How US, British intelligence worked to bring Qaddafi's Libya in from the cold
The faxed letter from the CIA – labeled “Secret Release Libya Only” – asked the Libyan agents to “refrain” from bringing weapons, cameras, or recording devices of any kind, and made clear that US officers were in charge until arrival in Tripoli.
- How the US and Britain in 2003 and 2004 used a growing series of intelligence exchanges with Libya to convince Qaddafi that his decision to work with the West was worthwhile. A fax from the CIA dated March 25, 2004, requested setting up a permanent presence in Tripoli, and noted that “we talked about it quite some time.” It added that the CIA was also “eager to work with you in the questioning of the terrorist [Belhadj] we recently rendered to your country.”
Less than two weeks later, on April 6, 2004, another faxed request from the CIA asked for swift access to Iraqi scientists believed to have information about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs. It stated that Libya’s cooperation would be “yet another opportunity to move forward to a new level in our relationship.” Already, the CIA said, “our security dialogue remains particularly robust.”
- How US and British intelligence teams analyzed equipment from Libya’s nascent nuclear weapons program, and in late 2003 and early 2004 found traces of highly enriched uranium (HEU) purified to 92 percent – levels high enough for use in an atomic bomb, though far greater quantities would have been needed. CIA analysts determined that the HEU was “not the result of Libyan research and development,” but from contaminated units purchased abroad. The agency warned, however, that the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, “may look skeptically on claims of foreign contamination” because Iran made similar claims about similar traces of HEU.
