Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 7, 1990 TAG: 9003071701
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The Rabta plant 60 miles south of Tripoli also is capable of producing canisters to carry the lethal chemicals to selected targets, the officials said on condition that they not be identified.
It was not clear whether dictator Moammar Gadhafi is relying on outside sources for help in accelerating a dangerous program that a year ago seemed to have subsided under a barrage of U.S. complaints about West German firms and other foreign suppliers.
The officials said the Libyans had kept the assembly line active but only toward the end of last year achieved what one official called a "certain operational capability" that it did not have before.
"They haven't got enough to go into full production, but they can keep producing at this level," one said.
After West German politicians said a month ago that Libya had produced enough gas for 1,000 artillery shells, U.S. officials said the Rabta plant had been producing "very small" quantities of chemicals for about a year.
Tuesday's disclosure was that production has increased.
Both ABC News and NBC News broadcast stories Tuesday night about Libya's new chemical weapons capability.
Mustard gas, used in World War I, is an extremely irritating gas that blisters the skin. Nerve gases, developed by Nazi Germany in World War II but never used, kill by disabling the normal transmission of nerve impulses.
There was no official comment from the State Department. But spokesman Mark Dillon, without confirming Libya's resurgent chemical weapons program, said: "We remain seriously concerned about the Rabta weapons facility. We have continuously taken various efforts to assure that Libya and other proliferators do not succeed in achieving full-scale weapons production."
Former Secretary of State George Schultz, in his last days in office, spearheaded an international campaign to stop Libya. A conference in Paris in January 1989, in the last weeks of the Reagan administration, publicized Gadhafi's chemical weapons campaign.
Accusing him of terrorism against Americans, the Reagan administration bombed Tripoli in 1986.
With foreign suppliers agreeing to halt their assistance to the Rabta plant, the United States was able to announce that Libya had been stopped before reaching full production.
Actually, the U.S. official said Tuesday night, the plant was never closed down. The assembly line was kept going until it reached operational capability.
Gadhafi has denied all along that he was producing chemical weapons. He said the plant was designed to produce drugs.
Secretary of State James Baker is expected to be questioned about the development when he testifies before a House subcommittee today. Libya's program could have an impact on the Bush administration's plans to sharply reduce the U.S. stockpile of chemical weapons in a drive to conclude a treaty to ban production of poison gas.
At a White House state dinner Tuesday night, Baker declined to discuss the Libian plant with reporters, saying, "It's classified."
National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft said, "I don't know anything about it."
by CNB