(BREAKING NEWS)Libya's Fatal Blow to Axis of Evil (Islamic Regime in Iran IMPLICATED)

THE end of the threat posed to world peace and secure oil supplies by the “axis of evil” is emerging this weekend as the real prize that Tony Blair and George Bush have secured for Christmas.

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took the decision to renounce all weapons of mass destruction (WMD) on Friday night, but while at first it was thought this only had implications for Libya it is now clear that his decision has scuppered a secret partnership between Libya, Iran and North Korea formed with the intention of developing an independent nuclear weapon.

New documents revealed yesterday show that the three were working on the nuclear weapons programme at a top-secret underground site near the Kufra Oasis of the Sahara in southeastern Libya. The team was made up of North Korean scientists, engineers and technicians, as well as some Iranian and Libyan nuclear scientists.

North Korea and Iran, originally dubbed by Bush as the axis of evil along with Iraq, avoided detection by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inspectors by each member farming out vital sections of its projects to its fellow members.

Iran, which is now in the final stages of uranium enrichment for its program, is badly hit, having counted on fitting into place key parts of its WMD project made in Libya. North Korea may also be forced to scale back the production of nuclear devices as well as counting the loss of a lucrative source of income for its Scuds and nuclear technology.

Yesterday, Tripoli acted swiftly to prove its commitment to the world at large when the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, met a senior Libyan official in Vienna to discuss eliminating the programme.

Almost 15 years to the day since Gaddafi’s agents brought down a PanAm jet over Lockerbie and eight months after US and British troops toppled Saddam Hussein, the Libyan leader has now opened the prospect of an end to sanctions and a return of US oil firms.

The news has delighted three American oil companies, Marathon, Amerada Hess, and ConocoPhillips whose Libyan leases were about to expire. They all pulled out of Libya in 1986 after the US imposed strict sanctions against the regime.

Tripoli’s announcement on Friday was the culmination of secret talks with Britain and the US launched around the time of the Iraq invasion. The initial approach to discuss how to bring Libya in from the cold was made by Libya’s chief of intelligence, Musa Qusa, who contacted the British government in March, amid preparations for war on Iraq.

“You could say that these discussions followed on from the Lockerbie contacts,” a spokesman for Blair said yesterday. It was in March that the deal was done by Libya to settle with the families of the victims of Pan Am Flight 103.

Months of secret diplomatic activity followed which led to the clandestine three-week visit to at least 10 sites in Libya. British and US weapons experts who inspected laboratories and military factories in October and early December established that Libyan scientists were “developing a nuclear fuel cycle intended to support nuclear weapons development.” The British team also saw “significant quantities of chemical agent” and “bombs designed to be filled with chemical agent.”

Following the visit, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair’s national security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security adviser, held intense negotiations with Libyan officials in the days leading up to Friday’s declaration.

Blair had his first-ever telephone conversation with Gaddafi on Thursday, in which they discussed the declaration.

Libya finally transmitted the statement to British officials at about 9pm and, after trans lation and an “assessment” on both sides of the Atlantic, it was released to the press at about 10.15pm.

The breakthrough capped a week of positive developments for London and Washington that began with the capture of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and followed with a pledge from Iran to submit to unfettered inspections of its nuclear industry.

Bush implied in his remarks at the White House on Friday that there would now be reciprocity. “As the Libyan government takes these essential steps and demonstrates its seriousness, its good faith will be returned. Libya can regain a secure and respected place among the nations, and over time, achieve far better relations with the United States.”

Gaddafi’s move also sounds a warning for Israel. If Washington manages to dispose of Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s unconventional weaponry, attention will focus on Israel as the only remaining Middle Eastern nuclear power.

The information in the Debka story was very specific - Debka didn't just stumble on this story (Assuming these articles are true):

Long viewed as a highly unpredictable and erratic dictator, Muammer Qaddafi has again made the world sit up. It took him less than a week to assimilate the ignominy of fellow dictator Saddam Hussein’s surrender. The United States was much criticized for exposing the unsightly details of Saddam’s capture, humiliating not only the man but also his nation and Arabs in general. However, the Americans clearly believe that gentle means will not achieve their goals of winning a war and carving out a new Iraq and different Middle East. Above all, they are determined to demonstrate that, regardless of hardships and losses in battle, the United States is calling the shots.

The Libyan ruler, though his secret nuclear weapons program was a lot further advanced than believed in the West, picked up the message and decided prudence was the better part of valor.

After months, if not years of haggling, Qaddafi gave the nod to US president George W. Bush and British premier Tony Blair to announce his decision to scrap his nuclear and chemical weapons programs and forgo missiles of more than 186-mile range, capable of delivering payloads of more than 1,100lb. He acknowledged contacts with North Korea on Scud development.

An unidentified White House official reported US and British experts had inspected 10 sites, including a centrifuge program for enriching uranium. These sites will be opened now to international monitors. Bush called on other leaders to follow Libya’s example, obviously looking hard at North Korea and Iran.

Bush may justly boast that the feat of disarming Libya of its WMD was the greater for having been achieved by diplomacy rather than the use of force. To understand its implications for the Bush administration’s global strategic goals and see where the Middle East is heading, it is important to catalogue what Libya has in the way of weapons of mass destruction.

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources point to two programs. One was semi-clandestine. It involves the pursuit of chemical and biological weapons and the long-range missiles capable of delivering them. The second aimed at obtaining a nuclear weapons capability and was carried forward in total hush.

Chemical-Biological Weapons Program

Libya has a huge underground facility at Rabta which in the 1980s stockpiled 100 tons of mustard gas and chemicals for making nerve agents. Some mystery surrounds this plant. Much of it was destroyed in a large fire towards the end of the decade and since then most of its departments are said to be inactive.

Aside from Iraq, Libya is the only Arab country which the United States has bombed from the air. An American air raid in 1986 hit Qaddafi’s residence and killed his adopted daughter.

It is very possible that Qaddafi instigated the fire to rid himself of international pressure on his unconventional weapons programs which, at the time, had turned to the development of missile warheads capable of carrying toxic weapons to every corner of the Middle East, the African continent and southern and western Europe.

In 1990, Tripoli claimed to have shut the facility down. It was reopened in 1995 for pharmaceutical production, a tale Washington did not believe.

Nuclear Weapons Program

Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon warned last summer that Libya may well attain a nuke before Iran. Accepting the estimate that Iran will reach its target in the course of 2004 or early 2005, Libya would have had its bomb by mid-2004.

More than a year ago, on October 25, 2002, DEBKA-Net-Weekly revealed that Libya aided by North Korea was working on a nuclear weapons program at a top-secret underground site near the Kufra Oasis of the Sahara in southeastern Libya. The team was made up of North Korean scientists, engineers and technicians, as well as 200-300 Iraqi nuclear scientists, whose salaries are paid to this day – possibly out of Saddam’s secret bank accounts which are controlled by his cousin Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikrity.

The two Arab dictators were therefore partners in the development of a nuclear bomb. If Sharon’s intelligence was correct, the deposed Iraqi ruler would have been in a position to arm himself with a jointly-funded nuclear weapon at the same time as Qaddafi, by mid-2004. A small band of Iraqi scientists carrying the necessary items would have simply joined the traffic of Arab combatants and terrorists heading into Iraq through Syria and brought the weapons into the country.

Throughout the 34 years of his totalitarian regime, most of the time as a pariah state, the Libyan ruler has often proved eccentric but never slow-witted. In 1999, in an effort to gain international acceptance, he surrendered two Libyans to international justice for masterminding the 1988 PanAm airline crash over Lockerbie that killed 270 people. Earlier this year, he agreed to compensate the victims’ families. The UN rewarded him by lifting its sanctions against his country, although the United States still lists the Qaddafi regime as sponsor of terror.

Scenting the way the American wind is blowing through the Middle East, the Libyan ruler decided to make the grand gesture of renouncing his nuclear ambitions. The Christmas present he gave President Bush means a lot more for US strategic objectives than is immediately apparent.

After Iraq was knocked out of the equation, North Korea, Iran and Libya still maintained a working tripartite axis for developing nuclear weapons. This neat setup of rogue states, Qaddafi’s exit has now severed.

Not much is known about how this nuclear partnership worked. DEBKAfile’s analysts believe it functioned on the principle of each member farming out vital sections of its projects to its fellow-members. The distribution of these modules helped each partner pull the wool over the eyes of International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors.

Iran, which is now in the final stages of uranium enrichment for its nuclear program, is badly hit, having counted on taking delivery and fitting into place key parts of its weapons project made in Libya. The Iranians have made substantial investments of money and manpower in their nuclear program. But they may have no choice now but to slow down or reduce output. North Korea may also be forced to scale back the production of nuclear devices as well as counting the loss of a lucrative source of income for its Scuds and nuclear technology.

Qaddafi by quitting the nuclear race has also ditched Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria, all of whom secretly put money in the Kufra project, hoping for a stake in Libya’s nuclear umbrella.

The development also sounds a warning bell in Israel. If Washington manages to dispose of Iran’s nuclear program and Syria’s unconventional weaponry, attention will focus on Israel as the only remaining nuclear power in the Middle East.

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Gaddafi deal signals end to secret nuclear weapon programme with Iran and North Korea..

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