Kaddhafi & Real News

Meanwhile US Undersecretary of State John Bolton was planning to fly to London today to discuss joint plans for holding Gaddafi to his Dec. 19 pledge to dismantle.

The United States and Britain plan to send experts to Libya this month (December 2003) to analyse the extent of its nuclear programme and its quest for biological and chemical weapons, as well as modern missiles.

Top officials in President George Bush’s administration are convinced the programmes are far more extensive than outlined by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

They said this week that the United States and Britain would pursue their own joint programme to uncover Libya’s operation and hold Gaddafi to his promise to uproot development of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as well as potent missiles.

The director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, told The Associated Press he did not want American or British help on the ground in Libya.

“As far as I’m concerned, we have the mandate, and we intend to do it alone,” ElBaradei said.

But senior American officials confirmed an active US and British role and said Libya’s programmes were far more extensive than the United Nations agency had disclosed.

“The IAEA is in there because of what we uncovered,” said one US official. “The Libyans came to us and the British.”

The US source said there was an extensive black market that provided Libya with equipment worth tens of millions of dollars, but there was now an aggressive programme of intercepting delivery and the administration intended to pursue middlemen.

The intercepted parts were being delivered to Libya in early October on a German-owned freighter that was diverted to an Italian port. The seizure of centrifuge parts bound for Libya was first reported in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal. The White House and State Department then confirmed the report with few details and no explanation why confirmation took nearly three months.

The shipment originated in a Persian Gulf port, but the officials declined to identify the country. Nor would they say which country or countries may have supplied the centrifuge parts, saying investigations were continuing.

In September, British and American intelligence authorities learned a German freighter was to depart the Gulf port bearing centrifuge equipment, a US official said. The intelligence agencies alerted their German counterparts, who contacted the ship’s owner.

The German shipper, BBC Chartering and Logistic GmbH, ordered the ship to divert to the Italian port. There, British and American authorities discovered the centrifuge parts, which can be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Per Peterson, a vice president at the company’s Houston office, said his office “is not involved in this and we had nothing to do with this”.

He referred inquires to BBC Chartering and Logistic GmbH headquarters in Leer, Germany.

While uranium-enrichment is also a step in the process of producing nuclear energy, Libya has no such civilian programme. Libya admitted the equipment was for its nuclear weapons programme, a senior US official said.

The seizure came as part of a US-led international effort to halt commerce in weapons of mass destruction that was launched in May.