Saudis Deny Diverting Patriot Data to China

U.S. and Saudi officials Sunday denied a British newspaper report that Saudi Arabia--not Israel--had diverted U.S. Patriot antimissile technology to China.

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney denied a story in London’s Sunday Telegraph that Saudi military personnel had shared Patriot technology with the Chinese.

“All the Patriots that are in Saudi Arabia are manned by Americans. There are no Patriots manned by Saudis,” Cheney said on ABC’s “World News Tonight” program.

The Telegraph said that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, has evidence that Patriot technology was given to Chinese technicians who maintain and service Chinese CSS-2 intermediate-range missiles in Saudi Arabia.

“The American investigators in Israel have been told that in a deal made by a Saudi minister during a Peking (Beijing) visit in 1988, both countries undertook to trade information on each other’s missile systems,” the newspaper said.

A representative of the Saudi government in Washington disputed the report. “There’s no truth to it whatsoever. We did hear it, but it makes no sense. The Patriots are all manned by American crews; it’s strictly an American operation,” the Saudi spokesman said.

He said that diverting the Patriot technology to Beijing would jeopardize Riyadh’s relationship with Washington at a time when Saudi Arabia was trying to strengthen its ties to the West. Such an act would be “so contrary to (the) thrust of present policy it’s spooky,” he said.

The new report followed completion of a weeklong visit to Israel by a U.S. inspection team searching for evidence that Israel had transferred Patriot components or technology to China. U.S. intelligence detected signs earlier this month that such a diversion might have taken place. The exact nature of the evidence against Israel has never been revealed, however.

Officials in Jerusalem said Saturday that the team had found nothing to implicate Israel in such a diversion. Some government officials also demanded that Washington apologize for embarrassing Israel by allowing unsubstantiated reports to leak to newspapers.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s spokesman, Ehud Gol, said Israel had received no indication of the findings but was confident that Israel’s innocence will be established.

“Our conscience is clear,” Gol said. “We knew for certain even before the investigation the allegations were baseless and groundless. We expect that those elements that slandered Israel will also have the decency to apologize, even if anonymously.”

The United States gave Israel two Patriot batteries and 64 missiles in January, 1991, to defend against Iraqi Scud missile attacks in the Persian Gulf War. A third battery is scheduled for delivery next year.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Israel said that the 15-member team has not conveyed the results of the inspection to the Israelis and will not do so until after the team has reported to Washington.

“They have finished their work here and will submit their findings to the Administration. It will be the Administration’s call whether to release the findings,” embassy spokesman Carl Chan said Sunday.

A State Department official added that the team--mostly U.S. Army missile specialists--will be debriefed early this week and that the Administration will have some comment after that.