| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa: North |
| Libya Agrees to Give Up WMD |
| 2003-12-19 |
| Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has said his country sought to develop weapons of mass destruction capabilities but will dismantle this programme completely, Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced. "This decision is an historic one and a courageous one and I applaud it," Mr Blair said. Colonel Gaddafi had told him the process of dismantling the programme would be "transparent and verifiable", the prime minister said in a statement from Durham Cathedral. The range of all Libya’s missiles would be restricted to "no more then 300km", he added. The US and its allies have long suspected that Libya had secret chemical and bio-weapons programmes, however Libya always denied such allegations saying it had only facilities for pharmaceutical or agricultural research. Gaddafi’s government took responsibility for the Lockerbie bomb Mr Blair said Britain had been engaged in talks with Libya for nine months. Yes, March was a busy month ... "Libya came to us in March following successful negotiations on Lockerbie to see if it could resolve its weapons of mass destruction issue in a similarly cooperative manner," he said. The decision entitled Libya to rejoin the international community, Mr Blair said. President Bush confirmed the announcement from the White House. "Col Gaddafi’s’s commitment, once fulfiled, will make our country more safe and our world more peaceful," President Bush said. Wolf Blitzer noted that Bush basically said, do it the easy way or do it the hard way .... |
| Posted by:rkb |
| #11 Is this a package deal with Egypt? I believe that they have a collaborative arrangement with regard to WMD. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-12-19 9:55:50 PM |
| #10 TGA, I think you overstate your case when you say that the US "preferred" not to believe a word Ghaddafi said. There were indeed signals coming out of Libya, but they were often contradictory. This is not a person or a regime that had showed itself to be open or trustworthy. The timing of the offer to close the Lockerbie negotiations was not coincidental ... Ghaddafi decided to play things straight now for several reasons. I don't doubt that getting older and desiring a legacy might be one of those reasons - now that I'm middle aged too, I realize how powerful a motivator that can be. But just to put things in perspective, Reuters reports that Libya's nuclear program was more advanced than we suspected -- and, they were working with Korea on SCUDs. And yes, it is true that much of his chemical WMD capabilities, especially both the plants themselves and the engineering expertise to use them effectively, did come from Germany, Italy and France. |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-19 9:17:06 PM |
| #9 I read a week or two ago that G'Daffy's son was greasing the skids for a trip for Mo to Russia thru Putin for serious medical treatment. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-12-19 9:03:57 PM |
| #8 Jennie, all beautiful colors, but this process started way before the "Coalition of the Willing", even before 9/11. Reagan made Ghaddafi lay low (and actually made him push his WMD program). Ghaddafi's "conversion" started some time in 1999. He had been disillusioned with the Arabs before of course. There has been a lot of very quiet diplomacy (Germany, Italy, France) and I might say that most of the WMD intelligence comes from these countries as well. For good reasons because rogue companies from these countries have provided most of the (dual use) stuff that Ghaddafi now found out he no longer needs. The case of the underground chemical weapons plant in Rabta comes to mind. Ghaddafis plans to return to the international society predate 9/11. It's just that until today the U.S. preferred not to believe a word he said and has ignored many signals from Libya. Gemany has been in rather close contact with him and Muammar's role in solving several hostage issues have something to do with that as well. The TV image you mentioned is just the topping of the cake. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-12-19 9:03:52 PM |
| #7 TGA, do tell. Why don't you share with the class which other member of the Coalition of the Willing you think helped Momar reach this decision? For my money, Momar's change of heart started when Ronald Reagan sent that missile up Khadafi's butt back in the '80's. But clearly it was the TV image of Saddam taking the tongue depressor that put him back on the straight and narrow road. Brought to you Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue: the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. |
| Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro 2003-12-19 7:49:16 PM |
| #6 I can believe that Germany was influential in this as well. It's a big breakthrough - Libya is believed to have stocks of both biological and chemical weapons substances, plus a fair amount of nuclear know-how. No telling how much knowledge has migrated from them to others, but at least once the stocks are destroyed there will be one fewer source of off-the-shelf WMD for terror networks. |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-19 6:32:51 PM |
| #5 Thanks rkb. I might add that this wasn't just the work of the U.S. and the British... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-12-19 6:06:37 PM |
| #4 I graciously yield in the Number of Embedded Comments class to our colleague and frield TGA. I lift my glass in Ein Prosit. [smile] |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-19 5:57:08 PM |
| #3 I had MORE comments, that's why... |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-12-19 5:51:34 PM |
| #2 An amazing quadruple post, won by the Army of RKB! |
| Posted by: seafarious 2003-12-19 5:50:43 PM |
| #1 Also noted by Blitzer: Libya has excellent sweet crude oil. Carrot & stick both to the Middle East - watch for Libya's oil industry to surge if Gaddafi follows through. |
| Posted by: rkb 2003-12-19 5:50:01 PM |