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Saudis want a US nuclear deal; can they be trusted not to build a bomb?

Prince Mohammed set off alarms when he declared earlier this year that if Iran, Saudi Arabia's fiercest rival, 'developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible'

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman
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Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman

David E Sanger and William J Broad | NYT Washington
Before Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was implicated by the C.I.A. in the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, American intelligence agencies were trying to solve a separate mystery: Was the prince laying the groundwork for building an atomic bomb?

The 33-year-old heir to the Saudi throne had been overseeing a negotiation with the Energy Department and the State Department to get the United States to sell designs for nuclear power plants to the kingdom. The deal was worth upward of $80 billion, depending on how many plants Saudi Arabia decided to build.

But there is a hitch: Saudi Arabia insists on

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