Thursday, February 24, 2011

U.S Fears Lybia Will Fire Chemical Weapons On Protestors As Chaos Mounts

WASHINGTON—The government of Col. Moammar Gadhafi hasn't destroyed significant stockpiles of mustard gas and other chemical-weapons agents, raising fears in Washington about what could happen to them—and whether they may be used—as Libya slides further into chaos.

Tripoli also maintains control of aging Scud B missiles, U.S. officials said, as well as 1,000 metric tons of uranium yellowcake and vast amounts of conventional weapons that Col. Gadhafi has channeled in the past to militants operating in countries like Sudan and Chad.

Current and former U.S. officials said in interviews that Washington's counterproliferation operations against Libya over the past decade have scored gains, in particular the dismantling of Tripoli's nascent nuclear-weapons program and its Scud C missile stockpiles. But the level of instability in Libya, and Col. Gadhafi's history of brutality, continues to make the U.S. focus on the arms and chemical agents that remain, they said.

"When you have a guy who's as irrational as Gadhafi with some serious weapons at his disposal, it's always a concern," said a U.S. official. "But we haven't yet seen him move to use any kind of mustard gas or chemical weapon" during the unrest.

The George W. Bush administration reached a key agreement with Tripoli in 2003 that called for Libya to scrap its weapons of mass destruction programs in return for normalized diplomatic relations. The deal followed the toppling of Saddam Hussein and was viewed as a major victory in the push to rid the Middle East of advanced weapons.

Within months of the pact, Col. Gadhafi's government sent to the U.S. the critical infrastructure for its nuclear-weapons programs, including uranium hexafluoride stockpiles, centrifuge machines and parts for a nuclear fuel-conversion facility. Libya also destroyed its longer-range missiles and 3,300 aerial munitions used to disperse mustard gas and other chemical agents. In 2004 Tripoli joined the international Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or OPCW.

But the program to eradicate Libya's chemical agents, as well as its chemical weapons production facility, was delayed by spats between Washington and Tripoli over funding and logistics, according to U.S. officials.

Libya initially said the U.S. could convert a weapons facility outside Tripoli into a pharmaceutical factory, but then demanded an Italian firm do the work, extending the process. Libya also was reluctant to provide U.S. and British officials visas to monitor the process and cited environmental concerns for the slowed process.

Libya was to have destroyed all 23 metric tons of its mustard gas by the end of last year, according to the OPCW, but 9.5 metric tons remain. The Hague-based body said Libya was granted an extension until May to destroy the rest.

Libya also possesses more than half of the 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals used for developing chemical agents. The material is believed to be stored in jugs at the former Rabta chemical-weapons facility.

A spokesman for the OPCW said the utility of such chemical agents is lessened without the delivery systems. But officials in Washington said they remain concerned about the security of these materials. They wouldn't rule out the possibility Col. Gadhafi could seek to use them.

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