Cheney Suspects ‘Incompetence’ in Libyan Fire

Defense Secretary Dick Cheney said today he suspects that “Libyan incompetence,” not sabotage, caused the fire that damaged the Rabta chemical factory and he dismissed Moammar Kadafi’s threats against West Germany.

“If I were the Germans, I don’t think I’d be quaking in my boots at this point,” Cheney said in response to a question at the National Newspaper Assn.’s Government Affairs Conference.

The Libyan leader has pledged to retaliate if his government determines that West German sabotage was responsible for the fire Wednesday that seriously damaged the chemical factory at Rabta, 40 miles south of the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

The United States charged last week that the plant, which West German companies allegedly helped build, had started making chemical weapons. Libya has maintained that it was producing pharmaceuticals.

“It’s a darn shame what happened at Rabta,” a smiling Cheney said sarcastically, when a member of the audience asked his reaction to the fire and Kadafi’s threats.

“I am inclined to attribute it more to Libyan incompetence than anything else,” Cheney said of the fire.

Meanwhile, the West German government said today that it will not tolerate threats against Germans living in Libya following the blaze.

“The federal government decisively rejects the Libyan attempt to blame the Federal Republic of Germany for the fire at Ratba,” Juergen Chrobog, chief spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, said in Bonn. “We especially denounce any attempt to rouse up Libyans against us.”