SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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95–978PDF
2004
DISARMAMENT OF LIBYA'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
Serial No. 108–145
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Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
AMO HOUGHTON, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
ROY BLUNT, Missouri
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
NICK SMITH, Michigan
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JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
VACANCY
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
JOSEPH M. HOEFFEL, Pennsylvania
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EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation
and Human Rights
ELTON GALLEGLY, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
PETER T. KING, New York
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
CASS BALLENGER, North Carolina
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
NICK SMITH, Michigan
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MIKE PENCE, Indiana
BRAD SHERMAN, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
RICHARD MEREU, Subcommittee Staff Director
DONALD MACDONALD, Democratic Professional Staff Member
RENEE AUSTELL, Professional Staff Member
TOD HULL, Special Assistant
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
The Honorable Curt Weldon, a Representative in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania
The Honorable Paula A. DeSutter, Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Verification and Compliance, U.S. Department of State
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(Accompanied by Philo Dibble, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, U.S. Department of State, and Kurt Kessler, Acting Deputy Director, Office of Regional Affairs, Bureau of Nonproliferation, U.S. Department of State)
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Elton Gallegly, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, and Chairman, Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights: Prepared statement
The Honorable Curt Weldon: Prepared statement
The Honorable Paula A. DeSutter: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
The Honorable Nick Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan: Prepared statement
Speech Presented Live to the People of Libya in March 2, 2004 by the Honorable Curt Weldon
DISARMAMENT OF LIBYA'S WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2004
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House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on International Terrorism,
Nonproliferation and Human Rights,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 1:47 p.m. in room 2255, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Elton Gallegly (Chairman of the Subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Today, the Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights is holding a hearing on the status and issues related to the disarmament of Libya's weapons of mass destruction.
In December of last year, the Libyan Government announced it would dismantle its nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile programs. Since that time, American, British, and international officials have inspected and removed or destroyed key components of those programs. At the same time, Libya has provided useful information about foreign suppliers.
Along with Congressman Curt Weldon and five other Members of Congress, I visited Libya in January to meet with Colonel Ghadafi and senior officials in the Libyan Government. We also visited a nuclear research facility, the largest university in Libya, and toured an open-air market in downtown Tripoli and visited other venues.
I came away with one lasting impression from my visit: The Libyan people want their country to rejoin the international community and to improve relations with the United States and the American people.
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As far as the Libyan leadership is concerned, I also saw a willingness to pursue a better relationship with the United States across a broad spectrum of issues. However, I came away from this historic meeting with Ghadafi believing we must verify that Libya follows its words with concrete actions. I feel just as strongly about that need for verification today as I did then.
This is the principal reason I have asked the Administration to testify at this hearing. Libya's agreement to disarm and desire for improved relations with the West is a monumental shift for a nation that is still on our list of state sponsors of terrorism. I would like to know the status of the disarmament process with respect to Libya's nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile programs and whether it is complying with both the letter and the spirit of its agreement with the United States and with Britain.
The benefits of Libya's decision to the United States and the rest of the world are enormous. Rogue states will be able to see the advantages Libya has reaped from its decision to stop developing nuclear and chemical weapons. International terrorists will have one less sanctuary for planning their attacks. The United States will have shown that it prefers to find peaceful ways of ending terrorism and proliferation of WMDs. However, before celebrating the events of Libya, Members of Congress and the American people need to be sure that Libya is fulfilling its side of the agreement every step of the way.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gallegly follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ELTON GALLEGLY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, AND CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
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Today, the Subcommittee on International Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Human Rights is holding a hearing on the status and issues related to the disarmament of Libya's weapons of mass destruction.
In December of last year, the Libyan government announced it would dismantle its nuclear, chemical and ballistic missile programs. Since that time, American, British, and international officials have inspected and removed or destroyed key components of those programs. At the same time, Libya has provided useful information about foreign suppliers.
Along with Congressman Curt Weldon and five other members of Congress, I visited Libya in January to meet with Colonel Qadhafi and senior officials in the Libyan government. We also visited a nuclear research facility, the largest university in Libya and toured an open-air market in downtown Tripoli.
I came away with one lasting impression from my visit: The Libyan people want to their country to re-join the international community and improve relations with the United States and the American people.
As far as the Libyan leadership is concerned, I also saw a willingness to pursue a better relationship with the United States across a broad spectrum of issues. However, I came away from that historic meeting with Qadhafi believing we must verify that Libya follow its words with concrete actions. I feel just as strongly about the need for verification today.
This is the principal reason I have asked the Administration to testify at this hearing. Libya's agreement to disarm and desire for improved relations with the West is a monumental shift for a nation that is still on our list of state sponsors of terrorism. I would like to know the status of the disarmament process with respect to Libya's nuclear, chemical and ballistic missile programs and whether it is complying with both the letter and the spirit of its agreement with the United States and Britain.
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The benefits of Libya's decision to the United States and the rest of the world are enormous. Rogue states will be able to see the advantages Libya has reaped from its decision to stop developing nuclear and chemical weapons. International terrorists will have one less sanctuary for planning their attacks. The United States will have shown that it prefers to find peaceful ways of ending terrorism and the proliferation of WMDs. However, before celebrating the events in Libya, members of Congress and the American people need to be sure that Libya is fulfilling its side of the agreement every step of the way.
I would now like to recognize the ranking member on the subcommittee, Congressman Sherman, for the purposes of an opening statement.
Mr. GALLEGLY. At this point, I would like to recognize my good friend and neighbor from California, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee from Sherman Oaks, California, Brad Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Weldon, for coming before us. We had been told that this was going to be a one-panel hearing and became aware that there would be a second panel only yesterday. Had we known of this, Mr. Weldon, you would not be as lonely sitting there, as we would have suggested a Democratic witness or at least a witness that would allow you to add something to our panel of witnesses—not that you could have added in any way to the illustrious witnesses at the table in front of us.
Libya is important for two reasons. They actually have a weapons of mass destruction program, and Libya has agreed to come clean, but nothing in Ghadafi's history suggests that he is trustworthy. The Russian saying, ''trust, but verify,''—I know Mr. Weldon is involved with our relations with Russia quite deeply—is best exemplified by anyone who has dealt successfully with Ghadafi. In fact, while he was trying to finalize his deal with Great Britain, Ghadafi may have been plotting to kill the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.
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Second, we need strong laws against nuclear black marketers and countries that will aid other states in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Libya would not have gotten as far as it did except from help from outside. That is why I urge my colleagues to co-sponsor H.R. 4965, the Nuclear Black Market Elimination Act, which is authored by our Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos.
More importantly, Libya will give us some guidance as to how we confront the two members of the ''Axis of Evil'' who actually are moving toward, or have, nuclear weapons: Iran and North Korea. There is a clear analogy to Iran, perhaps less so for North Korea. What we take away as a lesson from Libya is that increasing diplomatic and economic pressure can yield results, and it starts with diplomatic pressure. You then add economic pressure, which underlines the diplomatic pressure, as well as imposing an economic cost on the rogue regime and a political cost, in that they have to explain to their own people why they are suffering this economic cost. And then, finally, economic and diplomatic pressure represents an exhaustion of peaceful remedies. It is only after everything peaceful that can be done has been done that a country might be subject to rightful military action.
Let me say at the outset that Ghadafi did not give up his weapons of mass destruction because of the invasion of Iraq. This is simply an ex post facto justification invented when weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq. We know that Ghadafi has been looking for a way out of sanctions for a long time. The Bush Administration does deserve credit in the sense that it was a successful interdiction effort, essentially a part of the Proliferation and Securities Initiative, which confirmed for the world that Libya did have an active nuclear weapons program, was a buyer in parts and centrifuges, and the open discovery in October 2003 was the last card in persuading Ghadafi that he had to give up his program or that he ought to.
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The timeline suggests that there were other motives for the change in policy. Ghadafi was looking for a way out, and he needed economic relations with the West, and he wanted especially greater development of his oil fields.
I would point out that, just by way of history, in the 1970s Libya made many attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, chiefly by flashing cash at those who already had them. Then after the 1980 bombing of Pan Am 103, Libya was under U.N. Security Council-imposed sanctions. And then, in 1996, we passed the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. The fact that Ghadafi is giving up his nuclear weapons is the greatest success of that act. And it baffles me why the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act is successful, along with other things, in persuading Ghadafi to give up nuclear weapons. But the eye in the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act seems to be ignored in that both the Clinton Administration and now the Bush Administration are just ignoring that act of Congress, winking and nodding.
We see a situation most recently that Japan announces $2 billion of investment in the Iranian oil industry, and the Administration's action is to wink and nod so that they know they can finally make that investment, which they are contractually obligated to do—a contract they would not have entered into without an American wink and a nod, that when they make that investment, they will suffer no sanctions. Also, of course, Halliburton, a United States company, is doing business in Iran through its Panamanian subsidiaries, another probable violation of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.
It is time, with the success of the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act as to Libya, for us to get serious about sanctions toward Iran. Only then will its Government and people understand that we have exhausted, or are in the process of exhausting, our peaceful remedies and showing the world that we are doing everything possible short of military action to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons.
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Libya is a success for American foreign policy, and we need to get serious about Iran, as I have said so many times in this room. And, finally, Mr. Chairman, let me reiterate, as I have done many times, how important it is that this Subcommittee have hearings on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. GALLEGLY. I thank the gentleman, and before I go to our colleague and witness, I would just like, for the record, Mr. Sherman—you mentioned the short period of time regarding the witness. I got word on Monday that Mr. Weldon was in Russia. He, in fact, had a meeting during the course of his travels in Russia with Sayed Ghadafi, the son of Muammar Ghadafi. When Mr. Weldon made the request to participate in this hearing on Monday, I thought it was timely. Our office immediately on Monday, not yesterday, contacted your office, and also Mr. Lantos, and encouraged participation by the witness, so there was not any effort to circumvent.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Weldon's loneliness appears to be as a result of his own travel schedule.
Mr. GALLEGLY. I am confident, having known Mr. Weldon for a lot of years and being a classmate of the historic 100th class with Curt, that he will be able to weather the loneliness out there.
At this point, I would like to welcome Curt Weldon. Mr. Weldon represents the Seventh District of Pennsylvania and is concluding his ninth term in the Congress. Mr. Weldon is Vice Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and also serves as the Chairman of Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.
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I am pleased that Mr. Weldon is here, as I mentioned before, to testify because he has extensive knowledge of the situation in Libya. And, as I mentioned, in January of this year, I had the opportunity to travel to Libya as part of a congressional delegation that was headed by Curt Weldon to meet with Libyan Leader Muammar al-Ghadafi. I welcome you, Curt, and we look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have asked unanimous consent, if you would, to insert my statement in the record, and I will just give you some——
Mr. GALLEGLY. Without objection.
Mr. WELDON. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and Mr. Sherman for your leadership and the entire Subcommittee in this area, and I do apologize for, at the 11th hour, asking to appear before you, but you are correct. I was in Moscow this past weekend and took the first delegation down to Beslan to deliver the resolution passed unanimously by this Congress last week to the Russian people and to stand together with them and the school to express our solidarity in their darkest hour.
During that trip to Moscow, on the way down, I met for an hour with Mutasa Ghadafi, who is the second son of Muammar al-Ghadafi. He is attending military school in Moscow, and it reinforced some of the things I am going to talk about today.
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Mr. Chairman, it was approximately 1 year ago that I was first approached from two different angles regarding Libya. You know my involvement is very heavily in the area of proliferation, especially proliferation coming out of the former Soviet States and China, going into basically five countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea. It has been something I have focused on during my entire career in Congress.
My second concern is human rights. I have been a longstanding member of the Human Rights Caucus, working with Chris Smith and Tom Lantos. I share the same concerns that you and Mr. Sherman and our colleagues do on the hearings to human rights issues.
Thirdly, looking at issues of proliferation in the former Soviet States, I was very interested when I was approached initially by Representative Saiful Ghadafi. Saiful Islam al-Ghadafi is the son of Muammar al-Ghadafi, who is currently attending school in London, working for his Ph.D. in economics. The effort to reach out to me was initially to have a meeting in London in October, which I could not attend, to be together at a World Energy Forum, a forum that I helped create. I did tell him I would come back and agreed to meet the first week of January with him.
While that was happening with Saiful Ghadafi, I was approached by my friends from Ukraine. I want to specifically acknowledge the work that has largely been unheralded by the Ukrainian Government, and this goes to the top, President Kuchma, and with the current foreign minister, who is a good friend of mine, the Ambassador to the United States, Kostyantyn Gryshchenko. They were working quietly with Ghadafi in at least one meeting that occurred between Ghadafi and President Kuchma, and the discussion was, what was the process Ukraine went through when the Soviet Union broke apart in giving up its weapons of mass destruction? And one of the questions that was given to President Kuchma was, Who can we work with in the U.S. that would provide a reliable relationship for that process? That is when my name was first given by the President of the Ukraine to Muammar al-Ghadafi.
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At the meeting I had in London the first week of January, they were back-to-back meetings on the first day with the foreign minister of Ukraine, who traveled to London to meet me. The second day, I met for dinner with Saiful Ghadafi and at that dinner table was given the invitation to bring a delegation in, a bipartisan delegation, as I always take on any codell, as you know, Mr. Chairman. I accepted that because on the cell phone that Sayef Ghadafi used, he talked to his father, and officially, through the cell phone, said you will be getting a letter in 2 days to come in. That letter arrived. We made the preparations. You were a key part of that first delegation as the Chairman of this Subcommittee.
Our expectations were somewhat varied as to what to expect. In fact, the initial response by the Administration was not one of necessarily supporting our effort, as you well know, Mr. Chairman. But as we have done frequently, we persevered, got the military plane—and I will not go into the details of what happened, which you are very familiar with—but we took the first military plane from the United States in 35 years into Tripoli, and we arrived at the airport and had a very positive response.
During the trip that you were a part of, we had 14 meetings. And summaries of the trip report, which I filed from that first trip, are on the record and a part of my testimony. We spent approximately 2 1/2 hours with Muammar al-Ghadafi.
As you well know, we had a very candid discussion, and I will repeat today what I said back then to him directly, face to face. I said, Colonel Ghadafi, the people of America will never forgive and will never forget what your country and what you have been involved in in terms of international terrorism. That includes the Lockerbie bombing and that includes the bombings of military personnel in Berlin, but we understand that that has happened. In fact, as we sat in the tent across the desert from his house that we had bombed in 1986—you can look out from the tent and see that house—he reminded us that we had also killed his year-and-a-half-old daughter in that bombing in 1986.
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But be that as it may, we told him that as long as he was going to follow through with the commitments he made publicly to President Bush to disarm his country and rid Libya of weapons of mass destruction, then we felt in the Congress, as Democrats and Republicans, that there would be a positive reaction to that. And as you know, Mr. Chairman, on that trip, we had three Democrats, and we had four Republicans. It was a bipartisan delegation. Mr. Israel, Mr. Ortiz, and Mr. Reyes were very activated and very animated in the entire process and can give you the bipartisan portion of this that I am giving you here as a Republican.
So over and over again, Mr. Chairman, we emphasized to Colonel Ghadafi, the prime minister, the foreign minister, the minister in charge of the weapons of mass destruction program (who we met with when we went to the nuclear site to actually see the reactor that they opened for us that was their research reactor), our trip to Al Fateh University, our interaction with the President, the provost, and all of the professors, that we, in fact, also wanted better relations but that Libya had to follow through with the commitments.
We also met with the Ghadafi Foundation, as you remember, and the Libya Foundation, and we had an update from them on their human rights plan, what they were going to do not just with the issue of the Lockerbie victim families, but we also talked—either on that trip or the second trip—about the Bulgarian health care officials, something I have continued to press. In fact, it looks as though we are getting some movement by the Libyans on the six Bulgarian health care officials that were put before a trial, which many have declared was a fake trial, a mockery of a trial, and we have joined continually in pushing to have those Bulgarian health care officials released.
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One thing I want to add, Mr. Chairman, that I have not brought out publicly before. I have briefed the Administration, and I am now prepared to go public, and that was the challenge that I gave to Muammar Ghadafi in a brief meeting I had after our delegation left the tent. You remember, I stayed with him, and I asked him what words he wanted me to give to the President, and he gave me some, but then I said, ''I am going to give you a challenge, Colonel Ghadafi. It looks to me like you want to change your image worldwide, one of having been a terrorist for decades and decades and a terrorist nation and that you want to put forth a new face.'' And he said, ''That is what I am doing, Congressman.'' I said, ''I am going to give you a challenge, and if you can accept and you can meet this challenge, which I think you are in a unique position to do, then I am prepared to go further in working to improve relations—with your people.''
I challenged Colonel Ghadafi on that trip in January to reach out to Kim Jong Il in North Korea. We are having a difficult time with the North Koreans, as you know. It is very difficult for us to negotiate with them. My feeling was that Colonel Ghadafi, who had a track record of terrorism, perhaps had a similar type of personality and approach with his country that Kim Jong Il has in North Korea.
So I challenged him on that first meeting on that first trip in January to use his efforts to personally reach out to Kim Jong Il; to show him that if he were to take the same steps that Ghadafi was taking in Libya—giving up his weapons of mass destruction, which is our ultimate goal in North Korea—then, in fact, America would respond. And as we have not tried to attempt regime change in Libya, the North Koreans, in fact, could see that we would pursue the same course with the North Koreans.
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Now, Mr. Chairman, as you know, I was invited back with a second delegation. You could not make that trip, but I was asked to speak to the Libyan people live on March 2nd at their Jamahiriya, which is their 27th meeting of their Government. They call it a democracy. Whatever it is, there were 1,000 people in attendance, and I told them I would come back but only under one condition, that a Member of the other side, the other party, could attend. And I suggested that I would invite Joe Biden, the Minority Leader from the Foreign Affairs Committee for the Senate and a good friend of mine.
They accepted, I came back, and I called Joe on the phone. I asked him if he would go to Libya with me, for each of us to deliver an opening speech live to the people of Libya and live on Al-Jazeera TV. He agreed, but, unfortunately, the Senate convened votes on the very day we were to be there, and he came a day late. We stayed at the airport to meet with him to brief him on the speech.
The day of the speech, again, with a bipartisan delegation—and I will make a copy of the speech available for the record because I wrote out the speech so as to make sure that every word that I said was a word that was appropriately supportive of the President's foreign policy—I spoke to the Libyan people for approximately 15 minutes, and 5 minutes after I finished speaking, Muammar Ghadafi came out and gave a 90-minute, almost like a fireside chat to the Libyan people.
It is really unfortunate, Mr. Chairman, that the Western media did not cover that speech. When I met with Colin Powell a month later, he said he was amazed at the tone and the substance of Ghadafi's speech, and it was amazing. For those of us in the audience, Democrats and Republicans, leaders of 100 nations, that sat around the front row of this auditorium with 1,000 people, it was amazing to hear Ghadafi admit that he had been wrong. That he had been wrong for 30 years to push his country toward weapons of mass destruction. That he had been wrong to pursue a policy of aggression. And he said, ''How can we in Libya take steps to work with people like Nelson Mandela in South Africa when Nelson Mandela in South Africa today is a friend of the United States, and we are America's enemy? How can we reach out and work with the Sandanistas in Nicaragua when the people in Nicaragua today are friends with America?'' He made the point of, how can we reach out with some of the more radical groups in the Middle East in terms of their support of these radical groups when some of them are, in fact, talking and having negotiations with America?
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So he said, ''It is time for us to understand we made a mistake, and now it is time for us to give up our weapons of mass destruction for the good of the Libyan people; and, therefore, we have taken that step on our own.''
I would disagree to one point that Mr. Sherman made. In my discussions with Ghadafi, both on the first and the second trip, there were several reasons why he said he was giving up his weapons of mass destruction. And I will tell you, as someone who sat there, one of the reasons he said he was giving up the weapons was he did not want to be a Saddam Hussein, and he did not want his people to be subjected to the military efforts that were being put forth in Iraq. He said that to me on two occasions, both on the first trip where you were present, Mr. Chairman, and on the second trip when I went back for the second time to deliver the speech to the Jamahiriya.
So, Mr. Chairman—Senator Biden, by the way, gave his speech the following day. He was very tough in laying out the foreign policy, but I think he was consistent with the approach of this Administration. Since that has taken place, and you will hear from the State Department themselves, so I will not attempt to speak for them because I cannot do that, but I think they will tell you the progress we have had. But as the Vice Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I am encouraged.
Now, that does not mean that I am satisfied with their human rights record. As all of you have concerns, I do as well. But, Mr. Chairman, I would much rather have a Libya that is on our side and identifying terrorist organizations and shutting down funding streams. I am much happier that we, today, have taken Libya's nuclear, chemical, and biological capability, brought the nuclear capability back to America, and that we now have a better understanding of who assisted them, which helps us in dealing with other countries. And I am very ecstatic that in the Middle East not only are we converting Iraq and Afghanistan to stable, constitutional democracies, but right down the road we have Muammar Ghadafi voluntarily giving up his weapons of mass destruction.
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Mr. Chairman, let me share with you the one comment he said for me to give to the President of the United States in that first 30-minute meeting when I met with him after our delegation meeting. He said, ''Mr. Congressman, my major concern is that your country will abandon me. I have taken a decision that is in the best interest of my country and my people, to give up weapons of mass destruction and to move away from the network that has been America's and the West's enemy for years and decades. My concern is that because I am getting so much criticism from the other Arab leaders, that they are already calling me a traitor, they are already threatening my people and threatening me. And my concern is that America, over time, may not follow through with the commitments that I have been told could happen if we continue to pursue a policy of giving up weapons of mass destruction.''
And that is my concern, too, Mr. Chairman. It is a fine line we have to walk. We never want to trivialize what Muammar Ghadafi has done, as we did not do on either of our delegations. We told him he was wrong. We told him we would never forgive, and we would never forget, but we do have a more stable relationship today, one that is helping us deal with the problems of terrorism in the world, and for those reasons, I applaud the President's decision in removing sanctions. I want to continue to press, as you have said so eloquently, for full disclosure and accountability on what Ghadafi is actually doing, but I also want us to continue to press for issues like the Bulgarian medical workers and the issues involving human rights, the individual who is being held in a hotel in downtown Tripoli who I am trying to reach out to.
So I think our policy is the correct one, and I think Libya is a win for both Republicans and Democrats and, yes, for this Administration. My meeting in Moscow this past weekend with Mutasa Ghadafi reinforced what I have been told for the last 8 months. The colonel wants to continue this effort. Mutasa said both he and his brother, Sayef, will use their significant influence to continue to press his father in the direction they are going. I have had follow-on discussions with Musa Gusa, who is the intelligence chief, with Prime Minister Ghanem, and with the foreign leaders of Libya. And, Mr. Chairman, I would just ask that Congress could support that effort. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your time.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Weldon follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. This year I had the opportunity to lead two bipartisan delegations to Libya. My first visit in January was to establish contact with government officials. The second visit was to address their Congress. The delegation was the first bipartisan congressional delegation to visit Libya and meet with Colonel Moammar Gaddafi in 35 years.
ARRIVAL MEETING
In January, the delegation was met by a delegation led by Abdullatife Aldali, Chairman of the Tripoli Conference, who welcomed the delegation: ''We look forward to a new relationship between Libya and America.''
Following an introduction of the delegation, I indicated the delegation was in Libya to open a new chapter in U.S.-Libyan relations, to listen and learn from its Libyan counterparts. I believe there are strong U.S. interests in both political parties to be friends with Libya, to work to resolve common concerns. We didn't go to Libya to represent the Secretary of State or the President, but as representatives of a coequal branch of the United States Government, looking forward to normalized relations between our countries.
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OVERVIEW OF MINISTRY, LEGISLATIVE, EDUCATIONAL, & FOUNDATION MEETINGS
The delegation met with Colonel Gaddafi for two hours and had fourteen other meetings with senior ministry, legislative, educational, and charitable foundations. The delegation spoke with the Libyan leaders about cooperative governmental and non-governmental programs that could be developed and instituted, much like has been done with the parliaments of other countries.
I prefaced each of the discussions with Libyan leaders with an explanation of the congressional role in the U.S. federal system of separate, but equal branches of government. I also stressed to the Libyans that we were not there to negotiate, that is the responsibility of the executive branch of our government. However, after Libya takes the necessary steps to follow through on the stated intention to eliminate their WMD programs, Congress can encourage our President and Secretary of State to expedite normalization of relations with your country. Following that, we can work to establish governmental and non-governmental programs to bring our two countries closer together and improve the welfare of both our peoples. The discussions with Colonel Gaddafi and all other senior leaders with whom the delegation met were extraordinarily positive regarding the potential for normalized relations between Libya and the U.S.
COLONEL GADDAFI
Colonel Gaddafi thanked the delegation for making the visit possible: ''coming at a very critical time,'' observing that he wished that ''such a meeting could have taken place thirty years ago'' and stating his ''hope to be able to compensate for what we missed.'' He commented at length on the need for countries to communicate and engage in dialogue before taking up arms against one another. He denied any responsibility for the night club bombing in 1986 that led to the U.S. bombing of Libya and the death of his step daughter:
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''For 30 years we haven't discussed anything with each other . . . taking the wrong approach, right from the beginning, with wars, losses, damage, loss of valuable time, without a good, specific reason for doing so . . . The picture of Gaddafi in the U.S. is not a real one. When I took the decision on elimination of weapons of mass destruction, I did it for my people, out of conviction . . . If I had the atomic bomb I would put it on the table. There is no reason for Libya and the United States not to have good relations. The right course is the one you have taken: to come here and meet . . . the policies were wrong in the past. We can't rectify such wrongs . . . We have to compensate for what we have missed . . . I highly value your visit because it is necessary that you know us very well. Because once you know us well, then you will take the appropriate policy decision.''
He further commented at length at what he believed to be a lack of knowledge in the U.S. about Libya's government:
''You don't even know the governing system in Libya. We know the governing system in the U.S.: the White House, the NSC (national security council), Congress. We know about the Pentagon. We know about the newspapers, one by one. We even know the writers. We know names of companies and specializations. Nevertheless, Americans don't know anything about our congresses, peoples' committees, revolutionary committees, social structure, leadership, or anything about the Green Book.''
Colonel Gaddafi commented on the criticism he said was aimed at Libya for deciding to eliminate its WMD programs:
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''In the past there have been bad mediators. Tunisia, Egypt and other Arab countries see it as not in their best interests for Libya and the United States to have good relations. They are benefiting from the embargo and seek a continuation for their own interests. How would you expect them to work for good relations between Libya and America? The Arabs are waging a fierce campaign against us for deciding to get rid of WMD. I hope they are not successful in taking revenge against us. I hope that even Libyans are not sorry for taking such a step. It all depends on your supporting us. It does deserve support and encouragement so that Libyans won't be disappointed.''
I indicated that normalization of relations between the two countries would permit initiatives to be undertaken between the Libyan General Peoples' Congress and the U.S. Congress, much like has been done with the Russian Duma and other parliaments, to further government and non-governmental cooperation between peoples of the two countries, leading to better understanding, peaceful cooperation, and providing for a better quality of life for all people.
The delegation encouraged the Libyan leader to follow through on his encouraging public statements regarding elimination of Libyan weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs, with swift, verifiable elimination of WMD programs.
GENERAL PEOPLES' CONGRESS GREAT JAMAHIRIYA
Zinati Zinati, Speaker of the General Peoples' Congress Great Jamahiriya, welcomed the delegation and expressed his appreciation for the ''extraordinary effort'' the delegation took to be in Libya: ''This is evidence of the great will on your part to develop, promote and enhance relations between our two countries.'' The Speaker provided the delegation with a general overview of the structure of the ''basic congresses'' and the General People's Congress, the annual legislative agenda, and the Libya legislative procedures.
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I noted that the delegation was the first U.S. bipartisan delegation to visit Libya in over 35 years. He expressed his appreciation for the warm reception and how this portended very productive discussions. I also cited the gratifying experience of the delegation shortly after the official arrival when the delegation had been able to take advantage of a short period before the beginning of the official itinerary to visit the nearby souq (market). There, the delegation had an opportunity to meet several Libyans, including small children, shopping and tending their stores, who in each and every case warmly greeted the members of the delegation, often in English.
Suleiman Al Shahoumi, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the General Peoples' Congress, observed that:
''Libya is a small country that inherited an ancient system with people living in poverty and experiencing starvation. The revolution in 1969 sought to bring up the level of life for the Libyan people. The Libyan people have chosen a political system—a direct democracy—in harmony with Libya's culture and principles in life . . . A system based on placing all authority in the hands of the people, distributed through 450 Peoples' Basic Congresses. This system is independent and balanced . . . The policies of these congresses support national liberation for states and nations and call for the respect of human rights and condemns all forms of terrorism. This policy also believes that the only way to resolve conflicts is through dialogue, calling for peace, stability, and order and cooperation between peoples and states. This policy believes that prosperity is achieved through democracy and development. Therefore Libya, thanks to the revolution, has been able to provide all types of rights to the people: utilities, education, human resources, housing, fresh water—all related to mankind. In spite of the term human rights not being precisely defined, my country has signed onto all treaties related to human rights.''
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Secretary Shahoumi, commenting on terrorism, cited the difficulty in ''differentiating between terrorism and the legitimate right of nations and peoples to fight for their freedom and human rights.'' He added that, ''we deny and refuse the ways of connecting terrorism and Islam because we believe terrorism has no religion, has no state or country or home, and has no nationality.''
In commenting on weapons of mass destruction, the Secretary noted that ever since the 1969 Revolution Libya has been calling for making the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons:
''But nobody has ever responded to this initiative. Therefore because of no response to our initiative, we thought as a small country, a modest way to protect ourselves was to establish WMD as part of our defense policy. However, after breakthroughs in resolving conflicts like UTA and Lockerbie and because of serious thoughts of the international community to get rid of WMD, Libya decided to formally announce its decision to dismantle its WMD programs. In this regard, we wish to express our deep appreciation for the positive international response to our initiative and we again call for making the region a WMD-free zone. As a step to that end, Libya has signed all relevant treaties and conventions related to this topic, including treaties banning all types of experiments related to WMD . . . And we call on your support to make the Middle East a WMD-free zone.''
The Secretary further provided his view that the people of Libya believe and have in fact published a White Book on the topic of peace in the Middle East. He indicated the White Book makes a ''practical and persuasive case'' for making Israel and Palestine a ''bi-state country,'' modeled after South Africa, with Muslims, Jews, and Christians all living together with ''all rights and duties.''
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PRIME MINISTER
Prime Minister Shokri Ghanem observed that strained relations between Libya and the U.S. existed due to ''misunderstandings or misfortunes,'' and Libya wishes to change that. Prime Minister Ghanem stated that ''with good intentions, with each party trying to understand one another,'' differences can be worked out: ''When we talk we understand one another. You are a big country—a super power—we are a small country, yet neither of us has a monopoly on wisdom. We have a duty to one another, and should not listen to a third party. We are very interested in going the whole way. We suffered from terrorism more than you. We failed to communicate. We need to talk.''
Prime Minister Ghanem concluded that after 9/11 the whole world is different: ''We can work together . Libya is a small country. When we talk and listen you can find wisdom in a small country. You will find us a good ally. The United States was the number one place we sent our students. We would like to do that again.''
FOREIGN MINISTER
Foreign Minister Abdulrakman Shalgam stated: ''it is an honor for us to start a new era of relations with the U.S. . . . I believe this is a chance for you to learn about our people. Our expectation, our ideas and thoughts can benefit from international peace . . . In the past there was a joint misunderstanding. It is the mission for both of us to clear up that misunderstanding . . . Certain circumstances caused a misunderstanding. We started a bit late, but better late than never. It is an honor to be receiving the first delegation from America.''
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GADDAFI INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR CHARITABLE ASSOCIATIONS, THE GADDAFI HUMAN RIGHTS FOUNDATION & THE LIBYAN RED CRESCENT
The delegation visited with officials of the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charitable Associations, the Gaddafi Human Rights Foundation, and the Libyan Red Crescent to discuss their programs.
AL FATEH UNIVERSITY
The delegation met with the President of Al Fateh University, department heads, and delivered introductory letters from American University students to students of the University. Professor Tarhuui read a poem that he had prepared to celebrate the delegation's visit.
In March 2004, I lead a second delegation to Libya, at the invitation of the Libyan General People's Congress Great Jamahiriya to attend the opening session and meet with the Members of the 27th General Peoples' Congress in Sirte.
I delivered a speech to the Congress and Colonel Moammar Gaddafi closed the opening session with a 90 minute address to the Members and visiting delegations, representing approximately 100 countries. Colonel Gaddafi praised the international attendees and the Members of the Peoples' Congress; highlighted his view of the superiority of Libyan ''direct democracy'' over representational forms of democracy; explained his rationale for why Libya had ''voluntarily separated'' itself from the international community and why circumstances had now changed; renounced weapons of mass destruction and called on all the nations of the world to eliminate WMD; and cited the indiscriminate threat of international terrorism. The delegation had an opportunity to meet with Colonel Gaddafi after the opening session. In addition, the delegation met with faculty and students at Al Fateh University, officials of the Gaddafi Foundation of Charitable Associations, and visited the National Museum in Tripoli and the Great Man-made Water Project in Sirte.
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Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Curt. That was an historic trip. One of the things, an observation that I made, and I would like to hear your comments, one of the observations I made was that it was very clear to me that Muammar Ghadafi did not have a real warm feeling toward the West and the United States. In fact, on a couple of occasions, when he was starting to open up and ratchet up the rhetoric a little bit, you could see him catching himself and moving back. But clearly, the issue of what took place with Saddam Hussein was a driving force. You made a comment that he was concerned that he might be abandoned, but at the time we were there, there were cartoons in some of the press showing Muammar Ghadafi with a collar being led around on a leash by Uncle Sam. Based on that, would you agree with my assessment as to his feelings toward the West in general and why he is doing what he has been doing and whether or not you believe it is genuine?
Mr. WELDON. I absolutely agree with you. In fact, do you remember when he walked in that tent, and all of us were sitting there along the one row of chairs looking out to the desert and his home that we had bombed in 1986? None of us knew what to expect, and as he walked in, and we stood up—in a very polite way, but not a way that was gushy, we were just matter-of-fact—he told us that he did not understand why it took 30 years for someone from the West to sit down in the tent and talk to him.
He said to us, as you remember, ''Whether you agree with me or not, think I am a terrorist or not, someone should have been talking to me during this time.'' And we, in fact, said, ''Colonel Ghadafi, we cannot speak for Administrations. We are not here in that regard, but today there is an opportunity.'' But I would agree with you that he said to us in the tent, and he said it to me in both meetings—in the January meeting and again on March 2nd—that clearly our actions in Iraq were a part of the effort, in his mind, that led him to understand that he had two choices.
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One was to continue to pursue a policy that may or may not work, the production of weapons of mass destruction, and risk the chance that America would eventually, with the West, take action against him and his people, and he clearly did not want that. He said, ''I do not want my people to suffer what the Iraqi people have gone through, and to be honest with you, I did not want to suffer what Saddam Hussein has gone through.'' So, clearly, that was on his mind.
Now, there were other factors: The energy agreements that needed to be put into place, the economic damage being caused to his economy over 30 years; but clearly, you are absolutely correct that that was a part of his statement and the thrust that he made on both trips.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Are you aware of the recent news reports that the Libyan regime may have been involved in a plot to assassinate Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia——
Mr. WELDON. I am.
Mr. GALLEGLY [continuing]. And what is your assessment of that?
Mr. WELDON. I do not have any independent way to assess it. I know, in my discussions with the State Department, they are pursuing that. I have also had discussions with my friends from Israel. I worked very closely with APAC before I made my first trip. I brought my friends here from APAC and talked to them and the Israeli Embassy to get some feeling for their considerations and concerns about our delegation going. And all I can tell you is that I have also been not as friendly, but certainly have a relationship with the Saudis, so we want to know whether or not there was direct involvement, and if so, we need to take appropriate action to deal with that.
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And I take the Administration, on the surface, have said publicly that they are pursuing this with the Libyans, and I think they are. But again, I do not think that overshadows what we have accomplished there. What a model that sets for the world. If we could use that with North Korea, which is the objective of everyone, to disarm the North Koreans of their nuclear capability, it would be a similar type of success that avoids having to send troops into harm's way, which none of us want to see occur.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you, Curt. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. At the outset, I think that Ghadafi certainly understands that to the extent that he can lend credence to the idea that his concessions are as a result of the invasion of Iraq, he throws a lifeline to the Republican Administration. I do not think that we in Congress can believe that Ghadafi did or did not do something for the reasons that he has stated. If he said that he had made these concessions because he was reading the Koran, I would have believed maybe the opposite. So we will never know why Ghadafi did what he did.
Mr. Weldon, you focused on North Korea, and, I think, wisely, because they actually have nuclear weapons. I am glad they will be getting a call from Ghadafi. I am not sure that that will mean much, in that they do not get any economic or political security benefits from Korea of which I am aware. The Chinese are their lifeline. Without subsidies from China, the lights go out, and China, while not supportive of the North Korean nuclear program, has been unwilling to condition those subsidies on any change of policy. And we could persuade China to modulate its policy toward North Korea if we were willing to say, well, the next shipload of tennis shoes is not going to be allowed into the United States unless you, Beijing, agree to modulate your policy toward North Korea to meet the world's security objectives.
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You have considerable expertise on Libya, having been there, and I have not, but you have been to a place that I find even more distant and more unfathomable than Tripoli, namely, the Republican Caucus. Perhaps you could enlighten me and tell me whether, in that caucus, there would be support for conditioning some portion of our imports from China on an agreement by China to modulate their subsidies to North Korea, as needed, to persuade that Government to abandon its nuclear program? In this strange place that I have referred to, is it the tennis shoes or the nuclear bombs that have——
Mr. WELDON. I cannot speak for the Republican Caucus, but I can tell you, I also led the only delegation ever into North Korea a year ago in May. I sat across the table from Kim Guy Gwan with, again, three Democrats and two Republicans. We met for 3 days with all of the top leaders of North Korea. I followed that up with three other meetings in this country at the University of Georgia, with Harvard, and here in Washington, Joe Biden, interacting with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, which is, in fact, the North Koreans.
In fact, it was at our first delegation in May that they wanted us to return. It was a very positive experience. I said, ''We will come back on one condition. You must agree to six-party talks, as requested by our President,'' because up until that time they had not. Two weeks after we left—and I cannot take credit for it, but it happened—the North Koreans said they would accept the six-party talks.
I agree with your point about China, but I think it is equally important that we deal with Russia. We have been working for the past 2 years on three alternative energy pipelines that would run from the Russian Far East down through North Korea into South Korea, funded by the South Koreans and the Japanese, using Russian energy interests, including gas from Rosneft, Luke Oil, the other majors. The energy coming through North Korea would provide energy for the North Koreans and would provide dollars. That gives us a vehicle to end this conflict because that is what North Korea wants.
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They want assurance we will not preemptively attack them. The President said he would not attack them. We have given that assurance. The second thing they want is economic help, and we have the ability, working with the Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians, and the South Koreans, to give them that energy assistance. And again, we have, and I would be happy to provide them to this Subcommittee, three concrete proposals that have been worked on. In fact, I have a million dollars that they got in the appropriation process last year to bring them, and working with Maurice Strong—Maurice Strong is Kofi Annan's special envoy to North Korea. He is the Chairman of a special ad hoc task force that I have been working with on these three alternatives to provide an ultimate solution for North Korea.
So I do not know about the Republican Caucus, but I can tell you what Jong Jong said.
Mr. SHERMAN. I have one more question to sneak in. Obviously, we should have not only no pipeline through North Korea and South Korea but no pipeline of aid uninhibited from China to North Korea while that country develops nuclear weapons. You spoke of Ghadafi wanting assurance that we not abandon him. What he gets out of this deal chiefly is U.S. oil companies making profitable deals with him. Other than that, what is he getting out of this deal that we might possibly take back? Have we promised in some way to send military forces to rescue him should he face an internal or external threat? What does he think that we have promised that we could conceivably fail to deliver?
Mr. WELDON. Nothing. He said, ''I want nothing from you.'' He said, ''I made this decision basically because it was the right decision for my own people,'' and he gave us the reasons: One, to improve his economy——
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Mr. SHERMAN. So he is worried that we will abandon him.
Mr. WELDON. Well, he is worried. Thirty years of basically an economy with no ties to the West. That is what has got them concerned. We saw the poverty, but we also saw, as we walked through the marketplace in Tripoli unannounced, an 80-year-old man who was pounding a copper pot with no teeth coming over and embracing us as Americans. We are happy you are back. A young, 10-year-old who spoke English, you know, impeccable English. He said, ''We are happy to see you here. You are from America.'' In the university, two-thirds of all of the deans of all of the schools at Al Fateh University were educated at American universities, and they were saying, ''We are so happy you are here. We want to reestablish the academic ties.''
But did Ghadafi ask or expect for anything? No, absolutely not. No discussion at all about, ''I want some commitment.'' There is no commitment there. And our commitment, in the comments I made and Elton made and Solomon and Sylvester made and Steve Israel, were basically we are here to say, if you continue down the path of giving up your weapons of mass destruction, that will be positive in America, and that is it.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Ms. Berkley.
Ms. BERKLEY. I have to say, I am extremely impressed——
Mr. GALLEGLY. Pardon me. You know, in fairness to the Committee, I will rotate back and forth. Mr. Rohrabacher.
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Ms. BERKLEY. I wondered how I got that light. [Laughter.]
Mr. GALLEGLY. I just like you better than I do Dana. [Laughter.]
Mr. ROHRABACHER. I would suggest, Mr. Weldon, that perhaps one of the motives that Mr. Ghadafi had was that he does not want to end up in a hole someplace, which had something to do with Saddam Hussein.
We have seen the sanctions lifted—it has been going on for a number of years, and it is happening at a very fast rate when you consider that just a couple of years ago he was the worst maniac in the world, on our ''super hit list.'' Tell me this: Does it make you feel a little bit antsy that we are lifting the sanctions on Libya in such order while it is taking us forever to lift even some regular sanctions on the former Soviet Union, now Russia?
Mr. WELDON. Absolutely, positively. In fact, Mr. Rohrabacher, I have just come out with a four-part strategy that I briefed John Bolton last week on before I went to Moscow, and Secretary Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz the week before. We have not taken the steps to bring Russia in as a full party. We have not done the things the President has called for. He called for—and so did Bill Clinton—ending Russia's involvement with Jackson-Vannick. Every Jewish group in America—which was the reason why Jackson-Vannick was placed on Russia in the first place, under the problems with Soviet Jewry—has come out and given me letters saying, we support lifting Russia from Jackson-Vannick. All we have done with the Russians is we have backed them into a corner, and we wonder why Putin is taking steps to repress his society, so you are absolutely correct.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. So you are saying that a country that up until a very short time ago was our declared enemy and associating with the worst-possible terrorist, what, in fact, was a terrorist Government, and we, in short order, lifted sanctions on that Government while another Government discards their whole communist system and is struggling to be our friend, and yet we still have not lifted sanctions.
Mr. WELDON. You are absolutely right, Mr. Rohrabacher. I want to tell you something about Iran. For the past 18 months, I have been giving the CIA information that Iran has been funding through Hominy all of the insurgent operations in Iraq. It was Hominy who funded $70 million to Sadr over a year ago. I gave the CIA that information, and now that is all coming out.
We do not have any leverage with Iran, none. The one country that has leverage with Iran is Russia, and we need Russia to assist us in getting Iran to back down with the Bashir nuclear power plant and with the fomenting of unrest in Iraq.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. And certainly, the economic sanctions did play a role in the Libyan situation.
Mr. WELDON. Yes. The economy has been hurting over the past 30 years dramatically, and every place we went, we saw evidence of that.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. So the economic sanctions gave the leaders of Libya a positive reason to do something. Rather than threat, it was a positive incentive, as well as taking actions against the Iranians for their negative activities and then having a negative action take place. Did you believe that the sanctions against Iraq could also be used as a positive lever to get the Iranians to move in the right direction?
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Mr. WELDON. I absolutely do. In fact, I was a major supporter of Jane Harman and Ben Gilman and you on the Iranian Missiles Sanctions Bill in 1997 that we passed in both bodies, which, unfortunately, the President vetoed. And that bill was passed by a veto-proof margin in both houses, even though we never got to a veto, because Speaker Gingrich would not allow us to vote on that veto. You remember that issue.
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Before Brad leaves the room, I would just like to note that some of us do not have to bend over backwards to try not to give the Administration some credit. I think that the fact that this Administration has overthrown the government of Saddam Hussein has had some impact on the thinking of people like Ghadafi, and we deserve at least credit for that from our friends on the other side of the aisle. With that said, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Ms. Berkley.
Ms. BERKLEY. I think Mr. Rohrabacher is going down the same road that I was planning to. In your opinion, did we have a strategy in Libya that ultimately was successful, or did we just luck out, and if, in fact, we had a strategy, how can we apply it to Iran or North Korea? What happened other than what we have just talked about that worked so well that we can use and learn from and utilize with other rogue nations?
Mr. WELDON. I think there was a strategy, and I will say that I even think it started in the previous Administration. I think there were overtures to reach out to the Libyans, and I am not going to say this all happened on one particular date. I think there was a thought process within the State Department and within our intelligence that, in fact, perhaps we could eventually break down that door.
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This Administration did work aggressively on that process following the Clinton Administration, and I think I just happened to be brought in at the eleventh hour because they saw the work I had been doing with the former Soviet States, and Kruchna told Ghadafi, ''Here is somebody that you ought to talk to because he can be an honest broker for you back in the Congress,'' and that is a small role that we all played as Members.
But how can that strategy help us? I think that it can help us in any of these difficult countries. You know I am a strong supporter of our military, but as a teacher, the last thing I want is war. I want us to be able to use the military to bring our adversaries to the table to negotiate peace. We have done that in Libya, and that is a model. That is a model we can hold out to the North Koreans.
I do not think the problem in Iran is the Government. It is not Hadami. It is the radical, religious, fundamentalist leader, Hominy. He is out of control and separate from the Iranian Government. He is the guy fomenting all of the unrest, and that is why we need to have the leverage on Iran. And I am convinced the only leverage that will accomplish that is Russia, and right now, we have a relationship that has Bush and Putin being friends and below that, nothing, and that is a problem. Below Bush and Putin's personal friendship is a big, empty vacuum, and I say this as someone who made my 38th trip there this past weekend.
Ms. BERKLEY. How do we fill that vacuum?
Mr. WELDON. Well, we had an opportunity 4 years ago when we, in the Congress, presented a 48-page document with 108 recommendations to bring the people and the institutions of our two countries together. That document was signed by one-third of the Congress. It was signed by Carl Levin, Dick Lugar, Joe Biden. It was signed by people on the Democrat side: Jack Berth and Nancy Pelosi, Dennis Kusinich, Bernie Sanders; on the right, it was signed by Chris Cox, Henry Hyde, Dick Armey, J.C. Watts. The Russians took it seriously. Their Academy of Sciences adopted it as their formal plan, and, unfortunately—and I do not say this is the President, but people below the President—put it on the shelf, and that is where it sat.
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We had better reinvigorate an effort to reach out to the Russians. Right now, there are some calling for us to push away from Russia, that Russia should be our enemy. We should deny them WTO status. To me, that is the exact wrong position. We should be engaging Russia so we have some leverage with Putin by showing that we will elevate them out of Jackson-Vannick. Bush and Clinton have both called for elevating Russia out of Jackson-Vannick 15 times. We have still not done it. Bush and Putin called for joint missile defense cooperation. The Defense Department just ended the only missile defense program between our countries last month.
So we ought to match the rhetoric of our Presidents, and if we do that with the bureaucracy sitting behind me, then maybe we would have some success and some leverage with Russia. We have not had it. It is very offensive to me because I think now is the time we need it. That is why I went to Beslan; so that Democrats and Republicans could stand at that school, as emotional as it was—and it was the most emotional experience I have ever been in in my life—and tell the Russian people we are one and the same in battling terrorism.
Pushing them away from us is not going to help us. It is not going to help us in Iran. It is not going to help us get rid of the Bashir nuclear power plant. It is not going to help us in North Korea. Now is the time to bring Russia in, and to do that, we have got to give them some substance.
Ms. BERKLEY. Thank you.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Ms. McCollum.
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Ms. MCCOLLUM. I have some questions, but you made a comment and I want to make sure that I understood you right. Or sometimes, if you are like me, you have so much in your head, you even speak in shorthand.
Mr. WELDON. Or so little in my head. [Laughter.]
Ms. MCCOLLUM. You have pointed out that we have had a threat program with Russia and that the President and Putin are friends, but the Defense Department cut the program, or Congress did not do anything—I mean, the Defense Department is in the Administration's bailiwick—right?—over the funding that we cut.
Mr. WELDON. Actually, back when, I was the author of the missile defense bill that passed the House in 1998 with a veto-proof margin, and back in 1995 and 1996, the only cooperative program we had with the Russians was called RAMOS, the building of two joint satellites. The Clinton Administration abruptly canceled the program, and I went to Carl Levin and said, ''Carl, this is outrageous. We want the Russians to be a partner with us. If we are going to abrogate the ABM Treaty down the road, this is sending a bad signal.'' It was the Congress that reinstated the funding back then.
Last year, General Kadis, who is in charge of our Missile Defense Agency, came to me and said, ''Congressman, I am going to recommend canceling the RAMOS program again.'' I said, ''General, you cannot do that unless you have a follow-on program.'' Our President has publicly stated that we are going to do joint missile defense cooperation with Russia. If we do not do that, then we fall into the hands of the ultra-nationalists over there who said, ''See? We told you America just wants this for an advantage over us.'' Well, the problem has been, for the last year, they have not been able to get in with the Ministry of Defense in Russia to conclude a deal. Two months ago, I took the new general in charge of the Missile Defense Agency, General Obering, with me because we were unable to get a meeting with General Valievsky, who was his counterpart on the Russian side.
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I am going to tell you a story that is going to embarrass the Administration.
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Is this going to count on all of my time to correct this for the record? I would love to hear, but——
Mr. GALLEGLY. The Chair will give you a fair amount of time.
Mr. WELDON. Our four-star general said he could not get a meeting with General Valievsky to conclude a follow-up missile defense initiative. He is a four-star general and a good friend of mine. I offered to take his replacement, who now heads the agency, a three-star general, over with me. I did.
We sat in the office of Sario Plashad, which is the equivalent of their East Wing, across the table from my friend, Kotenkopf, who heads the Federation Council, and in walks Valievsky in a business suit. He sits across the table. Obering and he had the first meeting. That meeting was not set up by the State Department. It was not set up by the Defense Department. It was set up by Members of Congress who understand the need to reach into Putin's inner circle and understand we have to build a new relationship with Russia.
In my opinion, we have done a terrible job of that in the previous Administration and in this Administration, and that is not because of the President's lack of vision. The President has been calling for all of the right things. The President has called for lifting Russia out of Jackson-Vannick many times. So did President Clinton. The President called for joint missile defense cooperation. It is the staff level underneath the President that is not doing benefits and not doing the networking, not doing the collaboration that allows us to have Russia as a true partner, and today they are not a true partner. It is a friendship between two men. It is not the kind of in-depth collaboration we need, and I could give you other examples of that.
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Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do not get to do this very often. One of the things that I have been trying to grapple with, and you mentioned the fact that you were a teacher, and I was teaching the social sciences, how would I define terrorism? How would I define working with people who have been supportive of terrorism, and as far as I know, Ghadafi still might be very much involved in that?
I was at Highland Park High School last week, and if this question would have come up, then they would have said, ''Ms. McCollum, you know, we do not negotiate with terrorists.'' We went in, and we did what we did to Saddam because of what he did to weapons of mass destruction. I will not get into how the war is going or any of that, but just looking at the fact that we did this. Now, here is a person that was involved in blowing up an airplane, not as many people as the in the twin towers but an airplane, not on American soil but international. The question I can hear coming from those students would be, So is there a statute of limitations on terrorism? Are we going to hold Ghadafi accountable for his deeds, words, and actions?
I think it is wonderful that the British and the Americans started back a while ago to get the weapons out. I think that that is admirable, but to now stand side-by-side with Ghadafi and say, ''That is great, you have had a change of heart,'' could that be an expectation that other terrorist leaders would have? I can see removing the sanctions and saying, ''Ghadafi, that is great. We are going to give you amnesty, but you are out of here. We are not dealing with you. We care about the future of the country.'' How do you reconcile you are either with us or you are against us, evil versus good, and then one day a magic pill, and everything is fine?
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Mr. WELDON. I do not think we can ever praise Ghadafi. We can never stand up and put him on some kind of a pedestal, and I think, on both of our trips, we accomplished that. We did not, in fact, praise him. We are not glowing, and I would also say this to you, and I am not an expert on this, but while they have officially issued a resolution in the U.N. accepting responsibility to compensate the victims of Pan Am 103, I do not know that we had the empirical evidence provable in a court of law that it was directly Ghadafi who ordered that Pan Am bombing. I do not know that we have that. I do not think we do. But they have accepted the responsibility to pay the families.
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Let me take that with bin Laden, then. Do we have empirical evidence that bin Laden gave the final go for the World Trade towers? I mean, that is what I am struggling with and gripping here because we need to figure this out as Members of Congress, as an international community, so that mixed signals are not sent.
Mr. WELDON. No. I agree with you. The only thing I would say about bin Laden is we have him, in his own testimony, on a video screen, accepting responsibility and laughing and gloating over it, that he, in fact, was the one who had it happen and was happy that it took place. So I think in the case of bin Laden, we do have that evidence.
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Chairman, I do not want to take too much of your time, but I thank you.
Mr. GALLEGLY. I appreciate your being here.
Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you.
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Mr. GALLEGLY. I would just like to make one observation, Ms. McCollum, and I think you were drawing an analogy between the relationship with Saddam Hussein and with Ghadafi, and the fact that why are we cutting Ghadafi some slack——
Ms. MCCOLLUM. No, Mr. Chairman, I am not. As the people we represent——
Mr. GALLEGLY. Well, one example that I would throw out that I would certainly offer to the students, and I have not spent nearly as much time in a classroom as, obviously, you have or Curt, but the one thing, one very clear difference between what happened in Iraq and what is happening in Libya—and I think we ought to be very pleased that we have somebody voluntarily disarming and agreeing, at least to date, with all of the inspectors—is that Saddam Hussein had 19 opportunities to cooperate with the United Nations resolutions over a 10-year period. He was cut a lot of slack for over 10 years, given 19 opportunities with ultimatums from the United Nations, and, quite frankly, at least to date, I am much more pleased with the type of response we are getting out of Ghadafi, no matter how we all may feel about his records in the past.
Anyway, I thank you very much, Curt, and I value your credentials and your longstanding commitment on this issue.
Mr. WELDON. Thank you. Thank you.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Now, our second panel.
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[Pause.]
Mr. GALLEGLY. I would like to welcome our second panel. It is my understanding that there will be, and we do have, three witnesses at the table, but there will only be one opening statement given by the Administration. The testimony will be given by Paula A. DeSutter, who was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Verification and Compliance on August 14, 2002. She brings to her position at the Department of State an extensive background in verification and national security issues. Ms. DeSutter also served for over 4 years as a Professional Staff Member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Prior to her work in the Senate, Ms. DeSutter held numerous positions in the Verification and Intelligence Bureau in the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Ms. DeSutter is accompanied by Mr. Philo Dibble and Mr. Kurt Kessler. Mr. Dibble was sworn in as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs in May 2003. Mr. Dibble also served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Syria, as the Director of the Office of Northern Gulf Affairs, and as Deputy Director of the Office of Egyptian and North African Affairs.
Mr. Kessler is the Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Regional Affairs in the Bureau of Nonproliferation. Mr. Kessler led the United States-United Kingdom nuclear verification team in Libya. He also has been a Middle East Team Chief in the Bureau of Nonproliferation for 2 years. Previous to his positions at the State Department, he spent 10 years as a CIA analyst, working nuclear nonproliferation issues.
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I welcome you all here today, and with that, Ms. DeSutter, you are welcome to present your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PAULA A. DeSUTTER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF VERIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Ms. DESUTTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to start by saying that, as a verifier, it was so nice to hear so many Members talk about the importance of verification because this is the work that we do in our Bureau. We take it very seriously.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Trust, but verify.
Ms. DESUTTER. We do not trust all that much. [Laughter.]
This is a great time, actually, for us to be up here because the last time I was here, in mid-March, we were in the middle of phase II of our WMD elimination support effort in Tripoli. We have now—as of pretty much on Friday, but our last team members left on Monday—completed phase III of the Libya WMD elimination effort. I will talk a little bit more about that, but we have gotten to a place where I can say, and you have got to understand that this is a very, very positive statement for a verifier, we are to a place where we can say with reasonable confidence that Libya has eliminated, or has declared with the intention to eliminate, all of its WMD and MTCR-class missile programs.
This has been a process that, for us, began in December. When the President made the announcement and Ghadafi made his announcement, we said, ''All right. How are we going to verify this? What are going to do? What are the priorities for how we are going to accomplish this assistance program?'' I say ''assistance program'' not because we gave them anything but because this was, indeed, a voluntary decision on the part of the Libyan leadership. There were no promises made. There was no commitment of any payment. They did not request any payment. They did not request a commitment or a freeze of anything else. They said, ''We are going to eliminate them.'' We and the United Kingdom said, ''Let us assist you, and let us assist you in a way so that at the end we can say that there is a clean slate.''
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We began, as you know, by trying to remove those items of greatest proliferation concern. We did that beginning in early January. We had provided the Libyans with a text in both English and Arabic that said, these are the common elements of how we are going to proceed on eliminating the WMD. For each type of WMD there was—a nuclear plan filed missile. This is how we want to proceed. This is how we are going to try to attain a level of confidence at the end of this process.
There has never really been a deadline that we were trying to shoot for. We wanted to do this in the most timely fashion that was possible. The Libyans were concerned that they did not want this to turn into another Iraq where you had United States presence on the ground all of the time. We have tried to have as small a footprint as possible in Libya as we are doing the assistance effort.
So we removed a number of items in January. I think you are aware of what those were. I can go through them briefly. But we then went back in February, and for each time we were going back in, we provided the Libyans with a checklist of those things that we wanted to accomplish during that period and set out to accomplish them by the end of that phase. No action on the U.S. part in terms of expanding our diplomatic presence was undertaken in response to any WMD elimination until the WMD verifiers confirmed that the phase was completed.
This has been a process, in large part, that I give credit to the Secretary for. The Secretary said early on that this verification comes first. We have worked very closely with the Regional Bureau, and so the cooperation has been absolutely fantastic.
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In phase I, we went in and tried to identify the scope of their WMD programs. We tried to begin assisting the Libyans with entering into the Chemical Weapons Convention and worked with them as they were working with the IAEA to see how they were going to come into compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty. We removed nuclear design documents, uranium hexaflouride, key centrifuges and equipment, including material that had come to Libya from the Khan network. On the missile front, they gave us a detailed description of their missile research and development activities, and we were able to remove parts from the Libyan SCUD–C missiles so that they would be inoperable until they could be eliminated.
In phase II, we wanted to remove the bulk of the WMD programs. During that period when our teams were there, along with the OPCW, which is the body that includes the Chemical Weapons Convention, Libya destroyed over 3,000 chemical munitions, consolidated and secured their stock of chemical weapons agent and precursors for subsequent destruction, and we removed over 1,000 metric tons of nuclear equipment, SCUD–C missiles, their launchers, and other equipment, and we did that by ship. In addition, we arranged for the removal of more than 15 kilograms of fresh, highly-enriched uranium reactor fuel to Russia. The Russians took that back.
By the end of phase II, we stepped back a little bit and wanted to make sure because we wanted to have just one more phase, and that phase was going to have to enable us to make sure that we had accomplished the rest of the elimination process and that we were going to be able to give ourselves reasonable assurance that the WMD program had, indeed, been eliminated. This was what we considered to be more the verification phase as opposed to the first two, which were, in large part, focused on fairly rapid removal.
We had requested a number of documents from the Libyans across the board on these areas. We said we wanted to talk to Libyans that had been involved in those phases of these programs and that we wanted to visit a number of facilities. Mr. Kessler can probably speak to this. He was the nuclear team leader for the verification phase. And in every case that our team leaders asked to go see something, they were taken to go see it.
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In every case where we requested documents, unless there are a few that are going to be trickling in, we have been provided with documents. Many of them, we have just received over the past week and have brought back. What we do is we have them scanned, and we provide them on CD–ROM to other government agencies so that we can understand exactly what it is that we have got, the exploitation of that, trying to understand and make sure that we have got everything tied up to go on for a little bit.
But, in essence, we believe that we were given full access and access sufficient for us to say that Ghadafi made the commitment, it generally was a strategic commitment, and that they have undertaken everything that we have asked them to undertake to fulfill that strategic commitment.
There is more that is going to remain to be done. We are not walking away from the program. What we have done is we have created a trilateral Steering and Coordinating Committee that will meet as needed with the Libyans. It will be the Libyans, the Brits, and the United States, as it has been in the past. For the United States, Under Secretary Bolton will remain the lead on this. And if questions come up as we are reviewing the documents, we now have a follow-on mechanism.
Probably the last thing that we were waiting to have done is we needed to have some arrangement made for the SCUD–B missiles, and we now have an agreement for what the disposition of those is going to be and how they are going to be dealt with.
It truly is, I think, an historic opportunity that has not come along before, where a country voluntarily gave up its weapons of mass destruction. And because this was done voluntarily, it has made it far easier for us to get the access that we needed to do the things that we needed to do to verify. But we are hoping that while it is the first, it is only the first of several because one of the things that we are going to do as we wrap this up—we just got our team leaders back this week, but we are compiling a report on the Libya process.
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We want this to accomplish two things. First, we want it to be a documented record of what happened when; how we did things; how this worked; but, in addition, we want to gather the lessons learned. A lot of times, people want to do lessons learned from mistakes, and my concern about that is that you only learn how to not make that mistake. I think, when you have a success, it is probably more important to do a lessons learned so you can find out what went right.
One of the things that we will look at in there is what exactly was the effect of sanctions. We have anecdotal evidence that sanctions had a tremendous effect, even in terms of forcing the Libyans to go to secondary market to buy dual-use items that really were not very effective, and when you are buying things on the black market, you do not have someone to go to complain that it did not work right.
So we are very excited about concluding this process. We have worked pretty hard. The team leaders who are just back are a little bit exhausted. Some of them got soft and had to take some leave, but we will get them back in the tow and get started on doing the follow-on work.
One other thing that I would add, and I am sure Mr. Dibble will get to this a little bit, we have not removed Libya from the list of state-sponsors of terror. So while the President has lifted some sanctions that we thought were important from a WMD perspective to show Libya the good faith that the President promised on December 19th, exactly because we want Libya to be happy that it made this decision. We have not made promises, we have not made security assurances, but what we want to do is make Libya pleased that they did this and really believe that their security has not been diminished as a result. So we want them to be a good model, and the way for them to be a good model—it is one of those rare times when the regional bureaus and the functional bureau has an absolute common interest in moving things forward.
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[The prepared statement of Ms. DeSutter follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE PAULA A. DESUTTER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, BUREAU OF VERIFICATION AND COMPLIANCE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, it is my pleasure to announce to you today on behalf of the Administration that our verification work in Libya is essentially complete. Our final team left Tripoli on Monday, September 20. We now have in place a consultative process reflected in the creation of the Trilateral Steering and Cooperation Committee.
Because of Libya's success in eliminating its WMD and MTCR-class missile programs, the President announced on Monday that the United States was withdrawing certain sanctions against Libya, including terminating the national emergency imposed in 1986. The President's actions essentially ended economic sanctions against Libya, and resulted in the release of frozen assets in excess of one billion dollars. Another important part of the President's actions includes waiving certain statutory provisions so that American business in Libya can play on a more level playing field.
The U.S. will continue its dialogue with Libya on human rights, as well as economic and political modernization. We expect Libya to free political prisoners and start a new path of freedom for all Libyans, regardless of their political beliefs. We share the European Community's concerns over the plight of the Bulgarian medics. In addition, we remain seriously concerned by allegations of Libyan involvement in a plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and these concerns have been raised with the Libyan government. These concerns must be addressed. None of this week's actions change Libya's status as a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
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It is, however, important that we recognize the momentous changes taken by Libya in dismantling its WMD and long-range missile programs. It could not have been an easy decision to abandon weapons programs in which it had invested untold amounts of money. It could not have been an easy decision for Libya to seek new ways to ensure its security. And it could not have been easy for Libya to voluntarily open up their most sensitive facilities and buildings to international organizations, as well as to us, and our British partners. But they did all these things.
Our goal from the beginning was to assist the Libyans, as partners, in meeting their December 19, 2003, commitments and to verify that they had fulfilled that promise. To accomplish this, we set up three phases for our work. Each of the phases included a group of U.S. and British experts going to Libya, talking to Libyan officials, visiting sites, working together to understand their WMD and missile programs, and determining ways to dismantle these programs. We also kept the international community informed of our progress.
The first phase involved removing some of the key material that was of greatest proliferation risk on a priority basis, identifying the scope of the programs, and assisting the Libyans in their treaty and safeguards-mandated interactions with the IAEA and the OPCW. In January we removed nuclear weapons design documents, uranium hexafluoride (UF6), and key centrifuges and equipment, including material from the Khan network. On the missile front, we received a detailed description of a range of Libyan missile research and development activities, and removed parts from Libya's SCUD–C missiles to make them inoperable.
Phase II was focused on removing or eliminating the remaining elements of Libya's programs at Libya's request. Our teams removed a large amount of material and equipment from the nuclear and missile programs. During this phase, the Libyans destroyed over 3,000 chemical munitions and consolidated and secured their stocks of chemical weapons agent and precursors for destruction. The logistics of this effort were daunting, and this would not have been possible without the flexibility and speed of implementation permitted by the Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund. As part of this effort, we managed to remove over 1,000 metric tons of nuclear equipment, SCUD–C missiles, their launchers, and other equipment by ship. In addition, we arranged the removal of more than 15 kilograms of fresh high-enriched uranium reactor fuel to Russia.
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Phase III was primarily a verification phase. In some ways this was the hardest part of the effort. Our goal was to speak with many of the Libyans who were responsible for their WMD and missile programs. We wanted to better understand the extent of those programs and the procurement network supporting them. Ultimately, we needed to determine whether Libya had truly eliminated its WMD programs. As it had in the previous visits, Libya cooperated in providing full access to people and facilities. Importantly, we also received an assurance from Libya that it would cut off trade in military goods and services with countries of proliferation concern—for example Syria, Iran, and North Korea.
Verification is not a science, and no verification determination can be absolutely certain. But what we can say, and what I am saying with regard to Libya, is that we have verified with reasonable certainty that Libya has eliminated, or has set in place the elimination of all its WMD and MTCR-class missile programs.
During this entire effort, we visited scores of declared or suspected sites. We interviewed dozens of scientists, technicians and Libyan Government officials regarding their involvement in these programs. We have received and are still reviewing thousands of pages of documents.
But perhaps the greatest proof of Libya's strategic commitment lies in Libya's elimination by removal of its once dangerous nuclear program and its most sophisticated missiles, and in the chemical munitions destroyed in Libya.
Some work remains. Some dismantlement cannot be done overnight. Libya has collected its stockpile of chemical agent and precursors and is preparing to destroy them safely with our help and with the cooperation of the OPCW. That effort will take some time to complete. Libya has begun the process at the OPCW to seek approval to convert its former chemical weapons production facility at Rabta to produce pharmaceutical products. We support this effort and are working with the OPCW to that end. It would be a symbol of the sea change that Libya has undergone, that Rabta, long a symbol of Libya's dark designs, might someday be producing life saving drugs for the people of Libya and the African continent.
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Libya ended its emerging SCUD–C missile program, and has agreed to destroy its SCUD–B missiles.
To resolve these and any additional issues that arise, Libya, the United Kingdom and the United States have established a Trilateral Steering and Cooperation Committee that will meet to discuss those issues and facilitate Libya's further implementation of its commitments. In practice, this committee has been in place for some time. On behalf of the United States, Under Secretary of State John Bolton has been meeting and talking with his counterparts from the United Kingdom and Libya, and Under Secretary Bolton will lead this process for the United States.
President Bush said on December 19, 2003 that as Libya eliminates its WMD programs and cooperates with us in the War on Terrorism, that its good faith would be returned. The Libyans have acted in good faith in eliminating their WMD and MTCR-class missile programs and we have reciprocated. In response to each Phase of the elimination effort, we have made moves to improve our relations with Libya. After the completion of Phase I we lifted travel restrictions, permitted travel-related expenditures in Libya, and allowed US firms with pre-sanctions holdings to negotiate contracts for their reentry. After Phase II we terminated the Iran Libya Sanctions Act with respect to Libya, issued a general license for trade and investment, and upgraded our diplomatic relationship to a Liaison Office from an Interests Section. And now that Phase III is completed we are lifting the national emergency, essentially ending economic sanctions, including unfreezing Libyan assets and permitting aviation trade. In adopting a policy of using waivers to provide commercial assistance to US firms in Libya, the Administration has sent a clear signal of improved bilateral relations.
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I have been involved in verification for a long time, and the opportunity presented by Libya's decision is unique. This is one of those rare times that a state has volunteered to rid itself of its WMD programs—and it is a first for a state sponsor of terror to do so without regime change. We must do our best to ensure that Libya's voluntary decision stands as a model for others as a pathway to restore themselves to international legitimacy.
The results of Libya's decision are truly breathtaking. I would not have thought it possible ten months ago that all significant components of Libya's nuclear program would be in Tennessee or elsewhere outside the country rather than in Tripoli. All this is only possible because of the strategic commitment by Libya to rid itself of WMD and long-range missiles.
It is even more significant that Libya's commitment was not made with preconditions. There was no freeze proposal, no attempts at concealment or delaying tactics as we see in North Korea and Iran, no deals other than a mutual commitment to act in good faith. The United States and the United Kingdom insisted on the application of verification measures that met and indeed went beyond international standards and could give the international community confidence. Libya's agreement was proof of its sincerity to rid itself of its WMD programs.
The reasons for this decision are many. Of course, Libya's desire to rejoin the international community and the world of international commerce was an important factor. But this has been true for many years. I believe it is the Bush Administration's multi-faceted attack on the proliferation of WMD that is having a real impact on the unraveling of the shady and dangerous international WMD black market.
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It was clear to Colonel Qadhafi that we were willing to use all the tools at our disposal to stem the flow of WMD. Ongoing international diplomacy, coupled with economic sanctions, isolated Libya and were having a significant impact on Libya's international status and economy. The Bush Administration's relentless pursuit of the WMD black market was exposed Libya's and others' WMD programs and diminished their chances of success. It is also indisputable that the example of Iraq was there for all to see. The timing is instructive. In March 2003 as we were getting ready to invade Iraq, the Libyans made their first overtures, but fell short of admitting their nuclear weapons program. In October, after we and our allies in the Proliferation Security Initiative seized a nuclear-related equipment shipment headed for Tripoli, Libya permitted the first Americans into the country and made the admissions that ultimately ended their programs.
What has this meant for Libya and, more importantly, the people of Libya? The benefits have not just been in the abstract. They are direct and are being implemented now. In response to its actions, Libya has seen the tangible benefits that better relations with the United States can bring. We are no longer enforcing some of the most important sanctions against Libya, including travel restrictions, trade in oil and other important industries. U.S. government officials have noticed that formerly empty hotels in Tripoli are teeming with Western businessmen. The United States has opened a Liaison Office in Tripoli, and Libya has opened an Interests Section in Washington. Libya participates in international meetings like those held by the OPCW and the IAEA—not as a pariah nation, but as a partner in the laudable goals of these organizations. Libya's recent help to the World Food Program efforts in Darfur, Sudan, shows that it is trying to rejoin the world community in a positive way.
We have sent doctors and scientist redirection experts to assist the Libyans in their efforts to modernize and redirect the scientific and health care fields, shifting their efforts from WMD to more productive activities with the full support of the international community. It is our hope that cooperation on education, healthcare and scientific training can build the foundation for security and prosperity for all Libyans.
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What bears mentioning, though, is that the United States and the United Kingdom did not offer specific promises or rewards to the Libyans. Libya acted once it realized of its own accord that ridding itself of WMD, rather than pursuing it, offered the best enhancement to Libyan security and future prosperity. For our part, we held out the most attractive incentive available: the ability to naturally reap the benefits that comes from participating fully in the community of nations. By ending its pariah status, Libya is no longer shunned by the outside world. Economic and security benefits have been the natural and inevitable result.
Our approach to rogue states and their pursuit of WMD was best enunciated by President Bush in February:
''Abandoning the pursuit of illegal weapons can lead to better relations with the United States, and other free nations. Continuing to seek those weapons will not bring security or international prestige, but only political isolation, economic hardship, and other unwelcome consequences.''
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Libya have worked together as a team to eliminate Libya's WMD programs and to begin the process of improving relations between Washington and Tripoli. We only hope that states with even more worrisome nuclear weapons programs such as Iran and North Korea will learn from Libya's positive example and agree to rejoin the community of civilized nations by giving up these terrible weapons that do nothing except undermine their own stability.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you very much. I will ask this question of Ms. DeSutter. Am I pronouncing that correctly?
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Ms. DESUTTER. I am pleased. You are saying it exactly right.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Well, I get my name wrong most of the time. So, in any event, if one of the other witnesses would be more comfortable answering this, I would welcome that.
In May, in fact, in a May 28th of this year report, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that nearly all sources of technology involved in Libya's past nuclear activities was obtained from foreign sources, often through intermediaries. This report also revealed that some of the materials from foreign suppliers are unaccounted for. Some experts in the field have expressed concerns that materials ordered by Libya may have been diverted to other countries or possibly non-state groups, and I think this is an extremely serious issue.
To the extent that you can go on record in public session, can you give us your views on whether some of the unaccounted material which would be useful for a nuclear weapons program may have ended up in the hands of other governments, and if so, which other governments? Mr. Kessler?
Mr. KESSLER. I guess there is not a lot I would say on that in an open session, although I would just note that both our U.S. Government efforts, as well as International Atomic Energy Agency efforts, to track down the history of that supplier network are very much ongoing.
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Mr. GALLEGLY. So you do treat this very seriously, and it is a real issue that you are addressing.
Mr. KESSLER. I think, in terms of those of us who take a look at, you know, and are concerned about and are responsible toward the nuclear proliferation issue, I am not sure what would be of much more concern than an entity like this network out selling basically the capability to make fissile material for nuclear weapons, so it is of the utmost concern. Those efforts are continuing. I do not think I want to comment too much more on it.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Very well. I will try to ask you a question that is maybe more appropriate for open session. Attorneys representing American claimants in the LaBelle Discotheque bombing who were assured that negotiations to settle their claims would begin as soon as an agreement had been reached between the Libyans and German claimants; that agreement, which amounted to a settlement of $35 million for German claimants, was reached September the 3rd, just a couple of weeks ago. Since that time, Libya has not only failed to open negotiations with American claimants, but now seems to be dismissing all U.S. claims outside of the Pan Am 103 settlement as frivolous.
Now that the asset freeze and commercial sanctions have been lifted, how does the Administration intend to assist American claimants who seek redress? Mr. Dibble?
Mr. DIBBLE. We have made it clear to the Libyans and have received assurances upon which we rely that they will treat all legal cases, including court settlements, in good faith, and this applies to all claimants, American or otherwise. By ''good faith,'' we mean that if they will enter into negotiations where that is appropriate, if they are ordered by a court to pay a settlement, that they will pay it.
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We have, moreover, actively raised those claims with the Libyans and sought to facilitate progress in resolving them. I think the Libyan Government also recognizes that assets it owns and is introducing into the United States as part of economic normalization would, of course, be at risk if it failed to implement court judgments against it.
Mr. GALLEGLY. I would just like to say, and I am sorry Curt has gone because we were there, and while Mr. Ghadafi clearly acquiesced, if that is the right word, clearly went on record as accepting responsibility for Pan Am 103, he was not nearly as quick to take responsibility for the discotheque bombing. In fact, he made some statements to the contrary. So I just hope that that is not——
Mr. DIBBLE. It is not forgotten, by any means, no.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Okay. Very good. Ms. Watson.
Ms. WATSON. Let me commend you on the work you have done, and I am just concerned about the verification. What would have stopped the Libyans from, say, transporting component parts to Iran, for instance? We are having the indication that this was not done, that they were taken out of the country. That is number one.
Number two: Has the mindset of Ghadafi changed? If so, why?
Ms. DESUTTER. I will speak to the verification part. As to Ghadafi's mindset, I think I will leave that to my regional Bureau colleague.
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One of the things that we were concerned about as we had been conducting the three phases is that we wanted to make sure that Libya stopped its military trade with rogue states, among them Iran, and so we sought and were given assurances by the Libyan Government that they would terminate that assistance. We have been using our intelligence means to focus on that. We have achieved that commitment. We now have a date certain for when all trade must stop. They have told us what the extent of the ongoing trade is. They have stopped military trade with North Korea, and we have asked that they not trade with Syria.
So while you could not be positive that nothing has happened, there is no perfect verification—you are certainly not going to say that you have perfect verification—what we have been able to have declared and eliminated and the questions that we have asked have led us to believe that this is consistent with the bulk of our previous assessments work they had. Our intelligence community did a great job, I think, on the Libyan nuclear program leading up to this.
So we have pretty good confidence that certainly we have eliminated their program. But of greater concern, I think, to all of us is what other countries may have gotten from the same network or from other networks—what they may have acquired over time, not from Libya but from the same shopping center where Libya did its shopping.
Kurt, did you want to add anything about that? Philo, do you want to talk about Colonel Ghadafi's mindset?
Mr. DIBBLE. It is beyond me, too. We do not read minds, not even in the NEA Bureau.
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Ms. WATSON. What I would like to hear from you who are on the ground is, Why do you think there was this change? I just remember that Colonel Ghadafi shot down that plane and killed all of those people. I remember one of my colleagues who went over there, and there was a picture taken of him giving one of the traditional kisses, and he was defeated by those people who felt that he was getting too friendly. That has been in my term. Now, all of a sudden we are rewarding Ghadafi, past bad behavior, I guess, forgotten, and so I really know you, who have made verification, why do you think that he is so willing at this point? What is his motivation? You cannot read his mind; neither can I read your minds, but I am raising some questions for people who have studied this issue to give us your best thinking of why there has been a turnaround.
Mr. DIBBLE. Let me give you my best shot at this. I think Colonel Ghadafi made a strategic decision to give up his weapons of mass destruction, to give up his links to terrorism—about which we have still certain questions that we need to resolve—and to reestablish his links with the outside world. I think some of the factors that were in play in that decision included the multilateral sanctions that were in place beginning in 1992 after we and the Scottish police and the British police were able to establish links between Libya and the Pan Am 103 bombing; the fact that, for the most part, the international community respected those sanctions, and Libya was not benefitting from the flow of investment in any sector that it otherwise would have received.
I think, finally, and this really I have very little basis for—here I am guessing—I think that Colonel Ghadafi and the Libyan people got tired of being isolated. I think another witness, I think, Mr. Weldon, had mentioned how many of Libya's educational leaders who were educated in the United States could not come here anymore, and they could not renew their expertise. They could not renew the links that they had to the U.S. And I think, ultimately, they had to pay that price, and I think those are some of the factors that came into play in this decision.
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Ms. DESUTTER. If I could just add a couple of more points that probably would matter; one of the things that our team leaders have discovered in the course of their dealings with their counterparts—obviously Western oil interests are one part of it—they are very interested in having U.S. businesses go over there and cooperate. They are saying, ''Look, one of the ways you can confirm that we are not going to use Rabta for anything illicit, for chemical weapons, is why not bring United States pharmaceutical companies into Libya? Because we want to make this Rabta facility a pharmaceutical facility to make AIDS vaccines.'' That is a part of it.
I also think that the timing is instructive. They have been surrounded by sanctions. I think that that has had a big effect. They approached the United States and the U.K. in March as we were building up for Iraq. Under PSI—I think this was mentioned before you came in—under the Proliferation Security Initiative, one of the President's initiatives, we interdicted a shipment of centrifuge equipment on its way to Libya on the Khan network. And so we were able to say, ''Look, we have got it. We know. Go ahead and tell us.'' This, I think, was helpful.
And then I absolutely agree with Congressman Weldon's comment about how amazing Ghadafi's speech was when he went to visit the last time, where he said, ''This does not make us safer; this makes us more frightened.'' And several people in Ghadafi's circle said Ghadafi was influenced by seeing Saddam pulled out of the hole.
So we cannot say with any tremendous certainty. We want to try to understand this as well as we can because we do not want this to be the last one. So I very much take it seriously.
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For my part, on the WMD side, we know that he made a strategic decision, and what we know is that all of our interactions on the ground in an effort to either conduct the elimination or verify the elimination has indicated that directions were given to all of our counterparts to cooperate with the United States and the United Kingdom in order to make sure that it was done. And so it was a strategic decision that was fully implemented.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you. The time for the gentlelady has expired.
I would just like to reiterate because the gentlelady was not here during the first panel, and you asked a question about why you think that Mr. Ghadafi has capitulated, or whatever the proper term is. It was clear by Curt Weldon's comments—I happen to have been a part of that bipartisan delegation that went to Libya earlier this year—it is clear, and Mr. Ghadafi himself made it clear, that he did not want to suffer the same plight as Saddam Hussein or his people, and that certainly, I was convinced, this feeling played a major role, as I know that other members of the delegation that were there believe that as well.
I have a critical meeting that I have to go to. I am going to defer to—the next person scheduled to ask a question is my colleague, Nick Smith, and I want to personally thank the panel for being here today. I prize your testimony, and I will defer now to Nick for his 5-minute period and relinquish the Chair to him. Thank you very much.
Mr. SMITH. First, all future questioners will have 6 minutes. [Laughter.]
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Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. GALLEGLY. Thank you.
Mr. SMITH [presiding]. I also was part of the Weldon delegation that went to Libya and met with Colonel Ghadafi, and my impression was that it was something like a coming to Jesus with his confession of what he thought he had done wrong in the past. But the main point he made at this ceremonial 27th anniversary of their congress was that he thought the people of Libya would be much better off trading than trying to continue as a regime that sponsored terrorism and was sponsoring those countries that were causing trouble with the Western World and the United States.
So my first question is, In regard to trade, can Libya make it? What is your analysis of Libya making the transition between having their country better off with trading, expanding trade, and bringing in tourism? What is the chance of Libya making that transition, and how long will it take, and how much will the United States have to be involved?
Mr. DIBBLE. I think the chances are pretty good that it is going to be able to make that transition. United States companies can now invest in Libya. Foreign companies, non-U.S. companies, have been able to do that for a while. I think Libya will need a fair bit of expertise, both in the management of its oil sector but also in diversifying its economy beyond oil so as to create the degree of employment, level of employment, that it needs.
In addition, I think it will be important to expand educational opportunities for the younger generation of Libyans. We are starting to do that. We have brought a——
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Mr. SMITH. Did you say education?
Mr. DIBBLE. Education, yes, education that is professionally useful and can be used to build the country and trade.
Mr. SMITH. I do not know if education was part of the show. We visited the university, and I was impressed by what appeared to be the intellectual ability and interest of the students and what the university was accomplishing, and so it seemed to be a good start.
Mr. DIBBLE. I agree, and I think that as the economy diversifies more, the educational system will have to change to match that so that it is not either government or the oil sector, but tourism, trade of all kinds.
Mr. SMITH. Madam Secretary, I have expressed my concern about what is happening in Iran, and so I would like to ask the question, To what extent do you think, in your analysis of Ghadafi's decision to turn around, did the sanctions have, and would increased sanctions in Iran maybe accomplish some of the same improvement in that country?
Ms. DESUTTER. We are looking very hard at that as we step back and try to say, ''Okay. What did we do right? How can we do this?'' Now, one of the things is that this Administration has tried to use very effectively the tools that we have got, and one of those is the Iran Sanctions Act. I asked my staff, ''Do they not have the latest report?'' They said, ''No, it is not quite up there.'' So I think that there is another INFA report that is on its way up here, and in that we have tried to use that as effectively as we can as a government.
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Again, one of the things, people have asked me a couple of times, How would you contrast Libya with Iran? How would you contrast the Libya case with North Korea? Is it fair to ask this to be a model? And there are obviously going to be differences between the two countries. One of the things that happened with Libya early on is when Libya made its declaration, the IAEA came in, the United States and U.K. came in. And we had told Libya in January when we were first meeting with them, probably what is going to have to happen is you are going to have to fess up to the IAEA, and there is going to have to be a noncompliance referral sent to the Security Council, and that happened in March.
The Libyans were, as you can imagine, rather nervous about having their name referred to the Security Council because in the past that had meant some pretty unpleasant things for them. But in that case, the IAEA Board of Governors referred Libya's noncompliance to the Security Council for no action. The Security Council issued a statement that said, ''We are pleased that Libya has undertaken the act it has.'' The Administration is trying very hard to make sure that Iran is treated as seriously in the Board of Governors. Iran has not been referred to the Security Council, and the United States pushed very hard——
Mr. SMITH. Just very briefly, our sanctions with Libya were a lot of United States initiatives and Executive Orders, and so I think I hear you saying, well, maybe we do not want to be that aggressive as a country with Iran. Would you get back to me on the State Department's policy? Would you prefer some congressional encouragement in the form of a resolution to more seriously consider the possibility of expanding sanctions on Iran?
Ms. DESUTTER. I would be happy to take that back, and we will get an answer to you, but I also do not want to leave with you the impression that I would be against sanctions. I think we all agree that the sanctions that encircled Libya were pretty sweeping, and I think that they had an effect. They had to act in order to get out from under them.
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Mr. GALLEGLY. Mr. Sherman.
Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. We heard earlier about the recompense that the Libyans have agreed to make to the families of our service people who were killed in the disco in Germany, and yet they have not made the payment. Do we have some leverage in case they fail to make that payment? Do we keep them on the terrorist list? Do we limit our—by diplomatic representation? What do we do if they renege on it, or what is available to us? I am not asking you to make—just what things are possible?
Mr. DIBBLE. We have a number of outstanding questions that need to be resolved with respect to Libya's support for terrorism. I think a Member of this Committee referred to that with respect to the connection, the allegation, of limited involvement in the assassination—or attempted assassination—of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. There are other questions as well which I cannot go into in open hearing.
What we have is Libya's continued presence on the terrorism list, the level of our diplomatic representation. More concretely, we believe that as economic relations between the United States and Libya normalize, Libyan assets will flow into the United States, and we have Libyan assurances, first of all, that they will pay court judgments and settle legal cases. More importantly and more concretely, Libyans recognize that those assets are vulnerable.
Mr. SHERMAN. I would hope that we would be able to tell the families of service men who served us abroad and died in the line of duty while being posted abroad that they are not going to have to play cat-and-mouse with Ghadafi for 10 years in order to find a Libyan bank account or seize a plane or ship or——
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Mr. DIBBLE. I can assure you, sir, it will be an issue.
Mr. SHERMAN. There has been considerable discussion on this panel, and I know that Mr. Gallegly was briefing my good friend, Ms. Watson, on the whole discussion as to whether Ghadafi conceded because he was afraid of invasion, or did he make these concessions because of economic sanctions?
I would just say that the actual statements coming out of Ghadafi's mouth should be given no credence at all. After all, if you have to rank world leaders among those who lie the most often and to the most effect, Libya would not be shortchanged, and he recognizes that he is making a gift to the Republican Administration to the extent that he attributes his action to the invasion of Iraq. We know that the invasion of Iraq did not do anything with regard to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and it is a little ipso post facto to say that we invaded Iraq when the effect was to deal with Libyan weapons of mass destruction.
Curt Weldon, the prior panelist, said that economic sanctions played some role, and since we are not planning to invade Iran anytime this year, let me focus on that. We have the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. We also, up until the year 2000, prohibited all imports from Iran. Then we decided, in an act of unspeakable generosity that was spurned by the Iranian Government, to open our markets to Iranian non-energy imports. And I have asked this Administration again and again and again, Why didn't we reverse that, particularly after September 11th, when this country wants a tougher policy?
I finally got the response. It said, well, it might help our national security if we stopped these and began to get tough with the Iranians, but think of the jobs they would lose in Iran. And this is the first time that we have sacrificed American security vis-a-vis an announced enemy because we were concerned that that enemy, which tries to kill us and has killed hundreds of Americans already, might suffer economically at the grassroots level.
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But more to the point, we had the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. It tried to prevent companies from investing in the Iranian oil fields. The Japanese have announced a $2 billion contract to do exactly what the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, now the Iran Sanctions Act, calls for. Halliburton is doing business with Iran. But getting back to the Japanese; am I to believe that the Japanese are nuts and that they know that this is going to trigger the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act? Or am I to understand what I read in the financial press what is obvious to all observers, and that is that this Administration gave the Japanese companies a wink and a nod and said do not worry about the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act? It does not matter what Congress does. We will find a waiver. We will either ignore what you are doing, or we will give you a waiver.
Since there has not been a single observer of the Japanese oil companies or investments therein who has even put forth a possibility that these companies might suffer adversely in their dealings with the United States, why has this Administration given a wink and a nod fully sufficient to Japanese investors, stock market, Japanese Government to say, go ahead and invest in the Iranian oil fields, in violation of the very act that Congress passed? The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, which was, at least, partially responsible for——
Ms. DESUTTER. Let me just say that on the partial waiver that was made, I will take that back and try to look at it and give you an answer that can be part of the hearing record.
Mr. SHERMAN. I already have the official answer, and that is our loyalty is not to those in our districts who might die from an Iranian nuclear explosion, but it is to those who are working in the caviar industry. And let us face it, asking Americans to live only on Russian caviar imposes a great burden on at least a few. The Iranian carpet and caviar industries are under the control of some of the most retrograde forces in Iran, but this Administration has never found an importer it did not love more than American security, I might add.
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Ms. DESUTTER. I cannot speak to the Japanese.
Mr. SHERMAN. Let us hear about the Japanese, then, and why they are investing $2 billion, and they can laugh at the possibility that this Administration would take the Iran Sanctions Act seriously.
Mr. DIBBLE. I have not had a conversation with Japanese officials where I did not say that investment flows into Iran that violated ILSA would make the Japanese vulnerable to sanctions under ILSA. So it is not true to say that they did this with winks and nods from the Administration.
Mr. SHERMAN. I think the winks or nods were above your grade rate, sir. It is very clear that the financial markets believe that the winks and nods were there. Not a single investor sold their stock in these Japanese companies under the belief that they would lose a penny to the United States, and I would suggest that there is billions and billions of dollars of investment money being—that the fact that you are not winking and nodding is irrelevant. Are all of these investors just crazy?
Mr. DIBBLE. I cannot speak to that. I can only tell you that the policy is to enforce those.
Mr. SHERMAN. I am sure the President will follow the law, but the law has two provisions. One is that if he covers his eyes, he does not have to acknowledge a violation; and, number two, if he does acknowledge a violation, he can just waive any sanctions whatsoever. Obviously, the markets believe that those are the two things they are going to do. The Japanese are betting $2 billion that that is what they are going to do. The financial press reports that they have some assurances that that is what is going to happen. So without violating the law but only exploiting his powers as President, the President can make sure that these markets are direct and that both the Japanese and Halliburton can do business in Iran, unimpeded by American national security concerns.
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Mr. DIBBLE. I have nothing to add to what I have said, sir.
Mr. SMITH. We thank you for your participation. Chairman Hyde has asked a specific question that the staff will bring to you that the Committee would like back in writing regarding Libya's weapons of mass destruction. So with that, the Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:24 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE NICK SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MICHIGAN
I would like to thank Chairman Gallegly for holding this hearing today on Libya's disarmament. I would also like to thank our witnesses, especially our colleague from Pennsylvania and my friend, Representative Curt Weldon. I would also like to recognize the victims of Pan Am flight 103 who will now receive Libya's compensation and apologies for the loss of their loved ones.
In March, I attended, along with Representatives Weldon, McCotter, and others, the opening of the 27th session of the Libya's General People's Congress, called the Great Jamahiriya. Libya's leader, Colonel Gaddaffi, spoke for an hour and a half, saying many encouraging things. He renounced his weapons programs. He said he recognized the dangers if terrorists got weapons of mass destruction, ''For people such as the Taliban or a terrorist to come into possession of [weapons of mass destruction] would be a catastrophe for the world. If the Taliban got a bomb, they would not hesitate to use it.'' Gaddaffi recognized that the times had changed. He used to call himself the Revolutionary Leader, but now seems to understand that the revolution is over. ''It used to be a serious crime just to have the Israeli flag in Egypt, and now things have changed . . . They have a peace with Israel,''
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Our trip to Libya and our meeting had been preceded by the interdiction of a shipment of centrifuges bound for Libya. Working with the Italians and the British, this interdiction was the first success of the President's Proliferation Security Initiative and quickly led to Libya giving up its ambitions for WMD. Libya has, for the most part, continued on this path, and we have responded by gradually lifting sanctions against it. This week, President Bush lifted sanctions that prohibited money transfers and Libyan citizens from holding assets in the United States. Libya has now reentered the international community both diplomatically and economically. This transformation could not have been imagined one year ago.
This transformation has lead to Libya disarming and opening up their weapons programs to inspection. In addition to increasing stability in the region, this has taught us about A.Q. Khan's nuclear black market. U.S. and British investigators have worked with the Libyan government to find and document 1,000 tons of centrifuges, 18 kilograms of uranium, 1,300 metric tons of precursor chemicals for chemical weapons, and ballistic missile components. In addition, we have learned much about both the products and operation of the black market network that helped Libya get those WMD resources.
Libya's change appears to be a great success in the War on Terror and the fight against the proliferation against Weapons of Mass Destruction. Once it became clear that the United States intended to defeat terrorism everywhere, Libya agreed to cooperate with the international community. Libya can be a model for rogue led by military leaders with weapons of mass destruction. Now they can all look to Libya as a way forward. Libya's example, if real, can be the catalyst for dramatic changes in Africa and the Middle East.
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Mr. Chairman, again thank you for holding this hearing. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. It is our responsibility to help consolidate Libya's return to the international community and continue to work with it to provide a model forward to rogue states.
SPEECH PRESENTED LIVE TO THE PEOPLE OF LIBYA IN MARCH 2, 2004 BY THE HONORABLE CURT WELDON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
LIBYA—A NEW TIME, A NEW BEGINNING
It's great to be back in Libya. Our first trip to your country several weeks ago was outstanding. Since no American elected official had been to Libya in 39 years, we did not know what to expect. Some in America said that we would not be wanted, some said that we would meet hostility, and some said that it would be a tragic mistake to make the trip.
In my meeting with Saif al Ghadaffi in London in January, he said ''you will be welcome in Libya''—''You will be impressed with the Libyan people.''
Saif was absolutely correct—those who advised us in America were wrong. Our trip was overwhelmingly positive from the moment that we arrived until our final departure.
From our meetings with your leaders—to our visit to al Fateh University, from our trip to the marketplace—to our tour of your nuclear complex—we felt welcome. From the 10-year-old boy on the street who welcomed us in perfect English to the old man carefully bending and cutting the copper pots in the marketplace, we could feel the warmth of the welcome of the people of your country.
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We told you that we would return—and here we are.
As was the case with our first trip—we do not come representing all of the American people—that can only be done by our elected President. And we do not come as the representative of the President—that can be done by our Secretary of State Colin Powell.
But we do come to Libya as individual Members of Congress each representing over 650,000 people. We represent six States, large and small. We represent villages and small towns as well as our largest cities, family farms and industrial complexes, universities and local schools.
We are Members of Congress, but we all have other occupations, other life stories. We are lawyers, we are teachers, we are law enforcement officials, we are local elected officials, we are business leaders, but we are also parents, mothers, fathers, each sharing different ethnic backgrounds and different religions and beliefs. We come from large families and small families.
My friend and Co-Chairman Solomon Ortiz is the child of Mexican immigrants—he picked cotton as a young migrant worker growing up in Texas. In Congress he chaired the Hispanic Caucus, as did Silvestre Reyes, representing all of the Hispanic Members and their constituent citizens, in America.
We come from wealthy families—we come from very poor families.
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WE ARE THE FACE OF AMERICA.
In America, our Congress is a separate, but equal branch of our government. So we are partners with our President in governing our country. As Democrats and Republicans we support our President's policies towards your nation.
We come to Libya to help open a new chapter in the relationship of our two countries. We come to Libya because your leader made some very bold moves that we fully support and encourage.
Your country's actions in renouncing terrorism, your August 15, 2003 letter to the UN Security Council in which you state ''Libya as a sovereign state, has facilitated the bringing to justice of the two suspects charged with the bombing of Pan Am 103, and accepts responsibility for the actions of its officials.'' Your cooperation in working with the UN, Great Britain and our country in dismantling and removing WMD materials and your efforts in re-joining International Arms Control regimes have created, as our President said in the State of the Union address—''a model for other nations''. You have captured the attention of America and the World.
Our two nations have moved quickly in the last several months. Almost two dozen Members of Congress have already visited your country, the travel ban has been lifted and thousands of Americans are looking forward to visiting this beautiful and historical land. American companies are already negotiating their return to your markets, interest sections are opening in both countries and people to people contacts are already beginning in health and education.
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A framework has been established by our President and your leader that, if kept on track, should allow our two countries to resume normal relations before the end of this year. But, even with all of the positive developments, we must acknowledge that the next several months and years will be difficult.
Continued transparent cooperation on the most difficult topics is a must if we are to be successful. There are, within our very countries and around the world, those who will try to undermine, or derail, this new direction in which we are both moving—they must not be allowed to be successful. There is too much at stake. Both countries, indeed the world, have too much to lose.
As Members of Congress we are prepared to help unleash the spirit and power of America to build new partnerships with Libya. As I outlined to your leaders on our first trip, continued positive movement as outlined by our President, and your Leader, can allow us to design a new framework for our relationship. Focusing on agriculture, education, health care, energy, environment, science and technology, mutual security, local government, judicial frameworks and other quality of life issues can benefit people of both our countries.
We are amazed with the quality of education at al Fateh University, and our Universities are excited to renew their academic relationships. American health care professionals have already arrived in Libya to plan and execute new partnerships that will benefit people in both our nations.
You must also understand, as must we, that this new relationship will not be one-sided. For we, in America, have much to gain from our renewed contacts and interactions with our Libyan friends. Your culture, your history, your arts (all of which fascinated us yesterday as we toured your national museum) and your strategic location are all areas where we can benefit greatly from this new relationship.
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The Libyan people are, like in America, your best asset. In fact, some of our best leaders in America trace their ancestry to this nation.
Your Leader made a profound statement to our first delegation when he told us that ''Americas do not know Libya or its people''. He is absolutely correct—we must now work to engage our two peoples in every way to fully understand, and appreciate, your beliefs and your culture. On my first trip your Leader gave me a copy of the Green Book, which I have already read. We are here today to begin to understand your Jamahirya. We are ready to learn—to become more aware of and sensitive to your society so that we can go back and tell your story.
But also be aware, we are very proud of your young culture, our great experiment in democracy that is the foundation of our freedom—our very being. We respect and value all religions—they are the more strength, and fabric, of our nation. We value our free press even if it makes our political lives difficult. Our system is free and fair and allows all to seek higher office, as indicated by the make-up of this delegation. And we value the life, rights and dignity of each and every citizen with justice and fairness under our laws being applied to all equally.
We were impressed with our meetings at the Ghadaffi Foundations on both trips where we were briefed on the Foundations' push for Human Rights. And we were elated to learn of the Foundations' support for the movement of Libya to observer status in Vienna joining the dozens of other countries who have united in their ongoing struggle for basic human rights worldwide.
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There is no secret to our economic success as a nation. It is the focus on the rights and opportunities of the individual in our society that powers our system. Opportunity to succeed in life must be the same for the poorest child in the ghetto to the wealthiest child in the mansion.
Our challenges are great—our opportunities are endless.
Together, we can end terrorism.
Together, we can solve the scourge of disease and the stigma of ignorance.
Together, we can learn to appreciate each of our cultures and build a stronger, more lasting peace.
Together we can change the world.
You have begun a process that others will hopefully follow.
Some say that our challenges are too great, the obstacles are too large, and the world is too complex. But I say that the future lies in our hands, each and every one of us.
I was born into a poor family the youngest of nine children. Neither parent had the opportunity to go to high school—my father to school for only eight years, my mother for only six. But they were the two smartest people that I have met in my life. They had common sense, moral decency, and were totally devoted to their children, much like many parents in America and Libya. We had no money, but we were rich. We measured our wealth not by our finances, but rather by our family.
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My father gave us all advice growing up that applies to us all today. He said, ''In America, your only limitations in life is those that you self-impose.''
Working together, we can overcome any limitations that exist within, or between, our countries. Our combined success will be determined by the people in this room.
You are the future of Libya, and working together, we can make that future bright.