Is Egypt ready to go nuclear?

Cause for concern?
“Egypt has been playing games and it just doesn’t fly that they didn’t know what they had to report. They knew, but didn’t want to report it, and the elimination of this doesn’t eliminate the concern,” Albright said. “Egypt is developing very slowly a capability if they decide to go nuclear.”

William M. Arkin, an NBC News analyst, said that Egypt’s revelations show that “it had gone a lot farther than Iran” in terms of experimentation with separation of plutonium, adding that if the United States had discovered such experiments in Iran, it would no doubt be raising the stakes in the current standoff with Tehran. 

One reason Arkin and others cite for the seeming imbalance in criticism for the two countries’ nuclear advances is the U.S.-Egypt relationship. 

The U.S. has provided Egypt with $1.3 billion a year in military aid since the Camp David peace accords in 1979, as well as an average of $815 million a year in economic assistance.

By most estimates, Egypt has received more than $50 billion in U.S. aid since 1975 and has proven one of the most reliable U.S. allies in the war on terror.

In fact, Albright, Arkin and National Defense University researcher Judith Yaphe believe that there is a connection between Iran’s nuclear ambitions and those of Egypt.

Efforts to counter Iranian program
Yaphe, who has written extensively on the effect an Iranian nuclear weapon would have on other countries in the Middle East, says part of the issue is pride. 

“How can you, as an Egyptian, sit by and let Iran go past you in this area? For Egyptian scientists, it’s a loss of face,” Yaphe said. “Egyptians look very hard at what Iran has done. Iran has the money, but you don’t need a lot of money if you already have the basic infrastructure.”

Albright agreed that Iran is driving Egyptian plans, but suggests it’s more about strategy than pride. “Now, they have to be worried about Iran, as well as Israel.”

A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that it may not just be Iran and Israel that worry Egyptian defense officials.

“They now know that Libya, with whom they have had volatile relations the past two decades, had a nuclear program under way,” the official said, noting Libya’s admissions that it had acquired nuclear weapons development technology from Pakistan in the 1990’s.

Cairo has admitted pursuing option in the past  
Egypt has admitted that in the 1960’s it pursued the nuclear option as it learned more about Israel’s nuclear program, which by 1966 had produced its first atomic bombs. At that point, they would have been targeted against Egyptian cities.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in fact, has on occasion been willing to raise the possibility of a nuclear Egypt. In October 1998, Mubarak said that Egypt could, if need be, develop nuclear weapons, or even buy the technology. But then, as always, he dismissed the idea.  

"If the time comes when we need nuclear weapons, then we will not hesitate. I say if we have to, because this is the last thing we think about," Mubarak said in remarks to the London-based al-Hayat newspaper.

"(But) we do not think now of joining the nuclear club,” Mubarak said. "Acquiring material for nuclear weapons has become very easy and it can be bought." 

The United States now believes that Mubarak’s reference to being able to buy nuclear technology was not just an off-hand remark. The statement seems to coincide with a secret offer by Pakistan’s best-known nuclear scientist, A. Q. Khan, to help Egypt.

Khan made similar offers to North Korea, Iran, Iraq, and Libya, with North Korea, Iran and Libya accepting his help.

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