http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_jan11.html
Bush and Blair behind Khadaffy's WMD sham
CREDIT: By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
[margolis_eric.jpg] MIAMI -- Just before New Year, President George
Bush and Britain's PM Tony Blair staged what French call a "coup de
theatre."
That's Gallic for pulling a political rabbit from one's hat.
The rabbit in question was none other than Libya's Col. Moammar
Khadaffy, once reviled as the world's most dangerous man and America's
Enemy Number One.
After eight months of secret negotiations with Washington and London,
the eccentric Libyan strongman grandly proclaimed his nation was
abandoning its weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Bush, his neo-conservative supporters, and the U.S. media crowed that
Khadaffy's surrender confirmed the wisdom of invading Afghanistan and
Iraq. The evil Khadaffy had been cowed into giving up his arsenal of
deadly WMD.
Other "rogue" states would hasten to follow Libya's lead.
But on closer inspection, there was much less to this drama than met
the eye. Khadaffy, in fact, had no viable WMD, contrary to fevered
claims by neo-con propagandists.
According to UN inspectors and European intelligence sources, Libya
had only small amounts of World War I technology mustard gas, a
primitive battlefield weapon.
It had no biological or nuclear weapons. Libya had no means of
delivering WMD beyond some rusting Scud-B missiles with only a
180-mile range.
Libya possessed an assortment of nuclear junk: a small research
reactor, some lab equipment, and a few inoperative, third-hand
centrifuges bought from Pakistan or Malaysia.
There is no sign, at least so far, of any capability to make or
deliver WMD.
When I was in Libya interviewing Col. Khadaffy, I found there was not
a single elevator repairman in the country.
Bakers had to be imported from Egypt to make bread. Seventy percent of
Libya's military equipment was broken down. In short, tiny, backward
Libya, with a population of only five million, had no military
capability.
However, in the 1980s, Libya certainly did fund all sorts of violent
revolutionary groups and was implicated in the bombings of French and
U.S. airliners.
After 17 years of punishing sanctions against Libya, Khadaffy sought
to improve relations with the West by paying reparations for the
airliners, and handing over for trial two agents involved in the 1988
Pan Am bombing.
Now, by pretending to eliminate WMD he does not possess, the colonel
has given a huge political bonus to Bush and Blair, a way for them to
evade censure for shamelessly lying their nations into the Iraq war.
They will reward Khadaffy by halting efforts to overthrow him, slowly
lifting sanctions, and allowing U.S. and British oil firms to resume
exploiting Libya's high-grade oil. That's politics.
The CIA helped Khadaffy into power in 1969. In the 1980s, the U.S.,
Britain and France each tried to assassinate him.
Now, it seems the flamboyant colonel with nine lives is slated to be
reborn as a good Arab and U.S. ally.
Right after the Libyan charade, Washington opened a major new campaign
to deprive Pakistan of its nuclear arsenal. The U.S. media trumpeted
leaked government reports alleging Pakistan had secretly supplied
Iran, North Korea, and Libya with nuclear technology. These reports
blurred the lines between exports of civilian and military nuclear
technology.
Washington accused Pakistan of being a major nuclear proliferator.
Pakistan nervously admitted some of its nuclear scientists may have
privately aided neighbour Iran, which has sought nuclear weapons for
the past 28 years.
So far, accusations that past or current Pakistani governments were
involved with covert nuclear weapons exports remain unproven. A
director general of Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, once told me
Iran had offered to pay Pakistan's entire defence budget for 10 years
in exchange for nuclear technology, but Islamabad refused.
Whatever the case, this whole business is worthy of Alice in
Wonderland. Who came down from the mountain to ordain that only the
U.S., Russia, Britain, France, China, North Korea, India and Israel
are allowed to possess nuclear weapons or sell nuclear technology?
The U.S. is about to build a new generation of earth-penetrating
nuclear weapons. China and Russia are working on new nuclear systems.
India is building a very powerful nuclear arsenal and developing
intercontinental missiles.
Israel has sold India advanced nuclear warhead and missile technology.
Muslim nations, it appears, are the only ones not allowed to possess
WMD.
India used to rightly call this "nuclear apartheid" until President
Bush allowed Delhi into the nuclear club.
Now that Iraq has been crushed, the White House's next targets are
clearly Iran and Pakistan.
Neither pose any threat to the U.S.
Political and economic pressure on Pakistan will intensify.
President Pervez Musharraf, who has been unfailingly responsive to
U.S. demands, may soon be asked to place Pakistan's nuclear weapons
under joint U.S.-Pakistani control, a prelude to the total elimination
of its nuclear arsenal, scientists, and weapons manufacturing
capability.
If Bush were really serious about reducing nuclear weapons, as he
claims, instead of building more nukes, he should slash America's
still huge, quite useless arsenal of thousands of nuclear warheads.
That would be called leading by example.
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Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to or visit
his home page.
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