Even before Colonel Mohamar Khadafi decided to open up his arsenal to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in December 2003, "the Americans knew everything" Seïf Al-Islam Khadafi, son and presumed heir of the Libyan leader, asserts. "Our contribution to their knowledge of the subject was null. They had infiltrated the networks long ago," he adds. 

***********************

According to His Son, Khadafi Did Not Give Up
    His Nuclear Arsenal Because of the War Against Saddam 
    By Patrice Claude
    Le Monde FR 
    Tuesday 10 February 2004 

  The presumed heir to the Libyan leader reminds that negotiations began in 1999.
    Libya is not "for nothing" in the revelation of the great international atomic "black market" directed from Islamabad by the "father" of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, A. Q. Khan. Even before Colonel Mohamar Khadafi decided to open up his arsenal to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors in December 2003, "the Americans knew everything" Seïf Al-Islam Khadafi, son and presumed heir of the Libyan leader, asserts. "Our contribution to their knowledge of the subject was null. They had infiltrated the networks long ago," he adds. 

    It was in October 2003 that the fourth delivery to Libya of metal parts made in Malaysia and intended for the assembly of a modern centrifuge- indispensable to the production of Isotope 235, the essential component of an efficient nuclear bomb- was stopped in Italian waters by American security services. Some think that this boarding played a role in the spectacular aggiornamento taking place between Washington and Tripoli. Others- as President George Bush clearly allowed it to be understood January 20- prefer to believe that it's the American invasion of Iraq that decided Colonel Khadafi to conclude his efforts with regard to weapons of mass destruction. 

    "Nine months of intensive negotiations including the United States and Great Britain have succeeded- in Libya- where twelve years of diplomacy with Iraq failed," the President asserted. "For diplomacy to work, words must be credible and no one may any longer doubt America's word," he added. In fact, the last negotiation session between Tripoli, London and Washington began in March 2003, several days before the American offensive in Iraq, and it was on December 19, a week after Saddam Hussein's capture, that the Libyan "Guide" announced to the world that he was giving up all secret weapons programs. 

    January 27, after several weeks of verification on the ground by IAEA experts, 27 tons of equipment and documents relating to Libya's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs arrived at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the American Energy Department's most important installation. The study of the documents and the "dissection" of the seized materiel are well-advanced- which has allowed them to be traced to their geographic sources. Already, German, Spanish, and Malaysian companies have been identified and invited to "verify" whether they had not allowed "sensitive" material to be sent to the Libyan Jamahiriya. 

    Tripoli, which also accepted adhesion to the International Convention for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and opened its stocks of these types of weapons to inspectors who have been at work since February 5, disputes that its decision was precipitated by the Iraq invasion. "President Bush can't say that," declares Seïf Al-Islam Khadafi: "He knows that it's not true. We understand his pre-election preoccupations, his problems with public opinion, Congress, and the media." However, the President "knows perfectly well" that the American-Libyan discussions "had begun long before" there was any public discussion of invading Iraq. 

    In fact, those discussions began at the end of Bill Clinton's term, in 1999, most notably through the intermediation of former Under-Secretary of State Martin Indyk. They continued during the following years and, according to certain sources, it was these contacts that allowed Libya to escape from the "Axis of Evil" defined by Mr. Bush at the outset of 2002. According to Ray Taeyh, an American expert on Libya interviewed by the Washington Post January 20, "it is the decades of sanctions and isolation and economic problems which triggered internal disorders, that forced Khadafi to change. This opinion is shared by Hans Blix, former Chief UN Disarmament Inspector: "I don't know whether the Iraq affair aroused Libya and North Korea's concern," he confided January 29 in Stockholm, "but I think that one could say, on the contrary, that the Libyan case shows that a voluntary renunciation of weapons can be achieved by diplomacy, sanctions, and other means." 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~