Overview
- Reporting reviewed by lawmakers on Friday, Sept. 25, included a classified U.S. intelligence assessment that Riyadh has not taken the option of a nuclear weapons program off the table.
- The classified package sent to Congress also contained a separate State Department assessment that judged Saudi safeguards more confidently, creating an interagency split in official views.
- The 30-year U.S.-Saudi cooperation accord initially limits uranium enrichment to below 5 percent but allows a follow-up study and written agreement to raise the ceiling to 20 percent, a step critics say would reduce the work needed to reach weapons-grade material.
- Congress is in a 90-session-day review of the pact as Democratic senators led by Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley press for full declassification of the agreement and two classified side letters while some lawmakers consider legislation to block or condition the deal.
- Nonproliferation experts and lawmakers flagged that the pact does not automatically require the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, raising concerns that inspectors could lack the access needed to detect undeclared weaponization activities and that the deal could spur a regional arms race.