From the you can't make everyone happy department. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/20/libya.reactions/index.html Libyan announcement merits mixed reaction Leaders and Pan Am relatives disagree Saturday, December 20, 2003 Posted: 7:26 PM EST (0026 GMT) Gadhafi and Libya has admitted responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Story Tools -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VIDEO CNN's David Ensor reports that Libya has a sizeable stockpile of chemical weapons, but appears to have stopped producing them years ago. PLAY VIDEO -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- President Bush announces that Libya has agreed to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction. PLAY VIDEO RELATED Gallery: World Reaction • CNN Access: Libya's move precedes the war in Iraq QUICKVOTE Will it be possible to trust Libya again and welcome the country back to the international community? Yes No VIEW RESULTS YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS Libya Arms Control International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Diplomacy or Create your own Manage alerts | What is this? (CNN) -- World leaders and politicians greeted the Libyan decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction program as a step forward in the campaign against proliferation and terrorism. But relatives of the victims of the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, said any deal with the government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi would amount to rewarding terror. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced Friday that Libya had pledged to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs was met with a variety of reactions. . . . rehashing of same argument already in thread . . . Lockerbie families unhappy This summer, Libya took responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, which killed 259 people aboard the plane and 11 on the ground. As part of that deal, Libya agreed to pay each family as much as $10 million -- $4 million when the United Nations lifted sanctions. The U.N. Security Council voted in September to remove the sanctions. U.S. sanctions have remained in place. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said, "Libya has taken steps over the last few years to improve its international standing, including taking responsibility for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland." However, the sharpest criticisms to Libya's pledge came from family members of those killed by a bomb planted by Libyan agents aboard that plane. "What I get from this is Gadhafi massacred 189 Americans at 31,000 feet and he's now being rewarded by the United States, where President Bush and Prime Minister Blair become willing partners," said Bert Ammerman, a spokesman for the Lockerbie victims' families and whose brother was killed in the bombing. "The country is not a problem with me. If Gadhafi wasn't in power, I'd be a big advocate of this. But the United States has not learned how to deal with foreign policy or have a moral backbone." Ammerman said he supports wholeheartedly going after the leaders of countries that sponsor terrorism and that Gadhafi "has a proven track record of state-sponsored terrorism." Victoria Cummock, president of Families of Pan Am 103, said: "It does concern me that they aren't going to be held to the conditions of the sanctions, because I don't think that will be enough to deter future violent attacks against Americans if we just decide that money is all the criminal accountability and consequences that Libya should be held up for." . . .
2 points: 1. I don't think people generally realise what a nut the Colonel is. While Saddam is from the Joseph Stalin school of power for the sake of power, with idealism only serving to provide a thin facade behind which to act, Gadhafi actually believes/believed the crap that came out of his own mouth. In the 70's he really would have benifited from treatment with anti-psychotic medications. Case in point, check this article in which Gaddafi accuses the US of creating AIDS as part of a biological weapons program, contrasting with this one in which he defends AIDS as a peaceful virus. 2. To argue that Iraq has nothing to do with the Libya WMD anouncement would be either naive or motivated by politics, but by the same token, on the other side there seems to be an attempt to characterize Gaddhafi as resolutely defiant of the US right up until the moment that Iraq was invaded, at which time he whimpered with fear and started begging the United States not to hurt him. In many ways, Gaddhafi's position became much more consillitory after September 11th. There was a fairly detailed article from either Newsweek or Time sometime between December 2002 and Feburary 2003 detailing this. If you want some specific evidence, a good example would be the article which follows, published September 17, 2001: (unfortunately I can't post a link, as the only place I could find it was a cached Google page that has since expired at the original source, Japan Today) This is a stark contrast to other countries like Syria which may have mumbled some public condolences but reverted to their "us vs. them" mentality. Ghaddafi believes in his ideals, in the sick and twisted way that they are percieved through the lens of his deranged mind. Asscribing the same types of "us vs. them" and amoral "might makes right" motiviations one would ascribe to Saddam Hussein would only confuse issues.
Dude, you are seriously brilliant. Excellent post. I agree, while he wasn't being stubborn himself, and then trembling after Irag, Moummar did take note. Like I said, "I guess there is a difference between 'dictatorial' and 'stupid.' " I guess I should throw in "maniac" vs. "certified pyscho" going the other direction.
Since we're dealing in massive speculation regarding a continuing trend and "intentiions", why not assume that? At the very least, we can assume that such a decision was not going to be announced from the beginning of the war until "mission accomplished", and in any event, the fact that there is no article about "intentions" prior to the Iraq war (there may be, I haven't looked and don't really care to) is an artificial burden of proof. This is the latest result of a continuing trend that began years ago. Now, you can proudly tout the Iraq war as the catalyst all you want, but come on, do you honestly think that Libya was going to try to normalize relations with the US and also try to develop a neutron bomb at the same time? Even Col. Qaddafi knows that that is a losing proposiion.
a) Libya has sought to reform its image with the West for a decade or so b) Libya continued a nuclear weapons program until recently: "in the negotiations leading up to Friday's announcement, U.S. and British experts toured facilities in Libya where they saw equipment that was being used to develop a nuclear weapons program. One of the projects underway was aimed at enriching uranium. They said various programs were underway at more than 10 sites." It is my understanding that these negotiations have been taking place in the past year or 2, is this not correct?
Why Gaddafi gave up WMD By George Joffe Centre of International Studies, Cambridge University http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3338713.stm Gaddafi had a lot to gain by giving up WMD Although President George W Bush has sought to portray Libya's willingness to admit inspectors to examine its programmes of weapons of mass destruction as a success for American policy, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi may well feel that the success is really his. After all, the next stage should be that, soon, the US will renew formal diplomatic relations - and that has been the Libyan objective since 1992, when United Nations sanctions were imposed. Indeed, the Gaddafi regime has been trying for this since 1986, when US sanctions forced American oil companies to leave the country. Although Libya's idiosyncratic leader had not bothered overmuch when the US broke relations in 1980, the departure of the oil companies also meant the loss of American oil technology upon which Libya relied. Isolation The issue became more acute after Washington bombed Tripoli and Benghazi in 1987, demonstrating to the colonel that support for international terrorism was a dangerous policy. That became a crisis in 1992, after UN sanctions were imposed on Libya for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie four years earlier. Reform is afoot in Libya The universal oil and travel sanctions against Libya gave Libyans a sense of isolation that many deeply resented. Throughout the 1990s, Libya sought to ease the burden, succeeding only at the end of the decade when it surrendered the two suspects for the Lockerbie bombing for trial in the Netherlands, after Britain had persuaded the US to accept the plan. So over the past four years Libya has re-established links with Europe. But unilateral American sanctions remained and those imposed by the UN regime were only suspended, not ended. Libya knew that it would have to pay compensation for the Lockerbie affair, renounce terrorism and accept formal responsibility for what had happened. Lengthy negotiations over the past year resulted in a compensation settlement three months ago and the end of the international sanctions. The US demanded still more, however, before it would end its own sanctions. It insisted on political and economic change in Libya as well as renunciation of the weapons programmes that Washington insisted Tripoli was continuing - although Britain believed such programmes were merely "aspirational". Reform 'vital' Libya would also have to help in finally solving questions about Lockerbie which had been left unanswered by the trial. This was no problem for Libya as its rulers knew that basic reform was essential. Libya had... proposed inspections, so the American acceptance of its offer probably says more about President Bush's success in countering his many domestic critics than about overcoming Libyan resistance to inspections Although Colonel Gaddafi himself was deeply suspicious of the necessary reforms, his advisers told him that economic success and diplomatic respectability depended upon them. Libya had already renounced terrorism and even the colonel had to face the fact that stagnation in the Libyan economy was not just the result of sanctions but had much to do with public economic inefficiency. Domestic pressures, not least an unsuccessful Islamist insurgency at the end of the 1990s, meant that political change was vital, too. Economic interests Last year, a new prime minister, Shukri Ghanem, an economist, was appointed with an explicit reform agenda. Behind him - and radical supporters of the colonel - are reformers determined on economic efficiency and political change. Libya seeks foreign investment, not just in the oil sector, where European companies are rushing for concessions. Now, Colonel Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam, who is close to the reformers, has persuaded his father that human rights abuses must end and that political reform is needed too. Over the alleged weapons programmes, Libya had, nine months ago, proposed inspections. So the American acceptance of its offer probably says more about President Bush's success in countering his many domestic critics than about overcoming Libyan resistance to inspections of its WMD programmes.
Buck Turgidson took some of my response.........but not all. I try to refrain from speculation and/or assumptions. Earlier in this thread, I gave credit for some improvement in relations between Libya and the U.S., but until Libya passed the WMD inspections/elimination hurdle and the terrorism sponsorship hurdle, there would be limits on how far the relations would improve. <center> <b>Spring - Early Summer 2002:</b> </center> <a HREF="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2015752.stm">US welcomes Libya's 'Lockerbie offer'</a> <i> Libya's reported offer of compensation over the bombing of a Pan Am flight in 1988 has been welcomed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell as a "step in the right direction". "We are waiting to see what the actual Libyan offer is. It's not yet formally put on the table", Mr Powell said. UN demands that Libya must: Admit responsibility Disclose all it knows about Lockerbie case Compensate victim's relatives Renounce terrorism There is still confusion about the precise status of any deal after Libya denied suggestions by a New York law firm that it offered $2.7bn to compensate the victims' families as part of a deal to lift United Nations sanctions. "Libya has nothing to do with this so-called agreement and is not a party to it," an official statement said. However, it conceded that Libyan businessmen and lawyers had held talks with lawyers of the families, though it said it had not been informed officially. Pan Am Flight 103 exploded in mid-air and crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland The BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says Libya's denial could be meant for domestic political consumption. But he adds that it underlines the difficulties the world community has in dealing with Libya's leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and the potential for any deal to fall apart. A partner in Kreindler and Kreindler - the firm representing the victims' families - told the BBC that he expected Libya to admit responsibility for the bombing very soon - perhaps within a couple of weeks. '$10m per victim' The British Foreign Office said Libyan, British and American officials were due to meet in London on 6 June to discuss the question. Under the reported deal, each victim's family would receive $10m, but 40% of the total money would be disbursed when UN sanctions were lifted and another 40% when the US sanctions were removed. <b> Gaddafi is keen to put an end to the affair The remaining 20% would be paid when Libya was removed from the US State Department's list of sponsors of international terrorism. </b> The UK Foreign Office welcomed the offer, if genuine, as "a sign that Libya wishes to respond to the requirements of the UN resolutions". However, a spokesman also said that Libya would need to comply with all UN resolutions for sanctions to be lifted. The admission of responsibility is a particular sticking point with officials and relatives alike. 'Blood money' Last year, a Scottish court convicted a Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, for the mass murder and for smuggling an explosive aboard the flight. The other co-defendant, Al-Amin Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted. Officially, Libya has refused to admit liability, but Colonel Gaddafi is known to be keen for his country to return to the international fold. The relatives also want to see Libya confess its guilt in the affair. "If Libya is still not willing to acknowledge they planned and committed the mass murder of 270 people and issue and comply with all of the conditions of the US Government and UN security council - then everything given to the families would be blood money," said Vicky Cummock, whose husband was killed </i> So yes, there is documentation that Libya was working to improve things (pre 2003), but hadn't decided to take the final steps to get the U.S. sanctions dropped. <hr color=red> Until there were enough indications that Libya was serious about changing their activities in the WMD area, the U.S. was unlikely to lift the sanctions. There were several inspections trips and the openess of Libya in allowing the inspections seemed to be enough <i>proof</i> to satisfy the U.S., which then was able to tell Libya that it had met the requirements and Libya was able to make its historic announcement. <a HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3530734,00.html">Libya: No Coercion in Weapons Agreement</a> <i> Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi decided to abandon weapons of mass destruction after receiving assurances that the United States was not plotting his ouster, his son said Saturday. Seif el-Islam Gadhafi said the move, announced late Friday by Libya and promptly confirmed by President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was a ``win-win deal'' for both sides. Seif said in a CNN interview that for Libya, the deal held out the prospect of the lifting of sanctions which would allow the North African nation to acquire defensive weapons and technology. ``It would pave the way for the normalization'' of relations with the United States, Seif said. It would also lead to the elimination of ``threats against Libya from (the) West and the (United) States in particular.'' Libya's Foreign Ministry said that after nine-months of secret talks with U.S. and British envoys, it agreed to rid itself of internationally banned weapons and adhere to treaties on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. It also agreed to tell the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, about its current nuclear programs. While Bush and Blair said Moammar Gadhafi had bowed to pressure to halt his nation's drive to develop chemical and nuclear weapons, Libya claimed it had acted of ``its own free will'' to serve as an inspiration for the rest of the world. <b> As a first step, a Libyan delegation met Saturday with the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, at agency headquarters in Vienna to discuss the dismantling of the nuclear program, the agency's spokesman Mark Gwozdecky said. </b> The delegation then headed to Libya. The decision came after Libyan weapons experts met with U.S. and British weapons experts to discuss Libya's weapons programs, stockpiles of materials and equipment, and development plans - including to develop chemical weapons. Libya admitted to nuclear fuel projects, including the possession of centrifuges and centrifuge parts used in uranium enrichment, a nuclear effort more advanced than previously thought. Gadhafi said his country had taken ``a wise decision and a courageous step'' and that it wanted to lead by example ``in building a new world free of weapons of mass destruction and all kinds of terrorism, with the aim of preserving international peace and security and progress for humanity,'' reported Libya's official news agency JANA. Gadhafi, who seized power in a 1969 military coup, said that ridding the world of such weapons would help promote ``popular democracy'' and ``meet ecological challenges so that the color green will prevail all over the globe.'' Seif Gadhafi said the process started almost a year ago when U.S. representatives approached him saying his father could be assured ``there was no agenda against him.'' When the Libyan leader was convinced the Americans were not plotting against him, ``he decided to discuss all the American concerns and to be more transparent, and he told them 'now we can trust each other and we can open all the files, including the WMD file','' his son said. ``I think we are more in need for this deal than the Americans or the British as we contribute to the prosperity and development and the security of Libya,'' Seif added. Seif said it was no secret that Libya had ``an active nuclear program'' intended for civilian purposes but whose product could be ``transferred into a missile.'' </i> <a HREF="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/21/MNG8H3RVSF1.DTL">How U.S. managed deal with Khadafy Libya's cooperative stance shocks inspectors</a> <i> Libya's surprise declaration giving up its nuclear, biological and chemical weapons was the culmination of a week of intense negotiations that followed months of secret diplomacy, officials in London and Washington said Saturday. Since an opening gambit by Libya in March, they said, there were a series of clandestine meetings in Tripoli between Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy and experts from the CIA, as well as visits to at least 10 sites in Libya by British and U.S. weapons experts. Khadafy personally drove his own subordinates to cooperate with the CIA's review of Libya's illicit weapons programs, U.S. intelligence officials said. "During meetings with Col. Khadafy, he was consistent throughout with his desire to proceed with the admissions and elimination of his weapons program," one intelligence official said. "He knew what he wanted to do, and he had a message to pass back to both Washington and London. Our meetings were usually late at night, but in each case he had done his homework, and was quite generous with his time." The negotiations hit high speed in the last week. Prime Minister Tony Blair had his first-ever telephone conversation with Khadafy on Thursday, an aide said. Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Blair's national security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, spoke with Libyan officials throughout the week, British and U.S. officials said. Secretary of State Colin Powell was on the phone with the British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, from Powell's hospital bed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where he was recovering from prostate surgery, a State Department official said. The effort's roots lay in the final phase of the five years of talks over the U.N. sanctions against Libya imposed after the bombing in 1988 of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, British and U.S. officials said. The United Nations lifted its sanctions after Libya acknowledged responsibility for the bombing and offered about $10 million in compensation for each of the 270 victims. But Libya said full payment would come only after all international sanctions were lifted. <b> Congress and the Bush administration, however, said sanctions would be maintained until Libya gave up its illicit weapons programs and links to terrorist organizations. That position, American and British officials said, forced Libya -- economically crippled and desperate for the return of foreign oil companies -- to consider the new concessions. </b> A State Department official said Libya felt an urgency to act because of the U.S. stances on Iran and North Korea and the war in Iraq. An intelligence official said Khadafy was also concerned about the threat to his government from militant elements in the country. British and U.S. officials said Friday that the initial approach was made by Libya in March, just before the war. A spokesman for Blair said Saturday that Libya's chief of intelligence, Musa Kussa, contacted the British government. Kussa has spent several years seeking diplomatic pathways to break the U. S. economic embargo. He and other Libyan officials carried on secret discussions with British and U.S. intelligence that at times have involved former South African President Nelson Mandela, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and other Arab diplomats. The negotiations hinged on how strong a commitment to breaking with Libya's past Khadafy was willing to make in a public statement, given the criticism it would probably arouse in parts of the Arab world, officials in London said. A strong declaration was crucial, said a British official who briefed reporters here Saturday, after discoveries by teams of U.S. and British experts who spent three weeks inspecting dozens of Libyan laboratories and military factories in October and early December. They found that Libyan scientists were "developing a nuclear fuel cycle intended to support nuclear weapons development," a British official said. "Libya had not acquired a nuclear weapons capability, though it was close to developing one." For the teams of CIA experts, the ability to walk through the chemical and nuclear weapons facilities was a stunning experience. The CIA teams visited dozens of sites, including the 10 involved in the nuclear program, and interviewed with Libyan scientists. Though the country's uranium-enrichment capabilities were further along than expected, the intelligence officials said that much of what the CIA saw confirmed its analysts' projections, which they hailed as a vindication of the agency's ability to monitor weapons programs around the world. That ability has been called into question by the failure of the U.S. hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. <b> Intelligence officials said that after the October visit, the Libyans became convinced that much was known about the weapons programs. As a result, they said, the December visit was even more productive because the Libyans were more open. </b> Libya revealed chemical weapon stockpiles, the existence of precursor materials used to develop other nerve agents, and a fledgling nuclear weapons program, complete with centrifuges to enrich uranium for weapons fuel. The discoveries raised the question of what nations had supplied components like centrifuges, which intelligence officials said had not been assembled in the "cascade" necessary to begin weapons-grade fuel production. The officials said that Libya has obtained long-range Scud C-type missiles, with a range of 800 kilometers, from North Korea. The experts found tens of tons of mustard gas, a chemical weapon first used in World War I, that had been produced about a decade ago, U.S. officials said. The gas was accompanied by hundreds of aerial bombs that could be used to deliver the gas. </i> <hr color=red> Libya continued (to some unknown extent) its WMD programs until it reached some level of assurance that halting the programs would get them off the U.S. sanctions list. It has now asked for a higher level of inspections from the IAEA and has signaled intentions to agree to the <i>Chemical Weapons Convention</i>. In closing: <a HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16589-2003Dec19.html">Libya Vows to Give Up Banned Weapons</a> <i>..........."For anyone who is a hawk on weapons of mass destruction, this is a welcome event," said Ashton Carter, assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration and an adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. "We should hope that our resolve over Iraq's WMD had something to do with convincing the Libyan leadership to take this course."........</i>
Mango Read Zion's article, the analysis 100 percent in line with wht I was trying to say. Now, should I trust the triumphalists in the Bush administration, and assume that the continuos trend of concessions with Libya would not have continued, and that the Iraq war (as if the invasion/occupation of Libya was even remotely possible within the next 10 years) as the "but-for" cause of this change in policy? I don't think so. I freely admit that I have no documetation, of what would have happened in an alternate reality; That's because that reality never happened. Do you have documentation that proves opposite, aside from speculative claims by William Safire or "Senior Administration Officials"? What you did provide was evidence that Libya had not, in the past , fully complied with the US' demands; sorry, but all that proves is that it didn't happen then. Your article talked heavily about the cumulative effects of sanctions. How does the eventual triumph of sanctions without bloodshed lead to justification of a pre-emptive war in lieu of sanctions? If anything, it undercuts your case.
Some things to clear up before we continue. What you wrote earlier in this thread: If anything, the war on Iraq may have delayed this concession. My case is that you are speculating that the Iraq War may have delayed this concession. Talks for the next stage/level of Libya - U.S. relations started in March 2003 and it was conducted at a diplomatic - conversational level. This fall, they went to an inspection - verification routine. I have no idea how the U.S. in Iraq would prevent diplomatic talks between the U.S. - Libya from happening during the same timeframe. <hr color=red> I posted several articles. <hr color=red> I reread it and it makes no mention of how the Iraq War may have delayed the concessions from Libya as you suggested earlier in this thread: If anything, the war on Iraq may have delayed this concession. <hr color=red> You pose more questions for me to answer, yet they are questions you should be asking others in this thread because it is going in a direction that I never pursued. When did I say something similar to this earlier in the thread? That the war in Iraq inspired Libya to come clean. <hr color=red> I haven't gotten a satisfactory answer from you for my first question in this thread: I have documented that the latest round of conversation - dialog between the U.S. - Libya started in March 2003 and that the dialog led to inspections that proved Libya was really interested in turning over a new leaf. With the openess that Libya displayed, the U.S. felt that this was a new beginning. If Libya was interested in better relations with the U.S., then why would the events in Iraq delay the process? In March 2003, Libya could see that events in Iraq were about to unfold.............yet <b>they</b> wished to open the dialog with the U.S. How that may have delayed the concessions as you suggested earlier is still a puzzle to me.
Sure Mango, I can deal in speculation, here you go: Qaddafi ready to drop WMD program, normalize relations with the Arab world, was ready to do it last year; then the war happens, an unpopular war in the arab world, he doesn't want to appear weak, waits it out vacilates blah blah blah. A very easy game to play, really. Are you satisfied no I apologize if I ascribed a position to you that you did not advocate. I'm not really sure what you actually are advocating other than that it is contra to mine, what with the vulcan like precision with which you pooint out my typos and such. IN any event, as I stated before, my position is crystallized by the article posted by the Cambridge guy that Zion posted; he pretty much said all that I wanted to say on the subject.
Sam, I advocated: <i> That the Iraq War (2003) did not deter Libya from opening, conducting and concluding negotiations to end its WMD Programs and thus move towards better realtions with the U.S. </i> Good night.
More good news (whether Iraq had anything to do with it or not ) ======================== Libya to Open Nuclear Programs to U.N. 25 minutes ago By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer VIENNA, Austria - Libya, which said it will give up weapons of mass destruction, will take the next step and open the North African country's nuclear activities to spot inspections, a diplomat said. AP Photo A Libyan delegation agreed to the spot inspections by the U.N. atomic agency when it met Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the diplomat said Sunday. The agreement came a day after Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi announced he would scrap efforts to build weapons of mass destruction. "It was a logical move on the part of Libya if it wanted to show it was serious about being open about its (nuclear) programs," the diplomat said on condition of anonymity. Libya admitted it was developing the fuel for nuclear weapons, disclosing a program that was more advanced than previously believed. The North African nation agreed to provide the IAEA with details of its efforts and to comply with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. During Saturday's meeting, the Libyan delegation agreed to sign an additional protocol to the treaty, giving the IAEA a strong mandate for wide-ranging inspections on short notice of most aspects of the country's nuclear activities. Iran has also pledged to sign the treaty but only after months of pressure from the agency and its board of governors. The United States and other nations accuse Iran of hiding efforts to make nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies. Gadhafi's decision to come clean about clandestine nuclear activities is the latest in a series of moves intended to end his country's international isolation and shed its reputation as a rogue nation. The United States imposed sanctions in 1986, accusing Libya of supporting terrorist groups. Ten years later, Congress passed the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, which threatened to penalize the U.S. partners of European companies that did significant business in Libya and Iran. While U.S. sanctions remain in force, the U.N. Security Council voted in September to abolish its 1992 sanctions on Libya, after Tripoli agreed to compensate families of the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. A former Libyan intelligence agent, Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi, was convicted of the Pan Am bombing, which killed 270 people, and sentenced to life in prison. link
Is the Bush administration as dumb as everyone thinks?? ==================== The 'Bush Doctrine' Experiences Shining Moments Sun Dec 21, 7:43 AM ET Add Top Stories - washingtonpost.com to My Yahoo! By Dana Milbank, Washington Post Staff Writer It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine. Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya's Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased. On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country's debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5 million believed to be for al Qaeda. To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might. Those who developed the Bush Doctrine -- a policy of taking preemptive, unprovoked action against emerging threats -- predicted that an impressive U.S. victory in Iraq would intimidate allies and foes alike, making them yield to U.S. interests in other areas. Though that notion floundered with the occupation in Iraq, the capture of Hussein may have served as the decisive blow needed to make others respect U.S. wishes, they say. "It's always been at the heart of the Bush Doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had in the past when we acquiesced," said Richard Perle, an influential adviser to the administration. "With the capture of Saddam, the sense that momentum may be with us is very important." Perle had provoked much criticism for saying a successful U.S. invasion of Iraq would signal to other foes that "you're next." But he said the actions by Libya and Iran prove that the threat alone was sufficient to produce action. "Gaddafi surely had to take more seriously that we would not allow him to get away with the programs he was embarked," he said. Perle and the other "neo-conservative" hawks whose views dominate the Bush administration know better than to claim victory. Gaddafi or the Iranians may still cheat despite admitting inspectors. And other potential foes, notably North Korea (news - web sites) and China, have shown little susceptibility to the threat implicit in the Bush Doctrine. Still, Perle allowed, "it's nice to have a good week every once in a while." Bush's domestic adversaries have had some trouble responding to the administration's diplomatic successes. Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a presidential aspirant, portrayed the success with Libya as an exception to the Bush Doctrine. "Ironically, this significant advance represents a complete U-turn in the Bush administration's overall foreign policy," he said in a statement Saturday. "An administration that scorns multilateralism and boasts about a rigid doctrine of military preemption has almost in spite of itself demonstrated the enormous potential for improving our national security through diplomacy." But Bush's supporters say it is precisely his willingness to go it alone and take preemptive action that has encouraged other countries to seek diplomatic solutions before the United States launches a military attack. The Libya and Iran concessions "show the peripheral benefit of preemption," said Kenneth Adelman, a Reagan administration arms control official who now serves on a Pentagon (news - web sites) advisory panel. "Most of all it scares the bejesus out of rogue dictators." As for stubborn allies such as Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, "they pay more attention when there's a forceful U.S. policy," Adelman said. It is unlikely, of course, that France or Germany would acknowledge that they are reacting to U.S. strength. Yet it is noteworthy that they were conciliatory on the issue of Iraqi debt forgiveness after Hussein was captured -- even though they were complaining bitterly just a week before about a Bush plan to exclude them from U.S.-funded Iraq reconstruction projects. And it is inarguable that Germany and France have taken a more active role in winning Iranian compliance with weapons inspections since the United States invaded Iraq. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain visited Iran in October, overcoming Iran's longtime resistance to signing a monitoring agreement. "The Europeans never would have taken these steps [in Iran] without Bush taking the steps he took in Iraq," said Gary Schmitt, who directs the hard-line Project for the New American Century. "The Europeans don't want us to do another Iraq there, so they're rushing in to get a deal. Bush gets an immense amount of credit for laying out what the agenda is and making others step up to the plate." Bush still has some inconsistencies to work out with his doctrine. Earlier this month, he drew rebukes from conservatives for undermining democratic Taiwan to win favor with totalitarian China. And, as Bush's domestic opponents point out, he has been contradictory in his views of international organizations. Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) said the administration's support for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in Libya and Iran "is difficult to reconcile with the administration's previous ridicule of IAEA inspectors in Iraq." But such complaints, at least for now, have been overshadowed by the results achieved with Iran and Libya. That was the clear message Bush delivered in his unusual appearance late Friday in the White House briefing room. Mentioning the fate of Hussein, Bush said, "These actions by the United States and our allies have sent an unmistakable message to regimes that seek or possess weapons of mass destruction." If Bush was oblique, a senior aide who briefed reporters after the president's statement, was quicker to take credit. "The outcome today is a response [to] the policies that we have pursued," he said. The official said the secret discussions with Libya began in March -- when the invasion of Iraq started. "I can't imagine that Iraq went unnoticed by the Libyan leadership," the aide said. linkity link link
Give it up... ... SamFisher will never give The Bush Administration credit for doing anything right, well, or constructive.
Gadhafi: Iraq war may have influenced WMD decision Such weapons no longer necessary, Libyan leader says TRIPOLI, Libya (CNN) --Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, in an exclusive interview with CNN, acknowledged Monday that the war in Iraq may have played a role in his decision to dismantle his country's weapons of mass destruction programs. http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/12/22/gadhafi.interview/index.html From the bastion of credibility, CNN; therefore, let's give it up to the "neocons"...
