Seizure Helped Speed Libyan Cooperation on Weapons
Secret Shipment Contained Component Parts Used in Nuclear Production
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 4, 2003; Page A18


U.S. and British intelligence services in late September discovered that a freighter bound for Libya was hauling thousands of parts for centrifuges, a key component for producing nuclear weapons, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday. Officials said the interception of the cargo, worth tens of millions of dollars, was a factor in squeezing Libya to give up its deadliest weapons programs.

The shipment was headed from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, an interim transshipment point, aboard a German ship. With help from the German government and the German shipping company, the United States was able to get the freighter, BBC China, diverted to a southern Italian port shortly after it passed through the Suez Canal.

Officials boarded the ship in Italy in early October and seized the cargo, which was not listed on the ship's manifest, U.S. officials said. The craft was less than two days from docking in Libya.

The Bush administration believes the intelligence coup accelerated Libya's cooperation with the United States and Britain. Although secret talks on Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs had begun some six months earlier, the government of Moammar Gaddafi had not yet given a date for U.S. and British intelligence to visit Libyan weapons-development sites. After the interdiction, U.S. and British inspectors were in Libya within two weeks, U.S. officials said.

Other U.S. officials, however, said they were concerned at the time that the seizure might undermine the attempt to win Libya's cooperation. "Quite the contrary. It could have derailed the effort," said a well-placed U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The operation, details of which were reported today in the Wall Street Journal, was the first interdiction under the new Proliferation Security Initiative, an agreement among 11 countries to stop and search planes and ships suspected of carrying banned weapons or missile technology. Seizure of the cargo proves the initiative's importance as a new tool in tracking and curtailing the spread of weapons technology, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

"It's clearly a success for the proliferation initiative but it's also an allied success, especially for the Germans and Italians," a senior administration official said. The official described both the German government and the shipping company as "extremely cooperative."

The secret shipment also offered important insight into Libya's arms programs. Although U.S. intelligence was aware of Libya's chemical weapons program, Washington was surprised by Tripoli's ongoing interest in developing nuclear arms. The shipment, several large crates, also indicated Gaddafi had an active nuclear program, U.S. officials said.

The Bush administration is still reluctant to provide details of the operation or the source of the centrifuge parts. U.S. officials insisted the shipment did not come from Pakistan, which has been linked to sales of nuclear technology to other countries.

"The technology we're talking about was stolen years ago from Urenco, a European consortium. It was used in Pakistan to enrich uranium but it was also used elsewhere. There's a black market in this material," said the senior U.S. official.

A European official said, however, that a private Pakistani arms specialist is being investigated to see if he was involved in any aspect of the deal.

After the intelligence discovery, the United States tracked the German freighter, U.S. officials said. Most of the operation was conducted by U.S. intelligence in cooperation with other countries, but with no U.S. military involvement. Once the ship docked in the Italian port of Taranto, one of two Italian military ports, U.S. officials boarded the freighter.

U.S. officials are not sure why Gaddafi was reaching out to the international community and pledging privately to disarm at the same time his government was acquiring a large shipment of weapons-development equipment. U.S. officials speculate that Libya was hedging its bets.

Centrifuges of the kind found on the German ship can be used to develop weapons-grade uranium for use in nuclear weapons. On Sunday, U.N. investigators in Libya were shown dozens of centrifuges and other equipment, although no evidence was found that the country had enriched uranium. Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday the equipment indicated that Libya was at an "early stage" of its weapons program.

Washington Post staff writers Dana Priest and Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44389-2003Dec31.html

COMMENTARY:

I find it just amazing how some people seem to insist that economic and political sanctions are actually effective against some of these dictatorial megalomaniacs...

Qaddafi obviously was presented a clear choice by the US/UK representatives.

"We know what you're up to..

We have seized sufficient evidence to justify taking military action against you.

So now you have a choice.."

And as the article mentioned, they were not sure that this seizure wasn't going to derail the talks which had been ongoing for some 6 months already..

Can anyone truly claim that Muhammar didn't take a look at what happened to Saddam and factor that into his decision??

The US doesn't want to be in the position of having to use force in every case of proliferation. But we also don't want these rogue regimes to be able to predict exactly when the threshold of tolerance has been crossed. Don't let them be able to predict your response. Keep them off balance and unwilling to take major risks that might threaten their power.

The Central Scrutinizer