U.S. ponders: how can Gadaffi be tamed

Press, 29 October 1981, Page 21

U.S. ponders: how can Gadaffi be tamed

By

DAVID BLUNDY,

‘Sunday Times,’

London, from Washington

An intelligence official who had just left a United States State Department briefing on Libya expressed a simple sentiment that has been echoing ominously around Washington. "I tell you, we have to go to the source." he said. "That guy Gadaffi has got to go." "It is the single deepest wish of this administration at the moment” that Gadaffi was not the ruler of Libya, said William Quandt, a Middle East expert.

It created an odd consensus. The former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, made the point with characteristic bluntness: “We should have taken him out a long time ago.” The former presidents, Carter and Ford, chimed in with, their assessments that Gadaffi was “subhuman” and a "bully.” However, VicePresident George Bush's invective badly backfired. “Gadaffi is the world’s principle terrorist," he said. "He's the protector of the likes of Idi Amin.”

His aides pointed out that Amin was alive, and prosperous, in the bosom of America's main ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia. "The rise in tensions and rhetoric could produce an outbreak of hostilities in the

Middle East,” said the State Department spokesman. Dean Fischer, as the United States appeared to be gearing up for more than just a battle of words with Libya. It announced plans for “a very extensive joint enterprise” with Egyptian forces in the desert close to the Libyan border. The operation, called Bright Star, will involve landing amphibious assault ships at Oman and Somalia, making practice runs with 852 bombers, and dropping 1400 airborne troops. Two A.W.A.C. radar surveillance planes have already been sent to Egypt. In response to Sudanese fears that Libya, which is bombing villages near its common border with Chad, plans a full-scale invasion, the United States is speeding up delivery of Jeeps, armoured troop carriers, and Vulcan anti-aircraft guns. The United States will provide a dozen fighter planes.

It was odd. therefore, when United States-Libyan relations seemed critically tense, to find that the president of a major oil company. Occidental Petroleum International, had just returned from Tripoli after a round of “cordial” talks about new oil concessions.

"Our business with the Libyans is perfectly normal,” said an executive of anomer oil company. "They have done nothing against us.”. The Washington “Post” pondered this irony. “As the single largest purchaser of Libyan oil, the United States is, financially speaking, the leading sponsor of Libyan adventurism and terror.” .

Although the oil trade has contracted - with the lower United States demand — from 500,000 barrels a day at the end of last year to

300,000 — it still accounts for 10 per cent of American oil imports. If there is any reluctance to buy Libyan crude,, it is inspired not by morals but cash. The Libyans charge S4O a barrel compared to Nigeria's $35 and Saudi’s $32.

One weapon that the Reagan Administration is unlikely to use against Gadaffi, according both to oil men and State Department officials, is an oil embargo. Libya’s oil could easily be replaced by Nigeria, but as an oil executive pointed out: “If we refuse to buy Gadaffi’s oil, we don t cut off his cash flow. He sells elsewhere and we hurt ourselves.”

Although the wish of the Administration is simple, achieving it is far from easy. The most direct way of deal-

ing with -Gadaffi is to kill him.

On a television chat show, the president’s chief advisor, Ed Meese, was asked whether the Administration intended to assassinate Gadaffi. “No,” Meese said. “That is not our policy.”

A former C.I.A. station chief said: “Remember, we had Castro on the hit list for 12 years and he survived." Even if the mission were accomplished, the repercussions could be disastrous. “Other Arab countries would ask which Arab leader does the United States consider to be entitled to life,” said a Middle East scholar. Yahya Sadowski. “It would be moderate Arab states like the Saudis who would scream the loudest."

The technique favoured by the C.I.A. is to orchestrate a coup. John Stockwell, author of “In Search of Enemies." was a member of the C.I.A. Libya task force set up in 1973 to do exactly that. It

“We tried all the different angles . but there was no momentum going for a coup.” said Stockwell.

He does not believe the ground is any more fertile today, and other Libya experts agree. There are’ disaffected soldiers and academics, but they are unorganised and lack clout. There were two attempted coups (there is no evidence they were C.1.A.-inspired) in Libya in 1980 and 1981, but neither came close to toppling Gadaffi. The late President Sadat waited in vain for a Libyan coup which would have given the Egyptian army justification for moving in.

Despite an army estimated at 80 000 armed with 1400 Russian tanks, 450 combat aircraft, four Foxtrot submarines. and a variety of guided missiles, Gadaffi’s military capability is limited, said an official. The expertise of the troops is poor and much of the most sophisticated equipment cannot be used effectively. The army is thinly spread from the Egyptian border to Chad and Sudan. The performance of the troops seen in action in Uganda and Chad has not been impressive.