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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (517768)	12/31/2003 11:18:17 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	Respond to of 769670

Seizure Helped Speed Libyan Cooperation on Weapons Secret Shipment Contained Component Parts Used in Nuclear Production By Robin Wright Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, December 31, 2003; 10:30 AM U.S. and British intelligence in late September discovered a secret shipment bound for Libya that contained thousands of parts for centrifuges, a key component for producing nuclear weapons, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday. Officials said the interception of the cargo was a critical factor in squeezing Libya to give up its deadliest weapons programs. The shipment was headed from a Persian Gulf port aboard a German ship. With help from the German government and the German shipping company, the United States was able to get the freighter BBC China diverted to a southern Italian port in early October, when it was boarded and the secret shipment seized. The parts were not on the ship's manifest, U.S. officials said. The intelligence coup appears at least to have accelerated Libya's cooperation with the United States and Britain. Although secret talks on Libya's weapons of mass destruction programs had begun some six months earlier, the government of Moammar Gaddafi had not yet given a date for U.S. and British intelligence to visit Libyan sites. After the interdiction, U.S. and British inspectors were in Libya within two weeks, U.S. officials said. The operation, reported today in the Wall Street Journal, was the first interdiction under the new Proliferation Security Initiative -- and a sign of its importance as a new tool in tracking and curtailing the spread of weapons technology, U.S. officials said Wednesday. "It's clearly a success for the proliferation initiative but it's also an allied success, especially for the Germans and Italians," a senior administration official told the Post. He described both the German government and the shipping company as "extremely cooperative." The secret shipment also offered important insight into Libya's arms programs. Although U.S. intelligence was aware of Libya's chemical weapons program, Washington was surprised by Tripoli's ongoing interest in a nuclear program. The Bush administration is still reluctant to provide details of the operation or the source of the centrifuge parts, although the shipment did not originate at a port in Pakistan, U.S. officials said. According to a European official, the parts were Pakistani but were constructed in a facility outside Pakistan. U.S. intelligence believes Pakistan has shared its nuclear technology with other nations. After the intelligence discovery, a U.S. vessel followed the German freighter as an insurance policy, U.S. officials said. President Bush did not mention the interdiction during his surprise Dec. 19 announcement of Libya's agreement to disband its weapons program because the administration did not want to "stick his finger in Libya's eye," the official said. U.S. intelligence also has been reluctant to publicize its success for fear it would impact its ability to carry out other sensitive interdictions under the new initiative. Centrifuges of the kind found on the German ship can be used to develop weapons-grade uranium for use in nuclear weapons. On Sunday, U.N. investigators in Libya were shown dozens of centrifuges and other equipment that Mohammed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday indicated the country was at an "early stage" of its weapons program