Posted on 12/20/2003 4:28:18 PM PST by blam
Revealed: the real reason for Gaddafi's WMD surrender
By Julian Coman and Colin Brown
(Filed: 21/12/2003)
Libya's promise to surrender its weapons of mass destruction was forced by Britain and America's seizure of physical evidence of Col Muammar Gaddafi's illegal weapons programme, the Telegraph can reveal.
United States officials say that America's hand was strengthened in negotiations with Col Gaddafi after a successful operation, previously undisclosed, to intercept transport suspected of carrying banned weapons.
Col Muammar Gaddafi
The operation is said to have been carried out under the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), an international, American-led scheme to halt the spread of WMD by seizing them in transit. The PSI was first mooted by President George W Bush in May but was not officially launched until September.
Last week, a senior official from the US State Department confirmed that the PSI had "netted several seizures", although he refused to give further details.
President Bush and Tony Blair had praised Libya's decision to give up its WMD and allow international inspectors to oversee their destruction.
Mr Bush described it as a "wise and responsible choice" while a statement issued by the Libyan foreign ministry said that the country had agreed "of its own free will" to destroy its unconventional weapons.
The PSI operation, however, added decisively to the pressure already brought to bear on Col Gaddafi by America and Britain as they prepared to attack Iraq in March.
One Cabinet minister said: "It demonstrates that change can be brought about by standing tough. There is no question that this change of heart by Gaddafi was brought about by the fact that the US and Britain were seen to be standing up to and called Saddam Hussein's bluff."
The Travellers Club in Pall Mall, beloved of spy novelists and frequented by senior officers in the intelligence services, was the venue last week for the final breakthrough talks between MI6 and Libyan intelligence officials.
British immigration rules were discreetly changed to allow the Libyans to enter the country on visas. Three Libyan officials met a four-strong British team led by William Ehrman, the director general of defence and intelligence at the Foreign Office, and including two MI6 officers, to agree the text that would be read out on Libyan television on Friday night.
Mr Blair was forced to wait until the Libyan statement had been taken down by the BBC monitoring unit, translated and its contents checked to make sure they tallied with the agreed text before he was given the go-ahead to make his announcement in Durham during the 10pm news broadcasts.
The Government is hoping that the capture of Saddam, the collapse of the European Union constitution talks, and Col Gaddafi's commitment to surrender WMD will boost Mr Blair's standing with his own backbenchers.
"It has been a triple whammy and there is a sense of success at the end of this year," said a Downing Street official. "It is important domestically, but it is also important internationally."
At a PSI conference in Washington last week, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defence, reminded the 16 member countries - who include France, Germany, Italy and Japan in addition to Britain and America - that the threat to global security extended beyond North Korea and Iran, the focus of recent pressure from Washington over their nuclear programmes.
"While PSI participants agree that North Korea and Iran are of particular concern, we know that our efforts cannot be confined to just any one or two countries alone," Mr Wolfowitz said.
Libya has long been in American sights over its acquisition of WMD. In June, John Bolton, the under-secretary of state for arms control and international security, warned that the regime was exploiting the suspension of United Nations sanctions after the Lockerbie trial.
"Since the sanctions were lifted, Libya has been able to be more aggressive in pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Libyan agents are trying to acquire dual-use technology. That is very worrying," he said.
The Libyan foreign ministry announced yesterday that it had already sent a team to Vienna to begin talks with the International Atomic Energy Authority, the UN nuclear watchdog.
The official Libyan news agency, Jana, last night quoted Col Gaddafi as declaring that his statement on WMD was "a courageous step which deserves the support of the Libyan people".
And when did they know it?
Good point, hadn't thought about that.
Did Kim crawl into a spider hole with his 9 mm pistol and then get annoyed that nobody was looking for him?
Didn't one of our errant missiles intended for Gaddafi strike the French (Hee,hee) embassy?
Oh, God, not again . . . PLEASE don't bring them into it. They're totally incompetent and their motives are suspect. Inspectors should be American and British military forces, imo. If Gadaffi doesn't like it, what alternative is there for him?
If the Nobel "peace prize" had any meaning--which it doesn't--President Bush would retire the trophy.
Well sounds like he heard the wakeup call.
From the article it sounds like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and now he's going to have to explain it all.
Yeah the "errant" missile accidentally hit a french building only because our pilots were a tad tired from the long flight that had to go all the way around france to get to Libya. france wouldn't let our planes go over their airspace to kick Gaddaffi's ass.
Smack me, smack me, smack me, but I often thought Kadaffi wasn't bad looking in all his gear. He's gotten older in the face now, but he did cut a dashing figure in his day.
I realize that this is the kind of admission that makes some FReepers think women shouldn't be allowed to vote. Thankfully, I don't think about the Dims that way. :)
(no, just terrorist tyrants...shut up, radiohead, before you make it worse...)
Are you asserting that Soddomite Husayne is a wino? I thunk he only drank scotch. It was the fusel oils that done him in, affected his judgment, the taxi cab, the Spam, the Cologne, all those incongruities. If you look at his track record, he seems to have made a lot of very bad calls. But what must we conclude about a race of people who permitted themselves to be held in bondage for thirty years, by a creature with no more judgment or courage than the Arkie White Trash Poofter, the one from OxFag? What part of this scenario am I not seeing? These people, [the Iraqis] were as heavily armed as we are and they permitted themselves to be brutalized and subjugated by a coward. It is as if the poofter Klinton went into Virginia, or West Virginia or Texas or any other sovereign State in the red zone, and said, "Here's how it's going to go down". I guess the operative question is, how long do we have to spoon feed these bondage lovers until they develop the balls to maintain their own freedom.
Yup, I remember. F111's and we lost one.
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