Libya Renounces WMDs — Gaddafi's Rehabilitation
Libya announced in December 2003 that it was giving up its programmes for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and let inspectors take them away. The programmes were further along on paper than in fact. Libya had bought centrifuge components and a weapon design from the network run by the Pakistani metallurgist A. Q. Khan, and had not assembled a working cascade; it did have several tonnes of mustard gas and the aircraft bombs to deliver it. The negotiation had been running in secret with British and American intelligence for nine months before the announcement, and had begun before the invasion of Iraq. What drove it from the Libyan side was sanctions and isolation. Libya had already accepted responsibility for Lockerbie and agreed compensation in August 2003, and Gaddafi wanted the oil sector reopened to Western investment and his son's rehabilitation programme to work. The interception of a German ship carrying centrifuge parts to Libya in October gave the negotiators leverage and also exposed the Khan network, which was the larger intelligence result. Everything was flown to the United States in 2004, sanctions were lifted, embassies reopened, and Blair visited Gaddafi in a tent. The episode was cited at the time as a demonstration that pressure works and disarmament pays. It has been cited since 2011 for the opposite conclusion. Gaddafi was overthrown eight years later with NATO air support and killed in a ditch, and both North Korea and Iran have referred to his example in explaining why they will not disarm.
- Year: 2003 CE
- Category: Diplomacy
