Libya Comes Clean, But Why?

The White House says the war against Iraq convinced Libya to open its weapons mass destruction programs to inspection, but British officials and arms control experts believe the surprise announcement was the result of years of patient, quiet diplomacy.

The United States and Britain announced Friday that Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi would give up his country's nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction programs.

The head of the U.N. watchdog said Monday that Libya has agreed to open its nuclear activities to pervasive inspections by the U.N. atomic agency as early as next week, taking a key step toward honoring its pledge.

The White House portrayed Libya's promise to abandon weapons of mass destruction programs as affirmation of President Bush's hard-line strategy on arms proliferation and suggested the U.S.-led war in Iraq helped convince Gadhafi that he should act.

White House officials promoted Friday's Libya announcement as vindication of Mr. Bush's decision to make war on Saddam, even though banned weapons, Mr. Bush's prime public reason for waging it, have not been found.

Announcing the Libya deal, Mr. Bush invoked the Iraq war that brought down Saddam Hussein as he issued a flat warning of "unwelcome consequences" for countries that do not follow Libya's lead.

The Times of London reports British officials see the buildup around Iraq, and the recent seizure of a boat carrying weapons components headed for Tripoli, as also motivating Gadhafi.

But many analysts say the war could not have motivated Gadhafi because its aftermath has proved so difficult for the United States that other countries probably view U.S. military force as an unlikely option elsewhere right now.

Some arms control experts also note that the U.S. employed far different tactics with Libya — which has been making been making conciliatory moves for years — than with Iraq.

"The president is trying hard to portray this as a victory for his strategy," said Joseph Cirincione, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's nonproliferation project. "But when you look at this, it's almost the opposite of the Bush doctrine."

The administration's nonmilitary alternatives typically involve tough talk, a hard line against negotiating and the offer of few incentives to comply. That does not seem to be the approach employed with Libya.

British officials credit the long diplomatic process of getting Libyan leader Gadhafi to take responsibility for the 1988 downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on Dec. 21, 1988, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground. Abdel Basset Ali Al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, was found guilty of the bombing in 2001 and sentenced to life in prison.

Gadhafi initiated the weapons talks in March, amid the buildup in the Persian Gulf area to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The overtures came just after Libya agreed to a $2.7 billion settlement for the Pan Am bombing.

As a result, Britain pushed successfully for the lifting of U.N. penalties against on Libya, a sprawling desert country in northwest Africa. U.S. sanctions remain in force.

In an interview Monday with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, Libyan Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem said the decision will improve his nation's relations with America and Britain and bring badly needed economic benefits.

Ghanem reportedly said that Libya wanted to change its "priorities and concentrate on our economic affairs and economic development."

Libya has 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. It also agreed to tell the IAEA about current nuclear programs and to adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

But Britain's Observer newspaper reports that what made the deal possible was not Libya's willingness to reveal and end it weapons programs, as much as its agreement to share extensive intelligence on al Qaeda. Libyan intelligence agencies are among the most feared in the region, the newspaper notes, and it named hundreds of operatives to the CIA and Britain's MI6.

Gadhafi's decision to come clean is the latest in a series of moves aimed to end his country's international isolation and shed its reputation as a rogue nation.

Gadhafi was one of America's top enemies when Saddam was still a nominal ally. After Libya was linked to several terrorist attacks in 1985 and 1986, President Reagan dubbed Gadhafi "flaky" and ordered airstrikes in April 1986. Gadhafi has claimed those attacks killed civilians, including a daughter.

But in subsequent years, Libya quietly began conciliatory moves.

The Times of London reports that Libya initiated this year's talks through a channel set up by MI6 in 1990 to discuss Libya's covert support for the Irish Republican Army.

In 2000, Gadhafi's government transmitted ransom money from European governments to secure the release of 24 foreigners held by the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines.

Last year, Gadhafi dubbed al Qaeda a threat to Libya, leading the State Department to conclude Tripoli had "curtailed its support for international terrorism, although it may maintain residual contacts with some of its former terrorist clients."

Also in 2002, Libya signed the 1999 Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the 1991 Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection.