Libya intensified development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons after the United Nations suspended sanctions against Tripoli in 1999, a top U.S. official said this weekend (see GSN, April 1).

Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi extradited two suspects in the bombing of a Pan Am jetliner in 1999 and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan responded by recommending removal of sanctions.

“Our evidence is very convincing that since the Security Council suspended sanctions because of Pan Am 103, that the government of Libya has substantially increased it efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction,” U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said.  Specifically, Bolton said, “Libya’s procurement activities and a lot of its activities in the nuclear program have been increased.”

U.S. oil companies are currently prohibited from doing business in Libya.

“We are hoping that the elimination of the dictatorial regime of [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein and the elimination of all of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would be important lessons to other countries in the region, particularly Syria, Libya and Iran, that the cost of their pursuit of weapons of mass destruction is potentially quite high,” Bolton said (Eli Lake, United Press International, April 6).

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