Vol. 61, No. 6, pp.

26-33
DOI: 10.2968/061006011

by john prados

how Qaddafi
came clean when libya renounced weapons of mass
destruction, u.s. officials gave the credit
to good intelligence. a closer look reveals
the intel wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.
AP/PETER DEJONG

26 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005

 T
HE SCENE WAS STUNNING.
As Christmas 2003
approached, the seem-
ing leader-for-life of
Libya, long suspected of seeking
weapons of mass destruction
(WMD), suddenly renounced all such
intentions. U.S. press announcements
and briefings spun the events as the
product of the American invasion of
Iraq, ostensibly undertaken in ser-
vice of the broader mission of
counterproliferation.
Less than three months later, in
a last-ditch defense of his agen-
cy’s hyped Iraq intelligence esti-
mates, CIA Director George
J. Tenet spoke at George-
town University.
A major feature of
his presentation
concerned intel-
ligence on Libya’s
WMD program, which
he held up as a success
story to impress those
observers not willing to cred-
it his extravagant claims for
how accurate the Iraq reporting
had been.
With the reputations of the CIA and
U.S. intelligence community on the line,
Tenet punched hard: “Only through intel-
ligence did we know each of the major
programs Libya had going.” Tenet repeat-
ed that “only through intelligence” had the
CIA known when Libya began its nuclear
program, when precisely Muammar Qaddafi
put it on the back burner, and at what point in
time it was resurrected. The CIA, Tenet averred,
had penetrated Libya’s illegal network of WMD
suppliers, knew of its efforts to obtain longer-
John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Securi-
ty Archive in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Hood-
winked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a
War (2004).
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
range missiles, and broke
down the denials of Libyan
officials by demonstrating what it
knew. “This was critical when the
Libyans approached British and
U.S. intelligence about dismantling
their chemical, biological, and nuclear
weapons programs,” he insisted.
“Intelligence was the key that
opened the door to Libya’s clandes-
tine programs.”1
Adding momentum to Tenet’s
claims, the Commission on the
Intelligence Capabilities of the United
States Regarding Weapons of Mass
Destruction (commonly known as
the WMD Commission) concluded in
its March 31, 2005 report:
“Collection and analytic efforts
with regard to Libya’s weap-
ons programs . . . repre-
sent, for the most part, an
Intelligence Community
success story.”2 Though
not quite so effusive as
the CIA director, the
presidential commis-
sion found that U.S.
intelligence accurately assessed
the nuclear equipment Libya pos-
sessed, correctly judged that Libya
had chemical weapons, had been
generally accurate in projections of
Libyan missile capability, and that
analysts had shown “a commendable
willingness” to revise conclusions when
they obtained fresh information.3
All this seems quite impressive at first
blush, but the sum of the parts does not add
up to the whole. A deeper review reveals what
might almost be termed an iron law of intelli-
gence: As the political salience of an issue rises,
the difficulty of deriving objective intelligence
estimates increases exponentially. The Libyan case
exhibits the same kinds of difficulties with intelli-
gence reporting as the Iraqi one, or indeed the bloat-
ed estimates of Soviet capabilities decades before.
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 27
 It is also not true that the outlines of
the Libyan programs were visible
“only through intelligence.” A wide
variety of public observers were on the
same page as U.S. intelligence. The one
aspect that falls largely within the
purview of clandestine collection was
the relationship of Pakistani nuclear
smuggler A. Q. Khan to Libya, but the
CIA learned about this inadvertently
by focusing on Pakistani nuclear net-
works rather than on Qaddafi.
The Bush White House’s version of
Libya’s disarmament neglects the evo-
lution of Qaddafi’s fitful policy of
rapprochement, pursued in an effort
to escape U.S. and U.N. sanctions
imposed upon Libya for its 1980s ter-
rorist schemes. In short, the story of
Libya’s WMD programs, its volun-
tary disarmament, and U.S. intelli-
gence appreciations of these develop-
ments, is a fable for the age of nuclear
proliferation.
nuclear shopping spree
In 1968, King Idris of Libya signed
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
(NPT). He had little to lose by doing
so, since Libya had not undertaken
much in the way of nuclear research
and, as a country flush in oil, was not
anxiously pursuing nuclear power.
That soon changed after Qaddafi
came to power in 1969. He sent a
colleague to the People’s Republic of
China in 1970 with a cash offer for a
prototype nuclear weapon. Beijing
refused. Three years later, offers were
made to French concerns for the pur-
chase of equipment suitable for elec-
tromagnetic enrichment. These too
were rejected. Then, in 1974, Libya
reached an agreement with Argentina
to buy equipment for and training in
uranium prospecting. (Qaddafi’s
attempt to annex the Aozou Strip in
Chad in the early 1980s was, in part,
predicated on a belief that the region
might possess uranium ore, which
Libya lacks.) Libya also approached
U.S. companies for nuclear reactors,
but the Nixon administration refused
export licenses. The following year
28 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
Libya finally signed an agreement
with the Soviet Union providing for
construction of a small 10-megawatt
research reactor and an associated
research center at Tajoura, west of
the capital Tripoli. The reactor went
on line in 1981.4
A second track in Qaddafi’s effort
remained covert. The Libyan leader
had good relations with then–
Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, and in 1973 Tripoli completed
an arrangement to help finance Pak-
istani nuclear weapons research in
exchange for access to the knowledge
developed in that program. Like many
Libyan initiatives, rhetoric outran
reality and little assistance flowed
from this agreement, though it did
open a channel of historic signifi-
cance. When Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-
Haq assumed power in Islamabad, the
supposed accord evaporated. During
the same period Qaddafi made a fruit-
less nuclear cooperation pact with
India, hoping for weapons assistance.
To round out its weapons develop-
ment efforts, Libya tried to cultivate a
relationship with a West German
company, Orbital Transport- und
Raketen-Aktiengesellschaft (OTRAG),
which some observers saw as a cover
organization for a Libyan military
rocket program. Libya invited the
German concern to build a rocket
base in the Sahara, but OTRAG
would never successfully develop and
manufacture a missile or orbit a
satellite.
Despite its clear intent to build or
obtain nuclear weapons, in 1981
Libya reached an agreement with the
International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) to implement safeguards and
submit to the agency’s inspection pro-
tocols. Qaddafi’s rhetoric underwent
a marked change in the early 1980s.
In June 1981 he characterized nucle-
ar weapons production as “the top of
the list of terrorist activities. . . . I
have nothing but scorn for the notion
of an Islamic bomb.”5 Yet, the Libyan
leader refused to foreswear pursuing
nuclear energy for peaceful purposes,
which of course carried its own
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
potential for more nefarious goals.
Still, Tripoli made no visible effort
to obtain enrichment technology or to
procure a plutonium-reprocessing
capability, either of which was neces-
sary if it desired the fissile material for
a weapon. In June 1987, however,
Qaddafi once again changed course.
He declared a nuclear bomb the only
way small nations could protect them-
selves from the superpowers, and later
reportedly tried to bribe a Soviet
admiral to leave behind a submarine
with its atomic warheads as he with-
drew from the Mediterranean.6
The Reagan administration, which
marked Libya as an enemy and ter-
rorist threat from its first months in
office, would gleefully have promoted
any intelligence conclusions that
pointed to Libyan acquisition of
nuclear weapons. Instead, a 1982
Defense Department guidance docu-
ment contained an intelligence survey
of potential nuclear weapons states by
the year 2000 that mentioned 31
countries but excluded Libya.7 Libya’s
pursuit of nuclear weapons was hard-
ly mentioned in a 1986 white paper
issued to justify U.S. military activi-
ties against Libya, in the assorted
State Department pronouncements on
nuclear proliferation, and at the 1987
NPT Review Conference.
the poor man’s alternative
Qaddafi had not so much abandoned
his quest for WMD as changed direc-
tion. To Libya, WMD offered a
shield against the application of U.S.
power, and if Qaddafi could not
attain a nuclear capability, chemical
weapons offered a less effective, and
more accessible, alternative.
During the 1980s, Libya focused its
efforts on erecting an infrastructure
suitable for the manufacture of chemi-
cal weapons. The best intelligence on
the Libyan program came from West
Germany’s intelligence service, the
Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND). By
the time Tripoli had signed agree-
ments in early 1985 for the construc-
tion of what became its major weap-
 ons facility, the BND had already ren- about what it saw as a growing threat. test runs some months earlier and was
dered 10 reports on the subject, while After approaching the West not producing anything at all.12 Still,
the German foreign ministry began German government with what it some intelligence estimates continued
reporting similar information from knew about Libya’s nascent program, to say otherwise, and in early March
diplomatic sources that July. Washington went public with its 1990 President George H. W. Bush
Though the BND missed some intelligence. On October 25, 1988, in maintained that the Rabta plant had
Libyan activities, across the Atlantic, one of his first public speeches as CIA gone into production.13
it appears that the CIA and other U.S. director, William Webster identified The exact status of Libya’s WMD
agencies were so focused on exposing Rabta as the largest chemical weap- programs remained muddled for the
Qaddafi’s terrorist network that they ons plant in the Third World. next few years. In January 1992 con-
saw little of this evolution. An April Estimates of a production capacity of gressional testimony, CIA Director
1986 diplomatic protest regarding 22,000–84,000 pounds per day of Robert Gates reported that Libya had
certain German exports to Libya indi- mustard gas and sarin nerve gas soon converted Rabta to a conventional
rectly provides the first indication of followed. On January 7, 1989, Qad- pharmaceutical plant to avoid prolif-
U.S. awareness. Tripoli’s program dafi contrived to appear at the hotel eration charges, adding that Tripoli
garnered additional public had no intention of giving up
attention in the summer of its WMD programs and had
1987 when the government of amassed a stockpile of 100 tons
Chad charged that Qaddafi of chemical weapons. Libya
had used chemical weapons had supposedly begun work on
during fighting on its territory. a new chemical weapons plant,
(Libya had no chemical weap- though Pentagon officials later
ons production capability at told reporters they had no
the time.) imagery supporting its exis-
The CIA eventually zeroed in tence. Gates also charged that
on Libya’s activities by tracking Qaddafi had been making a
its exports and banking trans- concerted effort for several
actions with a list of companies years to build a biological
and financial institutions that weapons research and produc-
involved concerns in Belgium, tion program, though without
France, Germany, Hong Kong, success.14 In effect, the crystal-
and Japan.8 U.S. spy satellites lization of the charges about
spotted a potential facility in Mystery maze: A sketch of the elusive Tarhuna site. Rabta began a cycle during
Rabta, about 40 miles south- which it was extremely difficult
west of Tripoli. By July 1988, intelli- in Tripoli where most of the Western for intelligence analysts to discount
gence analysts were confident that the press was staying. He denounced the the purported threat of Libyan WMD.
Rabta plant was meant to produce use of chemical weapons and The case of the supposed new
chemical weapons. Not willing to declared, “America must understand weapons plant exemplified the pat-
wait, however, the Reagan administra- that her policy of surrounding us and tern of uncertainty. Following Gates’s
tion leaked the initial Rabta charges to using force against us will fail.”10 1992 testimony, U.S. intelligence
the press before Christmas 1987, and Despite cascading charges, as the identified both the city of Tarhuna
officials began making charges off the intelligence picture fleshed out it lost and the city of Sebha as the site of the
record soon thereafter.9 its focus. It turned out that Libya had plant. (The Sebha site was later
Relations between the two countries used chemical weapons in Chad—but reported to be dormant.) In 1995 the
were tense—on April 5, 1986, a bomb they were not indigenously manufac- Egyptian government, after receiving
exploded in a West Berlin disco, killing tured. Rather they were reportedly the latest U.S. briefing on Libyan
two American servicemen; a former obtained from Iran in exchange for WMD, rejected the charges and sup-
Libyan embassy official was found to sea mines the Iranians could use in ported Qaddafi’s assertion that the
be connected to the bombing. In their tanker war in the Persian Gulf.11 Tarhuna facility consisted of nothing
response, the United States bombed Similarly, Webster rescinded the con- more than empty tunnels. A U.S. intel-
Tripoli 10 days later. Within the U.S. stant refrain that Qaddafi was cur- ligence official in Washington effec-
government, there were fears that rently producing chemical weapons. tively confirmed this account by stat-
DEFENSELINK

Libya would retaliate, and the admin- In testimony before Congress in 1989, ing that “the Libyans are completing
istration appears to have done whatev- he reported that the Rabta facility had the boring and lining of the tunnel
er it could to raise public concern suffered toxic chemical leaks during complex,” and could not begin

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 29

installing equipment until that had
been done.15 Defense Secretary
William J. Perry reiterated the
charges in early 1996. But over time,
the lack of evident developments in
Libya made the dire intelligence con-
clusions about a vast chemical weap-
ons program harder to sustain.
attitude adjustments
Thanks to evidence gleaned from
2003 IAEA inspections, we now
know that Libya’s nuclear program
had been much more active in the
1990s than was known at the time.
Libya had resumed talks on nuclear
cooperation with Russia in 1997 and
contracted with it the next year for
$8 million-worth of refurbishing at
Tajoura. Also in 1997, in what prob-
ably marked the opening of Tripoli’s
connection with the A. Q. Khan
nuclear smuggling ring, Libya
imported 20 early generation gas
centrifuge machines along with com-
ponents for 200 more. Following
that, it acquired a pair of more
advanced centrifuges in 2000 and
placed orders for another 10,000.
Qaddafi’s precise motivations are
unknown, but he may have thought
that his nuclear activities could serve
as a bargaining chip to trade against
sanctions imposed after the bombing
of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lock-
erbie, Scotland, which was found to
be the work of a Libyan intelligence
officer. Or he may have thought that
they could deter potential U.S.
attacks.
The big intelligence breakthroughs
concerned Libyan missiles, not any-
thing else. During the summer of
1999, Indian Customs officials
boarded a North Korean vessel that
was en route to Libya and discov-
ered missile components, machine
tools, and blueprints for modified
versions of Scud B and C rockets.
Seven months later, British inspec-
tors at Gatwick Airport seized 32
crates of missile parts labeled as
automotive spares that were alleged-
ly bound for Libya.
30 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
Amid the welter of charges, Libya
increasingly chafed under interna-
tional sanctions. In particular,
Libya’s oil industry, unable to pro-
cure spare parts or the latest drilling
technology and barred from impor-
tant markets, suffered tremendously.
The story of the 1990s is really that
of Qaddafi’s realization of these
problems and his gradual move
toward rapprochement. In 1992 and
1999 (the year in which he expelled
Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal from
refuge in Tripoli), Qaddafi used
emissaries to offer WMD deals to
Washington. Former Sen. Gary Hart
acted as intermediary in the 1992
Libyan disarmament offer, just
weeks after Gates’s proliferation tes-
timony. The 1999 attempt went
through former diplomatic person-
nel.16 By 2001, the Libyan leader’s
attempt at rapprochement became so
plain it was addressed in the journal
Foreign Affairs.17
In 1999, John A. Lauder, the head
of the CIA director’s center for non-
proliferation, showed some aware-
ness of Tripoli’s ambivalence when he
told a presidential commission that
Libya was merely suspected of “aspir-
ing to nuclear weapons capability”
but was “decades away” from reach-
ing nuclear sufficiency. A National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that year
projected no Libyan nuclear weapon
until 2015.18 On the parallel track of
delivery means, Lauder noted,
Tripoli continued to acquire missile-
related equipment, but foreign help
remained essential to any progress it
might make.19 The agency’s official
2000 report to Congress repeated the
point about reliance upon foreign
suppliers—not only in regard to mis-
siles but also chemical WMD and
nuclear weapons—and noted that
Libya was an NPT member, subject
to full-scope IAEA safeguards.20
In late 2001, the CIA’s unclassified
semiannual report to Congress on
WMD acquisition, however, adopt-
ed a new tone under the George W.
Bush administration. Nuclear infra-
structure replaced ballistic missiles
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
as the lead item in the text, and the
report emphasized Libyan procure-
ment of dual-use items, adding omi-
nously, “Libya and other countries
reportedly used their secret services
to try to obtain technical informa-
tion on the development of weapons
of mass destruction, including nucle-
ar weapons.”21 From the WMD
Commission, we now know that the
intelligence community in December
2001 completed a fresh NIE on
Libyan weapons programs that
advanced the expected date for a
Qaddafi bomb from 2015 to 2007.
A second report in February 2002
confirmed that version of the threat,
though there was not unanimity in
the intelligence community.22
Analysts appear to have mounted a
rear-guard action in an effort to take
some of the edge off the newly pes-
simistic projections and to hedge
against the softness of their data in a
way the Iraq estimates had not. The
NIE noted that its somber casting of
the date assumed that all foreign
assistance and technology transfers
would proceed apace and that
Libya’s intentions and incentives
would be unwavering. The estimate
did not take into account the possi-
bility of political or economic devel-
opments that could transform the
picture. A December 2001 NIE on
foreign ballistic missile threats con-
cluded there was no danger of a
Libyan missile capable of reaching
the United States until at least 2015.23
Libya’s ongoing interest in rap-
prochement was clear. In 2002, Libya
signed an international protocol
designed to inhibit the spread of long-
range ballistic missiles. Qaddafi also
signed the 1999 Convention for the
Suppression of the Financing of
Terrorism and adhered to the 1991
Convention on the Marking of Plastic
Explosives for the Purpose of
Detection (the twelfth international
protocol against terrorism Libya had
joined). Yet, in January 2003, on the
eve of the Iraq War, the CIA put out
a fresh report alleging that several
hundred Iraqi scientists had passed
 through Libya during the preceding
decade, working on chemical and
biological weapons. A month later,
CIA Director Tenet, in his 2003
threat briefing, charged that Libya
had stockpiled “at least” 100 tons of
chemical weapons and quoted
Qaddafi saying that Libya had the
right to possess WMD.24
a matter of timing
The Bush administration’s claim that
Libya disarmed because of the Iraq
War rests on a coincidence of timing.
In March 2003, days before U.S.
forces jumped off from Kuwait,
Qaddafi’s eldest son, Seif Islam
Qaddafi, approached British intelli-
gence (MI-6) officials in London
with an offer to negotiate the divesti-
ture of Libyan WMD. Prime
Minister Tony Blair discussed the
possibility with President Bush when
they met at Camp David that month.
Bush quickly involved the CIA in
the Libyan negotiations. In Sept-
ember 2003, a British-U.S. intelli-
gence team held a round of talks in
Tripoli and asked for experts to eval-
uate the Libyan facilities. Intelligence
REUTERS/JEFF J. MITCHELL
analysts also became aware that the
German freighter BBC China had
left Dubai in the United Arab
Emirates en route to Libya with a
load of A. Q. Khan’s nuclear equip-
ment. Through the intercession of
the German government, the ship
owners diverted the vessel to Ta-
ranto, Italy, on October 4, where five
containers of centrifuge parts were
seized. A few weeks later, the first of
two CIA/MI-6 inspection teams visit-
ed Libya. Impressed by the access it
was given, the team visited about a
dozen facilities. A follow-up trip
took place starting December 1.
Another Libyan delegation simul-
taneously proceeded to Vienna, meet-
ing on December 20 with IAEA chief
Mohamed ElBaradei, who followed
them back to Tripoli with his own
team of experts. The IAEA report of
February 20, 2004 contained much
food for thought. It surveyed the
active Libyan overseas procurement
program of the 1990s in a very con-
crete fashion and showed that Libya
had actually received blueprints for a
nuclear weapon from A. Q. Khan—
but that the weapon was a Chinese
design from the 1960s and was too
large to fit any Libyan missile. Plus,
Tripoli lacked the personnel to inter-
pret the technical data.
The investigation also established
that Qaddafi had never possessed a
functional uranium enrichment
facility—though Libya did erect a
test bed with a triple-cascade of cen-
trifuges. Qaddafi had off-the-books
uranium yellowcake dating from the
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
Terror’s toll: A memorial to the victims
of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing.
1970s and had succeeded in convert-
ing some of it into fissile material
precursors (such as uranium hexaflu-
oride) in the mid-1990s, but only
small amounts were involved, and
no uranium was ever actually
enriched. In addition, the IAEA con-
firmed that Tajoura actually con-
tained a desalinization plant; that
Sebha had been used for yellowcake
storage, not chemical weapons; and
that Tarhuna had been a missile
development facility.25
so what of the intelligence?
With this much now known about
Libya’s WMD programs, U.S. intel-
ligence agencies should have a good
sense of where they went right and
wrong in tracking its programs. Yet,
the WMD Commission’s portrayal
of U.S. intelligence on Libya as a suc-
cess is too facile by half. Commis-
sioners facilitated their conclusion
by narrowly construing the question
as one of the accuracy of intelligence
immediately before and after
December 19, 2003—the date Libya
renounced its WMD intentions—as
if these two static pictures convey
understanding of a dynamic subject.
Relying on static pictures is the kind
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 31
of technique often used to shape
intelligence reporting, as in the 2001
NIE, in which excluding Libyan eco-
nomic and political issues facilitated
the projection of a 2007 Libyan
nuclear bomb.
A longer view reveals a different
picture. During the 1970s and 1980s,
public sector observers and the intel-
ligence community were not far apart
in appreciating a Libyan (“Islamic”)
bomb as a danger, but not an imme-
diate threat. The on-again, off-again
character of Tripoli’s activity and the
absence of any high-capacity reactor
capability or enrichment facility
made that projection stick. But
WMD estimates became complicated
once an overlay of chemical and bio-
logical weapons was added to the
mix. Suspicions concerning Rabta
confused the whole issue, which
acquired a political salience that
impeded accurate intelligence. Once
Qaddafi’s apparent intent to under-
take large-scale production of WMD
became an established feature of the
Libya reporting portfolio, stepping
Nuclear booty: President Bush arrives at Oak
Ridge to view forfeited Libyan centrifuge parts.
32 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
back from the threat projection
became quite difficult.
Consider the Libyan chemical
stockpile. Assessments varied on
when exactly chemical weapons went
into production at Rabta. By 1992,
however, Gates confidently asserted
the Libyan stockpile consisted of up
to 100 tons of mustard gas. Little over
a decade later, in 2003, Tenet made
out the stockpile to be “at least” 100
tons. There are two points here: first,
that in a decade the estimate of the
Libyan stockpile never changed; sec-
ond, that the figures demonstrate the
same kind of assumptions trap that
bedeviled U.S. intelligence on Iraq.
After December 2003, the actual
Libyan stockpile was shown to be 23
tons, all of it more than a decade old.
Gates was correct that Rabta had
been converted to a pharmaceutical
plant—but the Libyans apparently
never resumed production even as the
CIA identified one facility after anoth-
er as the “new” chemical weapons
plant. The Libyans had equipment in
storage for a second plant but never
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005
tried to establish one. The WMD
Commission characterized this error
by saying that U.S. intelligence cor-
rectly judged that Libya possessed
agents and munitions, “but Libya’s
actual chemical weapons stockpile
proved to be smaller than estimat-
ed.”26 In fact, this was an overesti-
mate of more than 300 percent, and
the error persisted for more than a
decade. The miscalculation is further
magnified because the chemical
WMD were the only weapons of
mass destruction that Qaddafi actual-
ly had.
On biological weapons, the WMD
Commission avoided making a sum-
mary judgment, though it was unable
to confirm that Libya “maintained
the desire for an offensive biological
weapons program,” which had long
been a staple of U.S. intelligence
reporting to Congress, the American
people, and presumably policy mak-
ers.27 In the end, every potential bio-
logical weapons facility the CIA and
MI-6 visited in 2003 had legitimate
pharmaceutical uses. The single con-
crete piece of biological weapons
data often cited by the CIA is the
statement of a senior Libyan official
that Tripoli “intended” such a pro-
gram but that “it never went beyond
the planning stage, and that [Qad-
dafi] considered the biological pro-
gram too dangerous and ordered its
termination sometime prior to
1993.”28 Thus, throughout the
decade prior to Libyan disarmament,
the CIA credited Tripoli with an
intention—a desire—its leader had
reportedly rejected. The language in
the most recent public CIA report,
that “Libya disclosed past intentions
to acquire equipment and develop
capabilities related to biological war-
fare,” obscures weak intelligence
analysis while allowing for a poten-
tial Libyan “breakout.”29
On nuclear weapons, the WMD
Commission again takes the path of
least dispute by focusing on the inter-
AP/SUSAN WALSH
play with the A. Q. Khan network.
The commission awards intelligence
with high marks for assessing what
equipment Libya had obtained. But
the key intelligence judgment—the
change in NIE projections between
1999 and 2001 to predict a Qaddafi
bomb by 2007 (that is, six years ver-
sus sixteen)—is passed over very
lightly. The report does, however,
observe that the CIA inspections
revealed the 2007 date had been unre-
alistic. Why then was it included in
the NIE projection? What kinds of
pressures had been put on analysts to
arrive at it? And why were the 2001
estimate’s terms of reference cast as
they were? These questions all go by
the boards.
By failing to address these key ques-
tions, the WMD Commission is able
to portray intelligence reporting on
Libya as a success. The real story
shows the grit of intelligence work.
Predicting developments in foreign
lands is inherently difficult and never
occurs in isolation from the surround-
ing domestic politics. Forecasting has sion’s pious finding that it could see
problems of its own. Covert prolifer- no evidence of politicization. The evi-
ation adds another level of difficulty. dence is there, not just on Iraq, but in
And policy preferences continue to the case of intelligence “success” on
play a role, never mind the commis- Libya. 
BEST OF THE BULLETIN ARCHIVE:
Libyan WMD programs
 “A Nuclear Bomb for Libya?” by Joseph V. R. Micallef (August/September
1981). China, Argentina, the Soviet Union, France, India, Chad—by 1981, Libya
hadn’t met a country that could aid its nuclear program that it didn’t like.
 “Academic Freedom Versus Nonproliferation: The Libyan Case,” by Melvyn
B. Nathanson (March 1985). When Libya sent students to the United States to
learn nuclear physics, the U.S. government countered by blocking their entrance to
these courses—an extraordinary first. Nathanson, a dean at Rutgers University,
investigated the ramifications.
 “Nuking Libya,” by William M. Arkin (July/August 1996). As the United States
signed the Pelindaba Treaty, prohibiting it from using—or threatening to use—
nuclear weapons on the African continent, the Clinton administration contemplated
nuking a supposed underground Libyan chemical weapons facility.
For these articles and more, visit the online Bulletin Archive at www.bulletinarchive.org.

1. George J. Tenet, “Iraq and Weapons of
Mass Destruction,” remarks as prepared for
delivery at Georgetown University, February 5,
2004, p. 9.
2. Commission on the Intelligence
Capabilities of the United States Regarding
Weapons of Mass Destruction, “Report to the
President of the United States” (hereafter cited as
WMD Commission Report), March 31, 2005,
p. 252.
3. Ibid, p. 251.
4. The historical account presented here
depends primarily on published accounts and
expert reports. See Steve Weissman and Herbert
Krosney, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times
Books, 1981); and John K. Cooley, Libyan
Sandstorm: The Complete Account of Qaddafi’s
Revolution (New York: Holt, Rinehart &
Winston, 1982), pp. 229–239. The story of the
China mission, carried out with Egyptian assis-
tance, was first revealed by Mohammed Heikal
in The Road to Ramadan (New York:
Quadrangle, 1975), pp. 76–77. The Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace’s Leonard S.
Spector completed several reports on this period:
Nuclear Proliferation Today: The Spread of
Nuclear Weapons, 1984 (New York: Vintage
Books, 1984), pp. 149–164; and The
Undeclared Bomb: The Spread of Nuclear
Weapons, 1987–1988 (Cambridge: Ballinger
Publishers), 1988, pp. 196–206.
5. Cooley, Libyan Sandstorm, p. 229.
6. George Tremlett, Gaddaffi: The Desert
Mystic (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993), pp.
267, 276.
7. Richard Halloran, “Spread of Nuclear
Arms is Seen by 2000,” New York Times,
November 15, 1982, p. A3.
8. See David B. Ottaway, “Behind the New
Battle with Libya,” Washington Post, January 8,
1989, pp. C1, C4.
9. See Michael B. Gordon, “U.S. Thinks
Libya May Make Chemical Weapons,” New
York Times, December 24, 1987, pp. A1, A2.
10. Tremlett, Gaddaffi, p. 270.
11. David B. Ottaway, “U.S. Says Libya Near
Chemical Weapon Production,” Washington
Post, September 15, 1988, p. A19.
12. R. Jeffrey Smith and Patrick Tyler,
“Libyan Plant Extensively Damaged,”
Washington Post, March 16, 1990, pp. A1,
A38.
13. Michael R. Gordon, “Plant Said to Make
Poison Gas in Libya Is Reported on Fire,” New
York Times, March 15, 1990, pp. A1, A6.
14. Elaine Sciolino with Eric Schmitt, “U.S.
Agents Say Libya is Adding and Hiding
Chemical Weapons,” New York Times, January
22, 1992, pp. A1, A8.
15. John Lancaster, “Egypt Denies Libyan
Chemical Arms Site,” Washington Post, May
30, 1996, p. A25.
16. See Gary Hart, “My Secret Talks with
Libya and Why They Went Nowhere,”
Washington Post, January 18, 2004, p. B5; and
Martin Indyk, “Was Kadhafi Scared Straight?
The Record Says No,” Los Angeles Times,
March 28, 2004, p. A18.
17. Ray Takeyh, “The Rogue Who Came in
from the Cold,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 80, no. 3,
May/June 2001.
18. WMD Commission Report, p. 260.
19. CIA, “Unclassified Statement for the
Record by Special Assistant to the DCI for
Nonproliferation John A. Lauder on the
Worldwide WMD Threat to the Commission to
Assess the Organization of the Federal
Government to Combat the Proliferation of
Weapons of Mass Destruction,” April 29, 1999,
p. 3.
20. CIA, “Unclassified Report to Congress on
the Acquisition of Technology Related to
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced
Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31
December 2000,” p. 6.
21. CIA, “Unclassified Report to Congress on
the Acquisition of Technology Relating to
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced
Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31
December 2001,” p. 6.
22. CIA, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)
2001-19-HJ-I, cited in WMD Commission
Report, p. 253–4. The CIA/DIA report cited is
SPWR 021602-5, February 16, 2002.
23. CIA, “Foreign Missile Developments and
the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015”
(unclassified NIE summary), December 2001,
p. 13.
24. George Tenet, CIA, “The Worldwide
Threat in 2003: Evolving Dangers in a Complex
World” (DCI Worldwide Threat Briefing),
February 10, 2003, p. 9.
25. International Atomic Energy Agency,
“Implementation of the NPT Safeguards
Agreement of the Socialist People’s Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya,” GOV/2004/12, February 20,
2004.
26. WMD Commission Report, p. 251.
27. Ibid, pp. 251, 255.
28. Senior Executive Intelligence Brief
011104-02, January 12, 2004, cited in WMD
Commission Report, pp. 251, 255.
29. CIA, “Unclassified Report to Congress on
the Acquisition of Technology Relating to
Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced
Conventional Munitions, 1 July Through 31
December 2003,” p. 4.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2005 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 33