BLUEPRINT FOR HALF A STRUCTURE:

The Deal to Disarm Kadafi: Libya's decision to hand over its banned weapons followed lengthy talks and an equipment seizure. Some see ideas for dealing with Iran. (Douglas Frantz and Josh Meyer, March 13, 2005, LA Times)

In late August 2003, U.S. and British intelligence received a tip that a Malaysian factory affiliated with Khan was sending a shipment of nuclear equipment to Tripoli. One former official said covert operatives watched as five containers were loaded onto a ship in Kuala Lumpur and a satellite tracked the vessel to the Persian Gulf port of Dubai.

Agents also watched as Khan's accomplices removed the crates in Dubai and, a few days later, loaded them onto a second vessel, the BBC China.

As the BBC China passed through the Suez Canal and entered the Mediterranean Sea on its way to Tripoli, agents on other ships monitored its progress. On Oct. 4, the ship's captain was sent a radio message ordering him to divert to the southern Italian port of Taranto, where U.S. and Italian authorities removed the crates.

A former CIA official declined to confirm any details, but said, "It was a great operation, a lot of derring-do."

Later, Bush and other U.S. officials praised the seizure as an intelligence triumph that, combined with the hard-line American approach on Iraq, forced Kadafi's hand.

"The capture of the BBC China helped make clear to Libya that we had a lot of information about what it was doing," said John S. Wolf, who was assistant secretary of State for nonproliferation at the time.

The senior British official, who was involved in the negotiations with Libya, acknowledged that confiscating the shipment was important, but said Libya had already strongly hinted at the existence of a nuclear weapons program and intended to give it up.

"The BBC China was another nail in the coffin," he said. "But one can overplay the significance of that event."

One sign of Kadafi's intentions had come in September 2003, when a small team of CIA and MI6 agents flew to Tripoli in an unmarked CIA jet for another round of talks, the first in Libya. They sought permission to bring in specialists to examine the weapons installations, according to two U.S. officials involved in the operation.

A European diplomat said Libyan officials told him later that the decision was driven by economics.

"From my conversations with the Libyans, it appeared that they had determined that it was too expensive to develop nuclear weapons, both in specific terms and in terms of sanctions," the diplomat said.

Seif Islam Kadafi told CBS News last year that U.S. pressure was not behind his father's decision.

"First of all, we started negotiating before the beginning of the war," he said. "And it's not because we are afraid or under American pressure or blackmail."

Still, the talks picked up speed after the cargo was seized. Within days, a larger contingent of CIA and MI6 experts arrived in Libya, said officials involved in the process. A far more exhaustive inventory of Libya's nuclear and chemical weapons programs was taken during a 12-day trip that started on Dec. 1, said one of the officials.

On Dec. 16, 2003, a Libyan delegation sat down to work out the final details of the deal over lunch with their U.S. and British counterparts at the private Travellers Club in the heart of London.

Along with Kusa, the Libyans were represented by their ambassador to Italy, Abdul-Ati Obeidi, and Mohammed Azwai, envoy to Britain. Across from them were William Ehrman and David Landsman, senior officials from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and two MI6 agents. The small U.S. team was headed by Robert Joseph, the National Security Council's counter-proliferation head, and Stephen Kappes, the CIA deputy director of operations. Kappes, a veteran case officer who had known Kusa for years, had supervised the intelligence operation and led the initial visits to Libya.

The wrangling lasted 10 hours. Two participants said the British and U.S. teams insisted that Libya clearly admit that it possessed chemical and nuclear weapons programs and promise to dismantle them.

"It was a tough meeting," one said. "They were giving up things that cost a lot of money, and a lot of people had their careers tied up in these programs. It was not an easy thing to shut them down and have them removed."

In the end, the Libyans agreed to relinquish everything connected with both programs but balked at the demand that Kadafi make the announcement. A compromise was reached allowing someone else to make the announcement. But the Libyan leader would bless the decision publicly.

There's one important difference though: Iran is already pretty far down the democratic road and a deal that left the regime in place would mark a betrayal of the Iranian people in a way that hoping that Islam Qaddafi will be as reformist as he seems was not a betrayal of Libyans.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 13, 2005 8:52 AM