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There was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in Qaddafi.
September 6, 2008
Rice in Libya to Meet Qaddafi
By HELENE COOPER
TRIPOLI, Libya — For the first time in more than half a century, a sitting American secretary of state is in Libya. Condoleezza Rice arrived here on Friday to meet with the man whom Ronald Reagan famously called the “Mad Dog of the Middle East.”
But that was then. Ms. Rice stepped off her plane into the hot desert sunshine of the Maghreb to meet a very different Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The Libyan leader, in the eyes of the Bush administration, is rehabilitated, his country removed from the State Department’s terrorism list, his debt to the families of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am’s Flight 103 on its way to being paid, Libya’s stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed and its secret nuclear weapons program dismantled.
“Quite frankly, I never thought I would be visiting Libya, though this is quite something,” Ms. Rice told reporters aboard her flight to Tripoli, noting that a lot had happened since 1957, when Richard M. Nixon visited Libya as vice president in the last trip here by a high-ranking American official.
She said she had thought through what she planned to say to Colonel Qaddafi, and, not mentioning him by name, added, grinning, “I look forward to listening to the leader’s world view.”
“In Lisbon before departing for Tripoli, Ms. Rice called the visit “a historic moment,” albeit “one that has come after a lot of difficulty, the suffering of many people that will never be forgotten or assuaged, a lot of Americans in particular. It is also the case that this comes out of a historic decision that Libya made to give up weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism.”
Although the State Department announced Ms. Rice’s trip a few days ago, details of the visit have been shrouded in so much secrecy that even as her plane left Lisbon for the three-hour flight to Libya, many on board still did not know where she would be meeting Colonel Qaddafi. As it turned out it was in Azizia, site of the Qaddafi headquarters that were bombed by the United States in 1986.
The meeting is bound to have more punch than the by-the-book diplomatic meet-and-greets which Ms. Rice usually engages in when traveling abroad; the Libyan leader, after all, has professed a profound “love” for the American secretary of state.
Speaking to the Al Jazeera network last year, Mr. Qaddafi got downright gushy when asked about Ms. Rice. “I support my darling black African woman,” he said. “I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders.”
He continued: “Yes, Leezza, Leezza, Leezza,” and said, “I love her very much.”
That may not be the tenor of the meeting, however. A senior administration official said that Ms. Rice will raise some nettlesome issues, including human rights and the final resolution of legal claims from the 1988 Pan Am bombing, among other things.
A Libyan dissident, Fathi al-Jahmi, remains in jail, where he has been on and off since 2002, despite repeated pleas for his release from Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, now the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, and Bush administration officials.
Ms. Rice’s visit has been two years in the making. The Bush administration announced in 2006 that it was restoring diplomatic ties with Libya as a reward for Colonel Qaddafi’s decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and abandon work on weapons of mass destruction, a reversal that Bush administration officials were quick to attribute to the American invasion of Iraq.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972 after Colonel Qaddafi renounced agreements with the West and repeatedly inveighed against the United States in speeches and public statements.
After a mob sacked and burned the American Embassy in 1979, the United States cut off relations. But the relationship did not reach its nadir until 1986, when the Reagan administration accused Libya of ordering the bombing of a German discotheque that killed three people. In response, the United States bombed targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, came nearly three years later. Investigators spent years accumulating evidence that Libyan agents were involved, and in 2001, a Libyan intelligence official was found guilty of murder in the case.
September 6, 2008
Rice in Libya to Meet Qaddafi
By HELENE COOPER
TRIPOLI, Libya — For the first time in more than half a century, a sitting American secretary of state is in Libya. Condoleezza Rice arrived here on Friday to meet with the man whom Ronald Reagan famously called the “Mad Dog of the Middle East.”
But that was then. Ms. Rice stepped off her plane into the hot desert sunshine of the Maghreb to meet a very different Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. The Libyan leader, in the eyes of the Bush administration, is rehabilitated, his country removed from the State Department’s terrorism list, his debt to the families of the victims of the bombing of Pan Am’s Flight 103 on its way to being paid, Libya’s stockpiles of chemical weapons destroyed and its secret nuclear weapons program dismantled.
“Quite frankly, I never thought I would be visiting Libya, though this is quite something,” Ms. Rice told reporters aboard her flight to Tripoli, noting that a lot had happened since 1957, when Richard M. Nixon visited Libya as vice president in the last trip here by a high-ranking American official.
She said she had thought through what she planned to say to Colonel Qaddafi, and, not mentioning him by name, added, grinning, “I look forward to listening to the leader’s world view.”
“In Lisbon before departing for Tripoli, Ms. Rice called the visit “a historic moment,” albeit “one that has come after a lot of difficulty, the suffering of many people that will never be forgotten or assuaged, a lot of Americans in particular. It is also the case that this comes out of a historic decision that Libya made to give up weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism.”
Although the State Department announced Ms. Rice’s trip a few days ago, details of the visit have been shrouded in so much secrecy that even as her plane left Lisbon for the three-hour flight to Libya, many on board still did not know where she would be meeting Colonel Qaddafi. As it turned out it was in Azizia, site of the Qaddafi headquarters that were bombed by the United States in 1986.
The meeting is bound to have more punch than the by-the-book diplomatic meet-and-greets which Ms. Rice usually engages in when traveling abroad; the Libyan leader, after all, has professed a profound “love” for the American secretary of state.
Speaking to the Al Jazeera network last year, Mr. Qaddafi got downright gushy when asked about Ms. Rice. “I support my darling black African woman,” he said. “I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders.”
He continued: “Yes, Leezza, Leezza, Leezza,” and said, “I love her very much.”
That may not be the tenor of the meeting, however. A senior administration official said that Ms. Rice will raise some nettlesome issues, including human rights and the final resolution of legal claims from the 1988 Pan Am bombing, among other things.
A Libyan dissident, Fathi al-Jahmi, remains in jail, where he has been on and off since 2002, despite repeated pleas for his release from Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, now the Democrats’ vice-presidential nominee, and Bush administration officials.
Ms. Rice’s visit has been two years in the making. The Bush administration announced in 2006 that it was restoring diplomatic ties with Libya as a reward for Colonel Qaddafi’s decision in 2003 to renounce terrorism and abandon work on weapons of mass destruction, a reversal that Bush administration officials were quick to attribute to the American invasion of Iraq.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Libya in 1972 after Colonel Qaddafi renounced agreements with the West and repeatedly inveighed against the United States in speeches and public statements.
After a mob sacked and burned the American Embassy in 1979, the United States cut off relations. But the relationship did not reach its nadir until 1986, when the Reagan administration accused Libya of ordering the bombing of a German discotheque that killed three people. In response, the United States bombed targets in Tripoli and Benghazi. The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, came nearly three years later. Investigators spent years accumulating evidence that Libyan agents were involved, and in 2001, a Libyan intelligence official was found guilty of murder in the case.
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