US, Spain caught in Libya missile mixup ('The Enterprise' active again?)

MADRID - The US government needs to explain why the missile shipment on a vessel intercepted a year ago on the high seas by the Spanish navy ended up in Libya, a spokesman from Spain's Defense Ministry said this week.

The official was referring to declarations made by sources from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to the Madrid daily El Mundo that claim 15 complete Scud missiles, a set of conventional warheads and 85 containers of chemical products - some 20 holding nitric acid - were ultimately delivered to Libya under a Washington decision.

(snip)

The NATO sources cited in El Mundo said that at the time the shipment was intercepted, the United States was secretly negotiating the possibility that Libya would accept Saddam Hussein, then still president of Iraq, in exile. And Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who played the role of go-between during the Gulf War in 1991 by assisting in Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, had hopes of gaining access to the weapons.

(snip)

When the United Nations Security Council lifted sanctions against Libya, then-US ambassador James Cunningham abstained from the vote, stating that Washington did not want to give the idea that it believed Libya had done an about-face, because, said the ambassador, the country continued to try to obtain weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles. But things appear to have changed radically, given that the weapons shipment intercepted by Spain, and which ended up in Libya, includes such arms.

(article at link is quite long)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EL12Dg01.html


For you youngins', or for those with memory deficiency trouble, this sort of backdoor trading of dangerous weapons to potentially dangerous countries and groups was a hallmark of the Reagan-Bush regime. Sounds like they are at it again.

Now the question should be: What did they spend the profit on the deal with Libya on? Last time, they illegally funded guerillas in Nicaragua.

The other question is: Who did they send with a cake and a bible this time?

Who is selling the drugs???

or however you spell it supposed to be one of the bad guys?????

From the article:

Someone at NATO says that the US was negotiating to have Libya accept Saddam Hussein in exile at the time. It appears Cheney was trying to sweeten Gaddafi up with the missles.

The handover was preceded by a telephone conversation between US Vice President Dick Cheney and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. When that conversation was made public, the White House justified the move by calling Yemen a friendly nation. So what initially came off as a brilliant Spanish military operation to prevent illegal trade in weapons of mass destruction was reduced to a suspected manipulation directed from Washington, with Madrid in the role of receiving and carrying out orders that were not very clear in their purpose.

The NATO sources cited in El Mundo said that at the time the shipment was intercepted, the United States was secretly negotiating the possibility that Libya would accept Saddam Hussein, then still president of Iraq, in exile. And Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who played the role of go-between during the Gulf War in 1991 by assisting in Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait, had hopes of gaining access to the weapons.

"Gaddafi wanted the missiles and Yemen acted as intermediary. In the context of gestures with Libya, it was decided to look the other way, given that there was no international regulation that impeded it," said the newspaper, citing sources from the Pentagon.

to make a laundered buck. If Libya's to be attacked later, so be it. No biggie.

It's such conspirators who are the true bad guys.

Libyan exile offered Saddam & co
21 May 2003
http://www.afrol.com/News2003/liy005_exile.htm

All the 55 Iraqis most wanted by the US occupying forces are welcome to apply for exile in Libya, according to Said al Islam Ghadafi, the second son of the country's leader, and Libya's favourite display abroad. Even Iraqi ex-President Saddam Hussein, who never counted among Ghadafi's best friends, would not be denied an exile in Libya.

Ghadafi junior, the leader's handsome son and representative abroad, told the international Arabic daily newspaper 'Asharq Al Awsat' that any member of the toppled Iraqi regime would be welcome to apply refuge for himself and his family in Libya. The occupying US forces are currently using pressure to prevent other countries from granting Saddam and his ex-colleagues exile, claiming they have the right to arrest them.

(snip)

Libya however has sought to stick to its independent line regarding the US invasion of Iraq. While Libyan leader Mohamar Ghadafi has confirmed "America's right to defend itself" against terrorism, he has also condemned the Arab collaboration with the US in the case of Iraq.

On the other hand, the arrival of Saddam and his aides to Libya is not likely to happen. The Tripoli and Baghdad regimes have not had friendly relations for decades. This grew into hostility after Tripoli strongly condemned the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Mr Ghadafi also defended the Kuwaitis' right to ask for US assistance against Iraq during the first Gulf War.

Kind of interesting how it in that article, from an African news agency, they make it seem like Libya is defying the US by offering exile to Saddam Hussein. Especially since it now appears they may have been paid to do so by Cheney.

And then there's this more revealing article from the LA Times:
Bush Is Backing Exile for Hussein
January 31, 2003
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-exile31jan31,0,913203.story?coll=la-home-headlines

WASHINGTON — President Bush said for the first time Thursday that he would welcome exile for Saddam Hussein, and a meeting between the president and a top Saudi official touched off a flurry of speculation that a credible effort is underway to offer a haven to the Iraqi leader.

There was no indication that Hussein or his sons would accept exile, and some analysts continued to dismiss the idea as wishful thinking. Nevertheless, the high-level discussions, and comments by top Bush administration officials, suggest that an exile plan advocated by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states is being actively pursued.

(snip)
"Hopefully, the pressure of the free world will convince Mr. Saddam Hussein to relinquish power," Bush said. "And should he choose to leave the country, along with a lot of the other henchmen who have tortured the Iraqi people, we would welcome that, of course.... The use of military troops is my last choice, not my first."

Details of the exile package envisioned by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al Faisal were not released. Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "The less said, the better."

(more at link)

Indeed, Ari. The less said, the better...especially about that missiles to Libya thing.

From the Manila Times:
Deal for Hussein’s exile as good as it gets
Thursday, January 23, 2003
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2003/jan/23/opinion/20030123opi7.html

New Canaan, Connecticut — The United States and some of its allies are saying Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should be offered exile if he agrees to give up power. For Hussein it means survival; for Iraq it means no war.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey are in favor of his exile. So are Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld suggested over the weekend that Hussein’s voluntary exile would be accompanied by a recommendation from the US that the senior leadership of Iraq be given “safe haven” in some other country.
(more)

In fact, if you just google on 'saddam hussein exile libya', you'll get about 10 pages of hits, most of them about this story. There seems little doubt that Bush was working on a plan to get Saddam Hussein to accept exile in Libya.

Now with the Spanish story, it appears that they went as far as sending payment, in the form of North Korean missiles and warheads, to Libya, for Libya to hang onto Saddam Hussein. Apparently, Hussein said no (as all the articles said he would).

And being the shrewd business persons the Bush administration are known to be, they paid for the exile before they even knew whether Hussein would accept it. Way to go. It's that sort of trading acumen that made Harkin Oil what it was!

Wonder if it's an about face after Mi6 (per David Shayler) were paying Islamic terrorists to assassinate Gadaffi in the mid-90's. Is Cheney Inc reversing the deal to get him to clamp down?

(btw htuttle -- it is Odette Morris being charged over Roberto Calvi)

Remember, we were at war with Eastasia back then.

My question is, was the Bush administration happy, or unhappy, when Spain boarded the ship and seized the missiles?

The reason is,

1) Did the Bush administration order missiles from North Korea in Yemen's name (working with Yemen) in order to send them to Libya. In that case, they would not be happy about Spain seizing the missiles.

2) Or did they come across the deal Yemen already had with North Korea after the seizure, and make a deal with Yemen at that point to forward them to Libya? In that case, they would be happy about the seizure, since without it, they wouldn't have had the missiles.

Making weapons deals with North Korea via the Yemeni back door while at the same time, they are making threatening noises at North Korea out front has a familiar Bushian logic to it.

Here's a data point on that. The US acted fairly sheepishly about the whole incident toward Spain, and awfully concilliatory toward Yemen and their missiles, once described as a 'hotbed of al Queda'.

Spain: U.S. apologises over Scud ship
Thursday, December 12, 2002
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/12/12/missile.ship/

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo got an "apology" call from U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz for Spain's involvement in the seizure of a cargo ship carrying North Korean scud missiles bound for Yemen, a senior aide to Trillo told CNN Thursday.

Wolfowitz "apologized for the result of this operation," the defense aide told CNN, but told Trillo that the United States must respect the arms deal between Yemen and North Korea.

(snip)

Yemen has promised not to buy weapons from the North Koreans but said these missiles were purchased before that promise was made.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday there was no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea.

Hmm...two things in that article. One, that Yemen says that these missiles were purchased before they promised not to buy them from North Korea, and two, in a side bar to the article, a video caption states, "Yemeni officials claim the missiles hidden in a cargo of concrete are the last of an order from North Korea."

Okay, maybe I'm using too much street sense here, but these claims that, "Oh, this is the last of it. We'd actually ordered them a long time ago" ring really false, like a cover story that is supposed to 'claim ownership' of the missile shipment. They also seem to have acquired a spontaneous (and very temporary) respect for International Law.

I think that Cheney ordered the missiles to give to Libya as payment, and Spain stumbled onto the deal.

MSMD: Interesting about Odette Morris. Perhaps I was wrong about her not living to make trial. Perhaps she'll pull a disapearing act like Licio Gelli. I guess it will depend on whether the rest of the Borg collective determines whether she's 'irrelevant' or not. But will she unravel and rat out the rest of them?

At one time during Reagan, our government instructed all us yahoos to hate Ghaddafi as much as we now hate Saddam, and once hated Osama, before we mysteriously stopped talking about that last one...

I expect Ghaddafi will take another turn at being the big bad guy one day, maybe during the Jeb Bush administration, perish the thought.

I can't find the story at El Mundo. Does anybody know where this story can be found other than Asia Times?

TIA

I don't read Spanish, and Google's attempt at translation isn't very complete. I don't think this story was in today's El Mundo. It might have been as far back as a week or more.

As I recall, the Iran Contra story was initially broken by a Lebanese weekly publication. One difference here is that Spain is involved (a western 'ally'), so perhaps that is where future coverage will show up. On the other hand, even if BBC carried it, that wouldn't be a guarantee that the US media would pick it up.

Do they have archives available?

Yes, they have archives available. Unfortunately, if the item is there, I don't know how to find it. It's possible that only part of the paper is online and this item didn't make it, I don't know for sure (I know I've had trouble finding stuff there before were others were citing El Mundo as a source).

I guess there's always Google but I'm having trouble figuring out terms to narrow it down (it's easy enough finding old references to the incident but I haven't found anything from the last week involving Syria).

I think that's who it was originally from, since they are attributed at the bottom of the Asia Times article.

I found it listed in their Europe News section here: http://www.ipsnews.net/europe.asp , but I can't access it without a subscription.

Here's the subscriber link:
SPAIN : U.S. Should Explain Libya Missile Shipment - Defence Official
http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=21477

From that headline, it doesn't sound like Spain is happy. Perhaps the Spanish government will do the follow up themselves...

And the day people should take a look at it, too.

:kick:

kick

:-)