Archie's Corner

[jmhollen]

Quacky Quadaffi gives up the goods. "..GOooooooo GDubya..."!!!

Destruction awaits weapons in Libya
Nuclear-related materials a priority for team of experts
11:51 PM CST on Monday, January 19, 2004
From Wire Reports

LONDON – A team of British and U.S. weapons experts has arrived in Libya and within weeks could be dismantling, destroying and removing materials related to that nation's nuclear weapons program, a senior Bush administration official said Monday.

Plans are also being laid by Libyan chemical weapons scientists to incinerate tons of mustard gas agent that was manufactured to fill chemical bombs, the official said. Missile programs and biological research efforts are still under scrutiny, but experts hope to develop plans to shut them down permanently in the weeks ahead.

The experts spent several weeks in the fall inspecting Libyan laboratories and military factories before the Dec. 19 announcement by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi that he would give up the weapons programs.

In Vienna, U.S. and British officials meeting with Dr. Mohamed el-Baradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, agreed that the U.N. agency would be responsible for verifying the destruction and removal work, a spokesman for the agency said.

In the Netherlands, government ministers acknowledged Monday that highly sensitive nuclear technology developed by a Dutch company may have been transferred to Libya and North Korea, along with Pakistan and Iran.

The disclosure in Parliament in Amsterdam marked the first public confirmation of assertions that centrifuge technology for enriching uranium apparently found its way to Libya and North Korea.

The Dutch officials, Foreign Minister Bernard Bot and Economic Affairs Minister Laurens-Jan Brinkhorst, said it was not clear how the potentially arms-related technology had been transferred.

Diplomats elsewhere said the public comments were likely to increase pressure on Pakistan, which has already been linked to Iran's capability and is suspected of providing the technology to North Korea and Libya.

U.S. officials have long suspected that Abdul Qadeer Khan, who led development of Pakistan's atomic bomb, stole the centrifuge secrets in the 1970s while working for the Dutch company Urenco.

Mr. Khan was convicted of the theft, but the verdict was overturned.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/world/stories/012004dnintlibya.36a46.html