Libya
gives up its non-existent WMD
The world
is getting safer by leaps and bounds.
States that don’t have, and never have had, weapons of mass destruction
are giving them up. First, there was
Iraq: it was made to give them up by decisive military action by the
US/UK. And now Libya has volunteered to
give them up – as a consequence of the decisive military action against Iraq,
we are asked to believe.
The latter
decision was so historic that the Prime Minister felt obliged to announce it to
the nation on the 9pm News on BBC1 on a Friday night (19 December 2003) from
his own constituency. He told the nation:
“Libya has now declared its
intention to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction completely. … This courageous decision by Colonel
Qadhafi is an historic one. I applaud it. ”
What the
Prime Minister didn’t tell the nation was that Libya hadn’t got any weapons of
mass destruction, and never had.
Nor did he
tell the nation that Libya’s weapons of mass destruction programme was, in the
words of Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, the Director General of the IAEA, “in the very
initial stages of development” (Guardian,
30 December 2003).
In
subsequent days, the word in the press was that Libya had a programme to enrich
uranium for nuclear weapons production.
Here is what Dr El Baradei had to say about that:
“We haven’t seen any
industrial-scale facility to produce highly enriched uranium. We haven’t seen any enriched uranium.”
(ibid)
The Libyan
Foreign Minister, Abdulrahman Shalgam, told
a press conference that Libya’s weapons programmes had been “at a laboratory
level”.
Straw’s programmes
The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw,
made a statement
to the House of Commons on 5 January 2004 on this historic development. He was more circumspect than the Prime
Minister had been on 19 December. He
echoed what the Government now says about Iraq, and talked a lot about weapons
“programmes” and very little about weapons.
Specific detail was noticeably absent.
On nuclear weapons programmes, the
only detail he gave was:
“Libya acknowledged to us that it was developing a
nuclear fuel cycle intended to support nuclear weapons development. A team of
British and American officials were given access to projects at more than 10
sites. Those projects included uranium enrichment. Libya had not yet developed
a nuclear weapon, but it was on the way to doing so.”
In other
words, unlike its near neighbour Israel, Libya has no weapons of mass
destruction, and wasn’t within an ass’s roar of developing them. The likelihood is that its embryonic
programme isn’t even active, that Libya had given up the attempt to develop
nuclear weapons long ago.
The
Government likes to describe chemical and biological weapons as “weapons of
mass destruction”. But even if you
accept that absurd definition which puts, for example, World War I mustard gas
in the same category as the bomb that wiped out Nagasaki, it looks as if Libya
still hasn’t any “weapons of mass destruction”.
On
chemical weapons, Straw told the Commons:
“Libya provided to us evidence of
activity in the chemical weapons field, including significant quantities of
chemical agent and bombs designed to be filled with chemical agent.”
That carefully
avoids saying that Libya had usable bombs filled with chemical warfare agent –
which could reasonably be described as chemical weapons. It must be assumed that if Libya possessed
actual chemical weapons, Straw would have said so.
Straw
didn’t volunteer what chemical agent Libya possessed in significant quantities,
or what quantities were significant, or whether the agent was effective for
warfare or had degraded into harmless sludge.
MPs made no effort to find out.
In the press, it is suggested that the agent in question is World War I
mustard gas.
As for
biological weapons, it is clear from Straw’s remarks that Libya hadn’t even got
a development programme, let alone a functional end product. Straw told the Commons:
“The team of British and American
specialists was given access to scientists at research centres with dual-use
potential to support biological weapons-related work.”
Note the use of the word
“potential”. There are probably
hundreds of laboratories within a few miles of the House of Commons with “potential”
to support biological weapons-related work.
All sides of the Commons accepted
the Government’s view that this non-event was a historic triumph for British
diplomacy. Some went so far as to say
that it justified the invasion of Iraq, which, it was said, had frightened
Colonel Gaddafi into coughing up his non-existent weapons.
The irony
is that the end result of this historic disarmament exercise will be a Libya
that is more effective militarily. The
Libyan Foreign Minister told
CNN:
“It’s a critical deal for Libya, because first of all we
will get access to defensive weapons and no sanctions on Libyan arms imports
anymore. We will get access to the
know-how and technology in sectors which were banned...and (which) Libyans were
prohibited to study.”
Not a bad deal for Libya. And a good deal for British arms firms.
Israel’s weapons
In all the hype about Libya’s
historic renunciation of “weapons of mass destruction”, very little was said
about the one state in the Middle East that definitely possesses nuclear
weapons and lots of them (and probably possesses chemical and biological
weapons as well). Blair’s broadcast to
the nation on 19 December didn’t mention Israel, nor did Straw’s statement to
the Commons on 5 January.
To her credit Labour MP, Joan
Ruddock, brought the matter up in the Commons.
She was the only MP to do so.
She asked:
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that if the progress
that is being made in Libya, and indeed in Iran, is to be continued and
sustained, Israel too must surely be brought within the ambit of international
disarmament agreements?”
In reply,
Straw revealed that the UK has “long had a policy of seeking a nuclear-free
area in the whole of the Middle East”.
One could be forgiven for being unaware of this policy, the fulfilment
of which requires Israel to give up its nuclear weapons. The Government has been completely silent
about that demand, in contrast to non-existent nuclear weapons of Iraq and
Iran.
Straw’s
answer continued:
“At the same time, what would also
greatly ease the security situation would be for the Arab and Islamic states to
recognise Israel's right to exist within international borders and to cease to
threaten its very existence. That, frankly, is what places Israel in a
different security category from any other country in the world.”
So, there
you have it: uniquely in this world, Israel needs to have nuclear weapons –
because Arab and Islamic states “threaten its very existence”. The Government’s long held policy for a
nuclear-free zone in the Middle East will have to wait a while longer.
Lockerbie
The
backdrop to this “historic” announcement about Libya’s abandonment of “weapons
of mass destruction” has been the settlement with Libya over Lockerbie, when
Libya agreed to pay compensation to the victims’ families. It did so, even though the conviction of its
intelligence agent, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, for the bombing was an obvious miscarriage of
justice. Al-Megrahi’s lawyers are about
to present a submission to the Scottish criminal cases review commission, in an
attempt to get his conviction re-examined on appeal.
It is regularly stated in the
press that, as part of this settlement, Libya accepted responsibility for the
bombing, and the Government continues to give that impression without saying so
explicitly. In his Commons statement on
5 January, Straw said that discussions with Libya over several years had led “to Libya
agreeing to pay compensation to the families of those killed at Lockerbie, and
to the Libyans accepting full responsibility for the actions of their
officials”.
He repeated the latter phrase more than once in answer to questions that day. What he didn’t say was that Libya has never accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. To do so would require it to state clearly that al-Megrahi is guilty of the Lockerbie bombing, and that he was acting on behalf of the Libyan state when he carried it out. Libya has never done so.
In the course of settling the dispute over Lockerbie, Libya
wrote a letter dated 15 August 2003 to the President of the Security Council,
which triggered the lifting of UN sanctions against it. (The text of
the letter is appended to a press statement
issued by Foreign Office Minister, Denis MacShane, on the same date). All the letter
says about Libya accepting responsibility for Lockerbie is that it
“has facilitated the bringing to justice
of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103, and accepts
responsibility for the actions of its officials” (paragraph 3)
That does
not say anything about al-Megrahi’s guilt, nor even that he was one of Libya’s
“officials”. Libya has not accepted
responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing at all, but bizarrely the Government
is prepared to give the impression to the world that it has.
Another
bizarre aspect of the Lockerbie settlement is the compensation
arrangements. These are not a simple
matter of each victim’s family getting $10 million with the lifting of UN
sanctions, but depend on US policy towards Libya. Only 40% of the $10 million, that is, $4 million, was paid with
the lifting of UN sanctions, and the total amount will only be paid (a) if US
sanctions are lifted, and (b) if Libya is removed from the US list of states
that support terrorism.
The full
story is that with the lifting of UN sanctions, each family received $4
million. If US sanctions are lifted,
each will receive another $4 million, and if the US removes Libya from its list
of states that support terrorism, each will receive another $2 million. But, if the latter two events don't take
place by May this year, although another million will go to each family (which
means that each family will receive at least $5 million in the deal), the rest
of the money will then revert to Libya, that is, 50% of
the original $2.7 billion.
Despite
Libya’s renunciation of “weapons of mass destruction”, President Bush has
renewed US sanctions against Libya within the last few days. But it is odds on that they will be lifted
before the May deadline, and Libya will be taken off the US list of states that
support terrorism, not least because US oil companies are champing at the bit
to do business with Libya
Labour
& Trade Union Review
January
2004