Kadafi

Libya's Muammar el Kadafi has been warned. The U.N. Security Council has told Libya to comply with U.S. and British attempts to try two Libyan intelligence operatives for the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Scotland that took 270 lives, as well as with French arrest warrants for four more in the 1989 bombing of a French airliner in Africa. The last time a tin pot dictator of a small nation thumbed his nose at the U.N. -- his name was Saddam Hussein -- the U.S. smart-bombed and dumb-bombed Baghdad.

In my graduate class on Arab politics, we would often puzzle over decisions autocratic leaders have made that did not seem to make sense, either in moral or strategic terms. It was often tempting to take the intellectually lazy route and think they were simply crazy or stupid. In order to make the discussion more productive, the professor would suggest that we assume the leaders are at least as smart as ourselves. In recent weeks, the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was released to Libyan soil, where he received a jubilant welcome organized by Libyan leader Col. Muammar el Kadafi.

How would you feel if the man who murdered your child was forgiven - and embraced - by your government? That's what happened to me Monday when the State Department announced that Col. Muammar el Kadafi's Libya was being taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism and that the United States would establish full and friendly relations with the regime. Libya, you may recall, was the country that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. The blast killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans.

WASHINGTON -- The restoration of diplomatic relations with Libya ends more than three decades of hostility. It sends a strong signal to Iran and other countries that abandoning terrorism and weapons of mass destruction can lead to similar benefits. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has shown how we would respond to governments we perceived as uncooperative in the war on terrorism. Absent a clear example of how a country with a bad past could change course and stand with the United States, some governments might have concluded that the best strategy was to follow the North Korean example of covertly developing a weapon to gain concessions at the negotiating table.

WASHINGTON - In the corridors of the State Department, diplomats joust for the honor of being Washington's first ambassador to Libya in more than 30 years. It has been nearly a year since President Bush ended sanctions on Libya and announced his intention to open a diplomatic office in Tripoli. That speech followed a year of heady diplomacy, culminating March 12, 2003, with Mr. Bush's comment that "Libya is beginning to change her attitude about a lot of things." As evidence of Libyan strongman Muammar el Kadafi's good will, he cited the case of Libya's most famous dissident.

In my graduate class on Arab politics, we would often puzzle over decisions autocratic leaders have made that did not seem to make sense, either in moral or strategic terms. It was often tempting to take the intellectually lazy route and think they were simply crazy or stupid. In order to make the discussion more productive, the professor would suggest that we assume the leaders are at least as smart as ourselves. In recent weeks, the only person convicted in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was released to Libyan soil, where he received a jubilant welcome organized by Libyan leader Col. Muammar el Kadafi.

WASHINGTON -- George Williams has seen signs of cooperation before from Libyan leader Muammar el Kadafi, only to be disappointed. This time he's not buying it.Williams and his wife Judy, who live in Joppa, lost their 24-year-old son, Geordie, in the explosion and crash of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.As president of an organization representing the majority of families of the 189 American victims, Williams closely follows the diplomatic efforts to bring two Libyan intelligence agents to trial in the attack.

A U.S. congressional delegation told Col. Muammar el Kadafi that he must acknowledge responsibility for the attack on Pan Am 103 in order for U.S.-Libyan relations to improve, a member of the delegation said yesterday. Rep. John E. Sweeney, a New York Republican, was part of a six-member delegation that met with Kadafi for two hours in the Libyan desert Friday in a tent compound outside the dictator's hometown of Sirte. Sweeney, in a telephone interview, said Kadafi criticized militants in general, expressed "sympathy" for American losses in the Sept.

SANCTIONS, placed on a rogue regime by the world community for an attainable goal, can work.The delivery of Libyan intelligence officers Abdel Basset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima to United Nations custody testifies to that.The U.N. sanctions placed on Libya starting in 1992 in all likelihood will end formally in three months. Whatever the role of dictator Muammar el Kadafi in the bombing of a Berlin nightclub favored by U.S. soldiers in 1986, the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 in 1988 and the bombing of a French airliner over Niger the next year, Libya's pariah status largely ended when the two suspects were handed over.

WASHINGTON - President Bush eased economic sanctions on Libya yesterday, rewarding Col. Muammar el Kadafi for renouncing weapons of mass destruction and opening opportunities for American companies to do business in his nation. The action, announced by the White House while Bush was in Florida, had been anticipated for many weeks. But it was nonetheless drastic, since it softened a hard-line policy that has been in place for years against a leader who was once an enemy of the United States.

How would you feel if the man who murdered your child was forgiven - and embraced - by your government? That's what happened to me Monday when the State Department announced that Col. Muammar el Kadafi's Libya was being taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism and that the United States would establish full and friendly relations with the regime. Libya, you may recall, was the country that blew up Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. The blast killed 270 people, 189 of them Americans.

WASHINGTON - In the corridors of the State Department, diplomats joust for the honor of being Washington's first ambassador to Libya in more than 30 years. It has been nearly a year since President Bush ended sanctions on Libya and announced his intention to open a diplomatic office in Tripoli. That speech followed a year of heady diplomacy, culminating March 12, 2003, with Mr. Bush's comment that "Libya is beginning to change her attitude about a lot of things." As evidence of Libyan strongman Muammar el Kadafi's good will, he cited the case of Libya's most famous dissident.

TRIPOLI, Libya - Libya will not execute five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor who were sentenced to death earlier this year for infecting more than 400 children with HIV in 1998, according to the son of the Libyan leader, Col Muammar el Kadafi. "No one is going to execute anyone," the Libyan leaders' son, Seif al-Islam Kadafi, said yesterday. This month or next, he said, the country will pass new laws that will limit capital punishment to a small number of crimes. "Capital punishment is going to be finished," he said.

WASHINGTON - President Bush eased economic sanctions on Libya yesterday, rewarding Col. Muammar el Kadafi for renouncing weapons of mass destruction and opening opportunities for American companies to do business in his nation. The action, announced by the White House while Bush was in Florida, had been anticipated for many weeks. But it was nonetheless drastic, since it softened a hard-line policy that has been in place for years against a leader who was once an enemy of the United States.

In keeping with its pledge to destroy its unconventional weapons, Libya has told U.S. officials that it will convert hundreds of its Scud-B missiles into shorter-range, less powerful weapons for purely defensive purposes and end all military trade with North Korea, U.S. officials said last week. The officials said in interviews that Libya had also agreed to make a public declaration of its decision soon. The Bush administration has told Libyan officials that the United States will not lift trade sanctions against Libya unless it ends support for terrorism and takes action to dismantle existing weapons that threaten its neighbors.

LONDON - With a handshake that was beamed round the world, Prime Minister Tony Blair officially ended Libya's three decades of isolation by greeting Col. Muammar el Kadafi yesterday in a tent near the capital, Tripoli, where they exchanged promises to fight the terrorism that Kadafi once enthusiastically supported. Some relatives of those who died in 1988 in the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, criticized Blair's journey. Libyan intelligence was blamed for that act, and Libya admitted responsibility in September.

LONDON - With a handshake that was beamed round the world, Prime Minister Tony Blair officially ended Libya's three decades of isolation by greeting Col. Muammar el Kadafi yesterday in a tent near the capital, Tripoli, where they exchanged promises to fight the terrorism that Kadafi once enthusiastically supported. Some relatives of those who died in 1988 in the bombing of a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, criticized Blair's journey. Libyan intelligence was blamed for that act, and Libya admitted responsibility in September.

WASHINGTON - Libya, a leading outlaw state of the 1980s, acknowledged last night that it has pursued nuclear, chemical and biological weapons but pledged to dismantle the programs and to admit international inspectors. In a brief televised speech at the White House after Libya's surprise decision was announced, President Bush said Col. Muammar el Kadafi, the Libyan leader, made the pledge after nine months of secret negotiations with U.S. and British diplomats. Bush portrayed Libya's actions as a victory in his hard-line policy toward terrorism and states that seek weapons of mass destruction.

WHILE nobody was paying attention, Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger slipped into Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. In a desert tent, he met with Col. Muammar el Kadafi and talked about Libya's abandonment of nuclear weapons. In Afghanistan, he met with President Hamid Karzai and talked about the search for Osama bin Laden. In Iraq, he met with soldiers from Maryland who wondered what awaits them when they return home. Ruppersberger was part of a small congressional delegation -- members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- that went to the Middle East last month to assess U.S. intelligence there, and to receive briefings from military commanders and diplomats.

WASHINGTON - The White House said yesterday that President Bush had removed U.S. restrictions on travel to Libya and would allow for a significant expansion of diplomatic dialogue with the country. Officials said the action is warranted now that Libya has dismantled most of its nuclear infrastructure and reaffirmed its responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. "While more remains to be done, Libya's actions have been serious, credible and consistent with Colonel Kadafi's public declaration that Libya seeks to play a role in building a new world free from [weapons of mass destruction]