THE QADHAFI PROBLEM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250103-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 2, 2010
• Sequence Number: 103
• Publication Date: October 9, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250103-2
ARTICLE APYEARED
ON PAGE
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
9 October 1981
The Q adhafi Problem
"It Libya had been taken care of
two years ago, last year, this year,
Sadat would probably be alive today."
Henry Kissinger's words in the
wake of President Sadat's assassina-
tion take on an added poignancy be-
cause the role of the United States was
to stop Sadat from taking care of I!-?
bya. The persistent report 'has been
the U.S. twice blocked Egyptian plans
to invade Libya. The report that it
happened at least once has now been
attributed directly to President Carter
by New York Times..correspondent
Leslie Gelb, who ought to know since
he was himself a high official in the
Carter State, Department. In short, the
United States restrained-effectively
blocked-its ally from doing what he
thought necessary to his own self-de-
fense.
No such .restraint was placed on
Col..Muammar Qadhafi, the Soviet-
backed madman who runs Libya. The
Soviets have stuffed Qadhafi's Libya.1
with several times the:military equip-
ment his army could- possibly employ,
and provided Russian pilots for his
planes and East German bodyguards
for his personal security. This has left
him free to, send assassination squads
after Sadat, fund terrorism around the
world, invade and conquer Chad, go
on to attack the.Sudan, shoot at Amer
ican, planes. over the Mediterranean
and-according to intelligence reports
recently circulated within the U.S.
government-issue specific assassina-
tion threats against President Reagan.
Now Sadat.lies dead while Qadhafi
continues. to attack his neighbors. How
can'you escape the conclusion? As Mr_.
Kissinger put it, "It's too dangerous to
be associated with the United States-
that:is the fundamental problem." Or,
aas a Saudi, Arabian official told our .
Karen Elliott House-, "Being Ameri--
ca's-friend.in the_Middle East is fa-
ta};
Now, we are quite aware that no di-
rect link has been established between
Qadhafi and President Sadat's assas-
sins: - The. -conventional ' wisdom, in-
deed, seems to be instantly accepting
the-Egyptian Defense Minister's pre-
posterously premature'. denial of any
such connection.. We view his state-
ment ' as the start_ of a familiar cycle
that.precludes serious investigation of
international terrorism.
..The notion of an outside connection
is first denied for what are essentially .
domestic political, reasons-to calm
the nation, to smooth the transition, to
proclaim the loyalty of the army, to
defend the competency of internal se-
curity forces and so on. Then the tacit
job of the investigators becomes con- I
firming political reality. Then the bu-
reaucracy acquires a vested interest
in this confirmation, and spends its
time inventing defenses of it and de-
manding impossible levels of proof
whenever doubts are raised. Thus we
have learned little about the interna-
tional: travels of the Pope's assassin,
and-are likely to learn nothing defini-
tive about Sadat's assassins.
Yet as we understand what Mr.
Kissinger was saying, it makes little
difference who actually pulled the
trigger. If Qadhafi had been over-
thrown, the whole pattern of events
would have been dramatically altered.
President Sadat would have been
stronger with his own people. And the I
forces of terror and assassination
would, be everywhere less confident
and weaker. Mr. Kissinger pointed out
that Qadhafi runs a nation of only two
million people, and observed that if we
"cannot find a way to get such a rogue
criminal under control, then we're liv-
ing in a world in which all restraints
'have disappeared."..,
The difficulty is that this particular
rogue enjoys the support and protec-
tion of the Soviet Union. Under the
umbrella of nuclear deadlock, the So-
viets have made huge strides through
subversion and war by .proxy. Despite
the denials it becomes increasingly
apparent that they have cultivated
terrorism to destabilize our friends,
the quarter of a billion dollars worth
of weapons confiscated from terrorists
in Turkey did not come from disaf-
fected Armenians. We have been un-
able to compete in this kind of war-
fare, particularly since our decima-
tion of the CIA. Worse, we have ac-,
quired a record of destabilizing our
friends-sanctioning a coup against II
Diem in South Vietnam, hectoring the
shah about human rights in Iran, stop-
ping Sadat's invasion. It seems the
only way to survive as an American
ally is to be willing, like Menachem
Begin, to bear American opprobrium
for acting in your own interest.
To defend its own interests-and
the causes of freedom and human
rights-against this kind of warfare,
the U.S. has to learn how to strike
back. We have to think seriously again
about covert action in support of
coups, about military force to aid the
Sudan, about guarantees against So-
viet retaliation if Egypt decides to
move against Libya. If we cannot find
a way to deal with the Qadhafi prob ,
lem, Western interests and Western
values are likely to suffer the death of
a thousand cuts.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/09/02 : CIA-RDP90-00552R000505250103-2