Invasion of Libya Blocked by State Dept., Paper Says

The State Department stepped in to block a CIA plan for a joint U.S.-Egyptian invasion of Libya aimed at overthrowing Col. Moammar Kadafi shortly after the June, 1985, hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in Lebanon, it was reported today.

At the White House, presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater denied at least part of the report in the Washington Post, which also said that Robert M. Gates, President Reagan’s nominee to head the CIA, helped draw up the plans for the attack.

“There was no decision directive to invade Libya. I don’t know about discussions and so forth . . . but there was no policy or plan to do that that was put in motion,” Fitzwater said.

But a source familiar with the discussions told the Associated Press that the CIA and Egyptian officials prepared the initiative in 1985 after the mining of the Suez Canal and an attempt upon the life of a Libyan emigre in Cairo, apparently at the hands of Libyan agents.

When the State Department learned of the plan, it moved to derail the effort, including ordering the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Nicholas A. Veliotes, back to Washington for confidential talks on how to halt the effort, the source said.

The Post said Iran’s role in freeing passengers held hostage aboard the hijacked TWA led to a shift in U.S. policy toward Iran and to the proposed invasion of Libya.

The National Security Council and Gates drew up plans in the summer of 1985 for Egypt to attack Libya, capture half its territory with U.S. air support and then use this position to force Kadafi out, the newspaper said.

Gates wrote a paper in mid-July of 1985 saying a U.S.-Egyptian attack on Libya would present an opportunity to “redraw the map of North Africa,” the newspaper said, quoting sources who have read the document.