Kadafi Blames Blaze on Bonn : Threatens to Retaliate Over Plant

Libyan leader Col. Moammar Kadafi today threatened to retaliate against West Germany if its agents set fire to a Libyan chemical plant suspected of producing poison gas. West Germany denied responsibility.

Kadafi again asserted that the heavily guarded plant was designed only to produce pharmaceuticals, but said Libya would be willing to pay millions of dollars to any company that builds it a chemical weapons facility.

The plant near Rabta, about 60 miles southwest of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, suffered extensive damage in Wednesday’s fire, said a spokesman for the official Libyan news agency JANA, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“You may consider it has been all burned down,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said in Washington that U.S. authorities assume that the plant was left inoperable, but he noted that the building remains standing.

Kadafi said on Radio Tripoli that an investigation has been launched to determine if West German intelligence services were implicated in “an action committed in Libya.” West Germany has acknowledged that West German companies helped build the plant. A government official in Bonn today denied any West German involvement in the plant fire.

Kadafi was quoted as saying that if West Germany is implicated in the fire, “the economic presence of Germany will be eliminated from Libya, and that state which is involved in espionage and sabotage in the interests of imperialism and Zionism will lose out.”

The broadcast was monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp.

West Germany’s ambassador in Tripoli was summoned to meet with Libya’s Foreign Office, a West German government official said in Bonn.

The United States has accused Libya of using the plant to make chemical weapons, including mustard and nerve gases. Last week, the White House said the plant was dangerous and should be shut down. The White House refused to rule out the possibility of military action.

Kadafi today denied that Libya was making chemical weapons, saying it would take another 20 years for his country to develop such armaments. But he said Libya would pay millions to anyone willing to build such a chemical weapons plant.

“I challenge any company or state to come to Libya to build a chemical factory, then I would personally sign the contract without hesitation and I would pay a thousand million to anyone who could build a chemical factory for Libya, because the world has not yet forbidden it,” he was quoted as saying.

He said Libya would not have hesitated to make “weapons of total destruction” if it had the ability.

Meanwhile, officials of JANA news agency backed away from a report monitored in Algiers blaming the United States and Israel for the fire, saying it was based on Radio Tripoli commentaries and is no longer valid in light of Kadafi’s statement.

A previously unknown group of Libyan dissidents claimed responsibility for the fire in a statement sent to West Germany’s ARD television in Cairo.