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| Africa: North |
| Gary Hart’s 1992 secret talks with the Lybian Government |
| 2004-01-19 |
| EFL from Wapo In February 1992, five years after I retired from the Senate and entered the world of international law, I was approached at my hotel while on a business trip to Athens by a man identifying himself as a "naval attaché" from the Libyan Embassy, who was almost certainly with the Libyan intelligence service. This was by no means the first time such a thing had happened to me since leaving the Senate. Nevertheless, there was an air of intrigue about the meeting, and it led to intensive contacts with the Libyan government over the next several weeks. Although I have never felt the need to discuss these events before, I do so now because they relate to the argument being made by supporters of the current Bush administration that Libya has abandoned weapons of mass destruction as a direct result of the United States’s preemptive invasion of Iraq. My experience of 12 years ago suggests a missed opportunity to curb Libya well before Iraq. In response to that first approach by the Libyan official on Feb. 24, 1992, I discouraged the idea that I was an appropriate contact person for the first Bush administration; I also immediately notified senior State Department officials of the encounter. In a meeting in Washington on March 6, 1992, State discounted the approach on the grounds that it was one of several such approaches and none was being taken seriously. "We will have no discussions with the Libyans," was the answer, "until they turn over the Pan Am bombers." Intensive investigation of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988, in which 270 people died, had eventually focused on two Libyans... Several possibilities exist for the first Bush administration’s lack of interest. Perhaps the Americans did not believe the Libyans were serious. Or they did believe, inexplicably, the legalistic argument about Swiss jurisdiction (though this still seems implausible). Or they did not find me an acceptable intermediary. Or, perhaps most likely, they simply were not prepared to discuss normalization of relations — even in exchange for the terrorist bombers. In any case, any potential deal was off. But the Libyans did not take no for an answer. Several more days went by, and the original contact in Greece invited me to Tripoli for one more try... Gary continues negotiations. I immediately relayed the terms of these discussions to the State Department and was firmly told, once again, that there would be no discussions, even in exchange for the Pan Am bombers, with the government of Libya. Case closed. I anticipate obvious questions in response to these facts. Why me? The only plausible explanation is that I had publicly condemned (based largely on my experience on the Church committee, which revealed previous assassination plots) President Reagan’s attempt to assassinate Gaddafi by long-range bomber in 1986. Was I singled out? Not really; others had been approached. Do I believe the offer was rejected because the Swiss would demand jurisdiction over the bombers in the 40 feet between airplanes? Not in the least. Was the offer rejected because the intermediary was a Democrat? The first Bush administration will have to respond to that question. In 2001, Megrahi was convicted of carrying out the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. Fhimah was acquitted. This account suggests, and strongly so, only one thing: We might have brought the Pan Am bombers to justice, and quite possibly have moved Libya out of its renegade status, much sooner than we have. At the very least it calls into serious question the assertion that Libya changed direction as a result of our preemptive invasion of Iraq. I guess my answer to Gary would be fourfold: 1. The surrender of he two scapegoats happened well before and had nothing to do with the Iraq War. 2. The result of Mr Hart’s negotiations would have been to legitimize Lybia without changing it’s continued rogue policies. 3. A legitimized Lybia would have been harder to delouse of it’s WMD. 4. Gary’s presidency would have been every bit as good as Carter’s. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
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| Posted by: Steve White 2004-1-19 11:37:05 PM |
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| Posted by: tu3031 2004-1-19 10:27:28 PM |
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| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-19 5:19:34 PM |
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| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-19 2:57:03 PM |