Saudi prince denies Kushner is ‘in his pocket’
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/saudi-prince-denies-kushner-is-in-his-pocket/2018/03/22/701a9c9e-2e22-11e8-8688-e053ba58f1e4_story.html
At The Post, he said his primary concern was being able to enrich and use Saudi Arabia’s own uranium for use in power reactors, rather than buying it abroad. His country has more than 5 percent of the world’s uranium reserves, and “if we don’t use it, it’s like telling us don’t use oil.” The United States, he said, would be invited to put in place laws and structures to make sure enriched uranium is not misused.
Asked about the Saudi-funded spread of Wahhabism, the austere faith that is dominant in the kingdom and that some have accused of being a source of global terrorism, Mohammed said that investments in mosques and madrassas overseas were rooted in the Cold War, when allies asked Saudi Arabia to use its resources to prevent inroads in Muslim countries by the Soviet Union.
Successive Saudi governments lost track of the effort, he said, and now “we have to get it all back.” Funding now comes largely from Saudi-based “foundations,” he said, rather than from the government.