The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 68/No. 1           January 12, 2004  
 
 
Facing U.S.-British attack, Libya
surrenders sovereignty, says
will dismantle arms programs
U.S. gov’t claims Pakistanis are key nuclear suppliers to Iran
(front page)
 
BY SAM MANUEL  
The Libyan government announced December 19 that it will dismantle its nuclear and chemical weapons programs and allow United Nations inspectors to verify compliance. With this move, Tripoli effectively surrendered a good part of its sovereignty. The decision came after Washington and London made it clear that the Libyan regime would face a similar fate to that of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein unless it bowed to U.S. dictates on “weapons of mass destruction.”

Over the following two days, the Washington Post and other major U.S. dailies said that evidence from the UN probe of Iran’s atomic programs showed that Pakistani individuals and companies were key suppliers of parts and tools for development of nuclear arms by Tehran. Washington has been on the prod recently to pressure Islamabad to take harsher action against al-Qaeda and other “terrorists” based in Pakistan.

“We said that if our efforts with Afghanistan and Iraq were successful, our diplomacy then could be simplified to two words: ‘You’re next’,” said Richard Perle, a Bush administration adviser, on December 21. “The point was not ‘we’re going to invade you next.’ It was ‘we’re going to turn to you next.’” This policy would then become enormously efficient, Perle concluded, according to the December 22 Financial Times.

The December 20 London-based Guardian published an edited version of a Libyan government statement on the arms program agreement. According to this statement, Tripoli made the decision after Washington and London made it clear they would use the de facto admission of responsibility by the Libyan government for the bombing of a passenger airliner to go after the regime of Muammar Qaddafi. In January 2001, a Libyan military intelligence official was convicted in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. As part of that settlement, Tripoli agreed to pay up to $10 million to the relatives of each of those killed on the flight after UN sanctions against Libya were lifted.

“As American tanks began to roll through Iraq to overthrow Saddam,” wrote conservative columnist William Safire in the December 22 New York Times, the Libyan government “came up with a strategy to avoid being next on the regime-change list: pre-emptive surrender.” Safire’s customary pro-imperialist tone notwithstanding, he had a point when he argued against the attempts by liberal politicians and pundits to describe Tripoli’s action as a result of a drawn-out process of diplomacy.

An article in the December 22 Wall Street Journal reported that the conclusion of the agreement “was accelerated by a still-secret interception of weapons materials under a fledgling international program to block the shipment of illicit materials around the globe.” Application of the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) helped pressure Tripoli into a corner, the article said. Under the PSI, Washington and a select group of its allies work to track and seize materials—including by stopping and boarding ships on the high seas—allegedly destined for weapons programs in “states of proliferation concern.”

U.S. deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz spoke clearly about this initiative at a December 17 conference on the PSI. He applauded the five new governments that joined the U.S.-led effort—those of Canada, Denmark, Norway, Singapore, and Turkey. The group’s original 11 members were the governments of Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

“Your attendance testifies to the fact that weapons of mass destruction in the hands of bad actors and rogue states is something that the international community cannot continue to live with,” Wolfowitz said. “For too long we relied on diplomacy, arms control, non-proliferation and export controls to stop the trade in weapons of mass destruction.” Now the focus shifts on joint military action, including stopping and boarding ships on the high seas and confiscating their cargo, he said.

“It used to be that when countries joined the so-called ‘nuclear club’ they seemed to think that the club had just about the right number of members in it,” Wolfowitz continued. “They wanted to stop further expansion. But in the last ten years or more we’ve seen a very dangerous trade in the most dangerous materials and the most dangerous technologies among these countries that lie outside the non-proliferation regime. It’s going to take concerted international effort to prevent that rogue trade in rogue materials from coming home to any of us in a disastrous form.”

North Korea and Iran are “of particular concern,” the U.S. department of defense official said, but they are not the only targets of the Proliferation Security Initiative.

Recent actions by Washington have indicated that Damascus is high on the list.

“In word and action, we have clarified the choices left to potential adversaries,” U.S. president George Bush told reporters at the White House December 19. “I hope other leaders will find an example in Libya’s announcement today,” he stated, adding that this is a “development of great importance in our continuing effort to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction.” The U.S. president also indicated Washington won’t let up the pressure, maintaining U.S. sanctions against Libya until it is satisfied that Tripoli has carried out its promises. “Because Libya has a troubled history with America and Britain, we will be vigilant in ensuring its government lives up to all its responsibilities,” Bush said.

“Libya wants to solve all problems and we want to focus on development,” Foreign Minister Mohamed Abderrhmane Chalgam told Al-Jazeera television December 20. “This program does not benefit our people or country,” he said, referring to the arms program. “We want to have ties with America and Britain.”

Tripoli reportedly opened secret negotiations primarily through London months ago. British prime minister Anthony Blair “was continuously sending letters and personal envoys who met with leader Muammar el-Qaddafi,” according to the Libyan statement reported in the Guardian. “They promised that Libya would get great economic benefits…. This will speed up the restoration of American-Libyan relations…and improve them. Coordination took place between the Libyan Intelligence, the CIA, and MI6 [British secret service] which required calling for experts from the three agencies to examine and discuss the nature of these programs and to help Libya to prepare its files before entry into international treaties that prevent the proliferation of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”

The White House has claimed that Libya’s program to develop nuclear and chemical weapons began two decades ago. Officials of the U.S. and British spy agencies were shown 10 nuclear facilities by Libyan authorities. An unnamed Bush administration official told the Washington Post they had learned a considerable amount about north Korea’s “missile trading business” in the course of negotiations with Libya.

Under enormous pressure from the governments of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia, Iran agreed in October to end programs to develop nuclear weapons in exchange for assurances that Tehran’s past violations of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty would not be brought before the UN Security Council. The three countries also agreed to help ease Tehran’s access to technology for nuclear power.

The campaign to pressure Tehran to end any steps towards acquiring nuclear weapons took a new twist with Washington’s accusations of possible involvement by Pakistani entities.

“Documents provided by Iran to UN nuclear inspectors since early November have exposed the outlines of a vast, secret procurement network that successfully acquired thousands of sensitive parts and tools from numerous countries over a 17-year period,” said an article in the December 21 Washington Post. “While Iran has not directly identified Pakistan as a supplier, Pakistani individuals and companies are strongly implicated as sources of key blueprints, technical guidance, and equipment for a pilot uranium-enrichment plant that was first exposed by Iranian dissidents 18 months ago, government officials and independent weapons experts said.”

U.S. and European intelligence agents are now conducting an investigation of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist credited with the development of Islamabad’s nuclear bomb, and his aides to probe assistance to Iran, with the cooperation of the Pakistani government. Until recently, Islamabad had vigorously denied selling nuclear technology to Iran or other countries deemed “rogue states” by Washington.  
 
 
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