudi-nuclear-program/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *Saudi Arabia's decades-long pursuit of uranium enrichment, nominally for nuclear power, which John Kiriakou notes was already old news when he arrived at the CIA in 1990 and which conventional wisdom has always read as a weapons programme.* - **Sought since:** The 1980s - **Stated purpose:** Nuclear power generation - **Conventional reading:** Development of a nuclear weapon - **Claim by former CIA officers:** That Saudi Arabia already has a weapon, purchased from Pakistan - **2026 development:** A reported US-Saudi nuclear power agreement The **Saudi nuclear program** predates [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s career: when he arrived at the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) in 1990, Saudi Arabia's pursuit of the ability to enrich uranium was already old news, the kingdom having sought nuclear power since the 1980s.[1] Kiriakou treats the stated rationale as implausible on its own terms. Saudi Arabia is the sunniest country in the world and has little solar generation; it is windy in the desert and there is little wind power; it has large bodies of water on two sides and little tidal power. "Why nuclear?"[2] The conventional wisdom, he says, has always been that the Saudis want a nuclear weapon — and senior former CIA officers have claimed over the years that they already have one, purchased from the Pakistanis.[3] He raised the subject in July 2026 on reporting that the United States and Saudi Arabia had agreed a nuclear power deal, describing it as a story breaking very slowly that most mainstream outlets were not really examining.[1][3] ## The quid pro quo, and the missing half Kiriakou dates his own knowledge of Saudi intent to his first days at the agency: *"one of the first things I learned when I joined the CIA in January of 1990 was that the Saudis had long been seeking a nuclear bomb."*[4] The funding relationship he describes is exceptional in scale: *"the Saudis are more generous with Pakistan than with any other country on the planet — to the point where the city of Faisalabad, a city of some 7 or 8 million people in east-central Pakistan, was named after Saudi King Faisal because of his generosity. The Saudis gave the Pakistanis as much money as they needed to develop a nuclear bomb, as a counter to the Indians."*[5] What he infers from it: *"I always assumed, as [Dewey Clarridge](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/dewey-clarridge) did, that the Pakistanis shared those nuclear bombs with the Saudis. I believe that was the quid pro quo."*[6] He then names the part he cannot answer, and does not pretend to: *"the question then is, do they have a delivery system? Do they have a missile capable of carrying a nuclear device? I think the answer is probably no — but impossible to say."*[6] ## See also - [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) - [Abraham Accords](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/abraham-accords) ## Sources 1. John Kiriakou - Middle East on the Brink of a Major War After Houthi Move (2026-07-27), at 54:36. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR49AAOlitk&t=3276s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-27-national-security-files-john-kiriakou-middle-east-on-the-brink-of-a-m/ 2. John Kiriakou - Middle East on the Brink of a Major War After Houthi Move (2026-07-27), at 55:07. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR49AAOlitk&t=3307s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-27-national-security-files-john-kiriakou-middle-east-on-the-brink-of-a-m/ 3. John Kiriakou - Middle East on the Brink of a Major War After Houthi Move (2026-07-27), at 55:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR49AAOlitk&t=3338s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-27-national-security-files-john-kiriakou-middle-east-on-the-brink-of-a-m/ 4. John Kiriakou : How Rogue Is US Intelligence? (2026-02-09), at 19:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdfJ51hKM9E&t=1162s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-judge-napolitano-judging-john-kiriakou-how-rogue-is-us-intelligence/ 5. John Kiriakou : How Rogue Is US Intelligence? (2026-02-09), at 19:54. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdfJ51hKM9E&t=1194s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-judge-napolitano-judging-john-kiriakou-how-rogue-is-us-intelligence/ 6. John Kiriakou : How Rogue Is US Intelligence? (2026-02-09), at 20:25. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdfJ51hKM9E&t=1225s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-judge-napolitano-judging-john-kiriakou-how-rogue-is-us-intelligence/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saudi-nuclear-program/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt