Kadafi Building Chemical Warfare Facility, U.S. Says

Libya is building a large new underground complex for storing weapons used in chemical warfare, according to U.S. officials.

In a series of recent interviews, U.S. officials and congressional sources said that Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi is constructing tunnels, bunkers and other underground facilities in an apparent attempt to safeguard chemical weapons from bombs or missile attacks. The new construction was first disclosed last month in a German television report.

“There’s an effort (by Libya) . . . to try to protect (chemical weapons) from what happened in Iraq,” a Defense Department official explained.

Libya’s first above-ground chemical weapons production complex at Rabta, built with the help of a German chemical company, Imhausen-Chemie, was reported to have been destroyed by a fire on March 14, 1990. But U.S. officials since have said that they believe the plant is still operating. “It now seems likely that it (the fire) was a hoax,” Bush Administration Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater said last June.

Libya has maintained that the complex at Rabta was designed to produce pharmaceuticals, but German prosecutors said last year that the plant was built exclusively to make poison gas. Last month, the Libyan news agency Jana said that the German news report about the new underground complex is “completely untrue.”

The report by ZDF, a German television station, said that German companies also are aiding in the new Libyan underground project by providing laser technology and sophisticated measuring instruments.

Asked about allegations that German companies may have worked in Libya on other chemical warfare facilities besides Rabta, a spokesman for the German Embassy in Washington replied:

“The federal government (of Germany) is aware that there are allegations against German companies. These allegations are being looked into and German officials are in close cooperation with their U.S. counterparts, who have the full picture and are exchanging information. So far, there are no concrete findings.”

Although it is virtually certain that Libya would turn to foreign technicians for help on such a sophisticated project, U.S. government analysts said that they have no confirmation of German involvement in the new chemical warfare complex.

Throughout the Persian Gulf War, U.S. analysts said, Kadafi tried to distance himself from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and, in particular, sought to avoid provoking the United States.

“What he (Kadafi) saw during the first two weeks of the war scared the bejesus out of him,” one U.S. analyst said.

“He was trying his best to make Saddam Hussein see that the United States was not bluffing. . . . He honestly believes that when we’re done with Iraq, the (American) fleet will make a left turn at Libya and rid ourselves of another terrorist regime.”

While maintaining a low-key public posture during the Gulf War, Libya has continued to develop its chemical warfare facilities since the furor over Rabta, the U.S. sources said.

Last summer, the Bush Administration acknowledged that Libya had been attempting to buy precursors for chemical weapons from China. Administration officials said that they had obtained assurances from Beijing that these chemical ingredients would not be shipped.

Prosecutors in Germany disclosed last August that Imhausen-Chemie--the German firm involved in building the plant at Rabta, about 60 miles south of Tripoli--also supplied Libya with plans for a second plant to produce chemical weapons. This second facility was said to have been located at Sebha, about 400 miles south of Tripoli.

U.S. officials declined to say where the new underground complex is located. But one source with access to intelligence reports said it is located near the original complex at Rabta.

“We have had information that the Libyans may be building a new chemical warfare site underground,” one U.S. official said. “There are a lot of tunneling projects going on.”

The German news report said that Libya’s underground complex will serve as an arsenal for both chemical and nuclear weapons. However, several U.S. sources said they believe the facility will be used primarily for chemical weapons. Although Kadafi reportedly has tried for years to obtain nuclear weapons with foreign help, there is no sign he has succeeded in doing so.

Five years ago, then-President Ronald Reagan ordered U.S. warplanes to bomb Libya in retaliation for Kadafi’s support of international terrorism.

Since then, U.S. officials said, the Libyan strongman has tried to avoid taking any action that would provoke another American military action against him. For example, they said, there is no indication of Libyan involvement in any of the scattered terrorist incidents that occurred during the Gulf War.

“The lessons of 1986 have not been forgotten,” one U.S. government analyst said recently. “He (Kadafi) saw that if he were closely linked to a terrorist incident, he would have given the United States a pretext to attack him.”

Juergen Hippenstiel Imhausen, a former manager of Imhausen-Chemie, was found guilty in Germany last year of violating export laws by helping Libya to build the plant at Rabta. He was sentenced to five years in jail.