Qadhafi's 9/11 Fears

Will we be hit again? With ruins still smoldering at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, that was the question on the mind of every American in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. But it also appeared to have been a major concern of none other than Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi.

Qadhafi — who was behind the Pan Am 103 bombing that killed 270, as well as the bombing of a Berlin disco that killed three — was "hysterical" with fear that he'd be targeted by the U.S. for vengeance after the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil, according to a newly declassified Sept. 20, 2001, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Egypt.

U.S. embassy officials were told "that Qadhafi had sounded hysterical in his telephone call to King Abdullah, as if only the King's personal intervention would prevent U.S. action." The cable puts a new perspective on Qadhafi's renunciation of his nuclear weapons program in December 2003, after starting talks on the matter around the time U.S. bombs were beginning to fall on Baghdad in March.

At the time, the Bush administration hailed Qadhafi's move as proof that its tough tactics against countries with weapons of mass destruction was working. But this cable shows that Qadhafi was gravely concerned about American intentions in the new global war on terrorism at least 18 months before the Iraq war.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1179975,00.html